548 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



Korean peninsula and the large island known to us as Qiielpart, 

 lying out in the Yellow Sea. As will be seen, it was not until the sev- 

 enth century of our era that the Japanese became in reality wholly 

 an island people. Hence insularity was far from being the geo- 

 graphical factor of most weight in their early development. Of 

 vastly greater significance was the fact that during their formative 

 period they were in such close touch with the various civilized com- 

 munities of the continent. 



PEOPLING OF THE JAPANESE ISLANDS 



The effect of winds and currents was also much slighter than is 

 often claimed. The sail Avas still quite unknown in Far Eastern 

 waters in those prehistoric ages when the peopling of the Japanese 

 islands was going on. so that there was no way in which the monsoons 

 could exert any particular influence upon the course of migration.' 

 And the southern element, so clearly apparent in both the people 

 and their culture, came not from those equatorial regions whence 

 flows the Japan current but from a direction at right angles to it, 

 the seaboard of China, in days before Chinese civilization had yet 

 reached the coast. Those who speak of a Polynesian or a Malayan 

 strain in the Japanese ignore entirely the historical aspect of the 

 problem; the great Polynesian diffusion did not take place until 

 long after the emergence of the Japanese people, while the Malays 

 do not appear on the scene until later still. The real effect of the 

 southwest monsoon and the warm tropical current has been a climatic 

 one. To them it has been due that the type of culture developed 

 during prehistoric times in the southeastern coast lands of the con- 

 tinent could find in the southern and western portions of the Japanese 

 Archipelago those conditions of warmth and humidit}^ requisite to its 

 survival and further development. 



Of Paleolithic man in Japan there has so far appeared absolutely 

 no trace, and it is altogether likely that the islands, together with 

 the east of Asia generally, remained unpeopled until geologically 

 very recent times. 



The earliest inhabitants of Japan of whom we have any knowledge 

 were the ancestors of the existing Ainu of Yezo (Hokkaido), who 

 at one time occupied the entire archipelago, remaining in undisturbed 

 possession during a period which may well have extended over 

 several thousand vears. 



' On the late Introduction of the sail in Japanese waters, see B. IT. Chamberlain 

 (transl.) : Ko-ji-ki, or Records of Ancient Matters, Trans, Asiatic Soc. of .lapan, vol. 10, 

 1882, Supplement ; reference in introduction, p. xxv ; II. A. C. Bonar : On Maritime Enter- 

 prise in .Japan, ibid., vol. 15, 1887, pp. 103-12-.5 ; reference on pp. 107 and 111; \V. G. 

 Aston: An Ancient .lapanese Classic (The Tosa Nikki, or Tosa Diary), ibid., vol. 3, part 

 JI, .Tanuary-Juue, 1875, pp. 121-3 30 ; reference on p. 124. 



