550 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



At length, probably far back in the first millennium before Christ, 

 if not indeed earlier still, there began a fresh inAasion of the 

 Japanese islands, this time b}^ peoples belonging to various branches 

 of the great Mongoloid stock, from eastern Siberia to the south 

 Chinese littoral, with probably in the latter case a slight Negrito 

 admixture. The result of the minglings in varying proportions be- 

 tAveen these newcomers and their predecessors forms to this day 

 the great bulk of the Japanese population.* 



Finally, commencing not long before our era and recurring at 

 intervals for several centuries, there was a series of immigrations of 

 iiorthern Mongoloids — Chinese and Koreans in the historical sense — 

 whose influence, physical but more particularly cultural, has been 

 largely confined to the upper strata of Japanese society. 



THE ANCESTRAL AINU 



The first of these races, that of the ancestral Ainu, seems to have 

 reached the Japanese islands in at least three successive waves, per- 

 haps separated by long intervals of time.^ Recent studies have shown 

 that it was divided into several subtypes, at least two of Avhich appear 

 to survive in the existing Ainu. That the language of this ancient 

 race Avas essentially that still spoken by its surviving representatiA-es 

 in the island of Yezo is indicated by the fact that place names occur 

 all oA^er the Japanese islands, from end to end, and possibly eA^en in 

 the Loochoo group, Avhich can only be explained in terms of Ainu 

 speech.*' 



Regarding the origin of this primitive people we are still wholly 

 in the dark. Some have seen in them a kinship to the prehistoric 

 European race knoAvn as that of Furfooz-Grenelle. Language tells 



* Regardinpr this question of the composition of the Japanese people, see the following: 

 K. Hasebe : Study upon the Human Bones found at Ko in the Second Excavation, Rept. 

 upon Arehaeol. Research in the Dept. of Literature, Kyoto Imperial University, vol. 4, 

 191 9-20; idem.. The Excavation of the Shell Mound at Tsukumo', a Neolitiic Ceme- 

 tery in the Province of Ditchil, ibid., vol. 5, 3 919-20; H. Matsumoto : Notes on the 

 Stone Age People of Japan, Amer. Anthroiwlogist, vol. 23 (N. S.), 1921, pp. 50-76; 

 Katsuro Hara : An Introduction to the History of Japan, New York, 1920, pp. 48 et soq. ; 

 n. ten Kate : Notes d(5tach6e.s sur les Japonais, Pull, et MCmoires Soc. d'Anthropol. de 

 Paris, ser. 5, vol. 9, 1908, pp. 178-195; E. Baclz : Prehistoric Japan, Ann. Rcpt. Smitli- 

 sonian Inst, for 1907, 52.3-547; Frank Brinkloy : Primeval Japanese, ibid.. 1903, ))p. 

 793-804. 



^ See regarding these ancestral Ainu, in addition to the papers by Hasebe and Mat- 

 sumoto, already cited, N. G. Muuro: Prehistoric Japan. Yokohama, 1911, pp. 37-292 

 and passim ; also Hara, op. cit., pp. 31 et seq. 



* Regarding Ainu place names in Japan, see B. H. Chamberlain : The Language, 

 Mythology, and Geographical Nomenclature of Japan Viewed in the Light of Ainu Studies, 

 Tokyo, 1887; also, Romyn Hitchcock: The Ainos of Yezo, Japan, Rept. U. S. Nat. 

 >ruseum for the year ending June 30, 1890, pp. 429-502 ; reference on p. 434. 



