Archaeologists Find Fossils of Mysterious Japanese Ancestors

Archaeologists found fossils that are suspected to be the ancestors of the Japanese. The discovery of this fossil is evidence that changed the history of the Japanese population.

In ancient times, Japan was divided into three periods: the Jomon era (the original inhabitants of Japan since 13 thousand BC), the Yayoi period (the migration came from Korea or China around 900 BC), then continued with the Kofun which is the beginning of modern Japan.

The Kofun people are known to be descended from the Jomon and Yayoi times. However, recent research suggests that there was a third ancestor in the Kofun era that was not from the Jomon or Yayoi era.

In the Science Alert report, Tuesday (21/9/2021), this is known from the research of Shigeki Nakagomi of Trinity University in Dublin published in Science Advances. When examining the DNA of ancient bones, he discovered the presence of other DNA.

The mysterious DNA is thought to be the Han people of ancient China. The name Han is taken from the name of the Han Dynasty, and today the Han ethnicity is the majority in mainland China.

"The Han are genetically close to the ancient Chinese people of the Yellow River and West LIao River, as are modern populations, including the Tujia, She, and Miao," Nakagome said.

"We think these immigrants came from around these areas," he explained.

Be Proof

Nakagome's new discovery is not surprising, as it has long been hypothesized that another group existed in the Kofun era. Nevertheless, Nakagome's findings become authentic evidence that changed the history of Japan.

"Archaeological evidence has long suggested three stages of migration, but the latter is often ignored," Mikael Adolphson, professor of Japanese history at the University of Cambridge, told Live Science.

"This latest discovery confirms what many of us already know, but it's good because now we also have evidence from the medical field," he explained.

Nakagome's permainan togel zaman digital findings also show that the majority of the genes of the modern Japanese population come from East Asia.

For your information, the Kofun period was the beginning of the modern Japanese empire. It is not known whether the arrival of groups from East Asia played a role in the Yayoi-era transition from agriculture to empire in the Kofun era.