The Yayoi people (弥生人, Yayoi jin) were an ancient people that immigrated[1] to the Japanese archipelago during the Yayoi period (300 BC–300 AD) and are characterized through Yayoi material culture.[2][3][4][5] Some argue for an earlier start of the Yayoi period, between 1000 and 800 BC, but this date is controversial.[1] The people of the Yayoi culture are regarded as the spreaders of agriculture and the Japonic languages throughout the whole archipelago, and were characterized by both local Jōmon hunter-gatherer and mainland Asian migrant ancestry.[6]
Origin
The terms Yayoi and Wajin can be used interchangeably, though "Wajin" (倭人) refers to the people of Wa and "Wajin" (和人) is another name for the modern Yamato people.[7]
The definition of the Yayoi people is complex: The term Yayoi people describes both farmers and hunter-gatherers exclusively living in the Japanese archipelago, and their agricultural transition. The Yayoi people refers specifically to the mixed descendants of Jomon hunter-gatherers with mainland Asian migrants, which adopted (rice) agriculture and other continental material culture.[8]
There are several hypotheses about the geographic origin of the mainland Asian migrants:
According to Alexander Vovin, the Yayoi were present on the central and southern parts of Korea before they were displaced and assimilated by arriving proto-Koreans.[18][19] A similar view was raised by Whitman (2012), further noting that the Yayoi are not closely related to the proto-Koreanic speakers and that Koreanic arrived later from Manchuria to Korea at around 300 BC and coexisted with the Japonic-speakers. Both had influence on each other and a later founder effect diminished the internal variety of both language families.[20]
Jared Diamond, the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, suggested that the Yayoi period in Japan was initiated by immigrants from the Korean Peninsula. Citing research findings, he stated that Yayoi Japan likely received millions of immigrants from Korea. These immigrants, during the Yayoi transition, are believed to have overwhelmed the genetic contribution of the Jomon people, whose population was estimated to be around 75,000 at that time.[21]
In recent times, through archaeological and genealogical research, Japanese scholars largely associate the origin of the Yayoi people to the Korean peninsula and have stated the impact they had in the shared ancestry between the two modern populations.[22]
Lifestyle
Yayoi people attires
The Yayoi population is believed to have been heavily agricultural[23] and shamanistic oriented, being thought to be the precursor of Shintoism, worshipping animals and spirits.[24] Though the origins are still debated, the Yayoi group are thought to have been the people who first introduced rice farming to Japan.[23]
The Yayoi people are considered to be a major contributing strand of the modern Japanese people's DNA. Recent genetic studies on the Yayoi people suggest that they were closely related to populations from the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.[22][25][26][27]
To what extent the Yayoi population impacted the modern Japanese gene pool is still being analyzed. For further information, see Japanese people's Dual ancestry theory.
Physical appearance
Early Yayoi immigrants had wholly large and flat features, large facial height, round orbits and large teeth.[28]
Sea people
Some historians call the Yayoi people, the "Sea people (海人族/Kaijinzoku or Amazoku, 海神族/Watatsumizoku)" postulating that they migrated to Japan via the sea possibly from elsewhere. This idea began with finding Kara-styled bronzewares and shipwreck remains alongside the coastlines of the Korean peninsula[29] prompting some historians to suggest that there was a group of seafaring people who entered Japan via Korea from the seas during the Yayoi period.
The specific whereabouts of their origin is theorized by many, starting from the Korean peninsula,[29] Southeast Asia[30] to South China. However, the "Sea people" theory is largely deemed as a mere hypothesis due to its rather small size and lack of evidence, and the support for the theory has diminished over the years in favor of the more grounded "Yayoi people" group.
^Boer, Elisabeth de; Yang, Melinda A.; Kawagoe, Aileen; Barnes, Gina L. (2020). "Japan considered from the hypothesis of farmer/language spread". Evolutionary Human Sciences. 2: e13. doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.7. ISSN2513-843X. PMC10427481. PMID37588377. S2CID218926428. The term Yayoi has four uses, which can create much confusion. First, it is the designation of the period beginning with the introduction of rice agriculture around 1000 BC until the advent of the Mounded Tomb Culture in the third century AD. Yayoi is a period designation exclusive to Japan; it includes both farmers and hunter–gatherers and entails the agricultural transition in a time-transgressive and regionally disparate process. Second, 'Yayoi people' may refer to anyone living in the Japanese Islands in the Yayoi period, or third, Yayoi may refer specifically to admixed people (Mumun + Jōmon in varying in proportions and across great distances). Fourth, Yayoi may indicate acculturation: the adoption of (rice) agriculture (and other continental material culture) by Jōmon-lineage people in the Yayoi period. All of these conflicting aspects of Yayoi must be kept in mind and clearly defined in any discussion.
^Janhunen, Juha (2010). "Reconstructing the Language Map of Prehistorical Northeast Asia". Studia Orientalia (108): 281–304. there are strong indications that the neighbouring Baekje state (in the southwest) was predominantly Japonic-speaking until it was linguistically Koreanized.
^Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean". Korean Linguistics. 15 (2): 222–240.
