The roots of Yayoi people

The three types of Yayoi people

There are regional differences in looks between the Yayoi skeletons found in Yamaguchi, Kyushu and Okinawa. Three distinct types of the Yayoi people can be identified by characteristics of the skeletons; those of northern Kyushu and Yamaguchi; those of western Kyushu; and those of southern Kyushu and the Nansei islands. The Yayoi people of northern Kyushu and Yamaguchi could be distinguished by their long faces and low noses with flat nasal roots. They were fairly tall. The average height of a man being about 162-164cm, and the average height of a woman being about 150cm. In western Kyushu the people could be identified by their short wide but sharply chiseled faces, prominent eyebrow arches, and nasal bones that were very prominent from the nasal roots. When viewed laterally, the nasal roots tend to look hollow. In height they were quite small, the male was about 158cm tall and the female about 148cm. Small heads and faces was the distinctive feature of the Yayoi people of southern Kyushu and the Nansei Islands. When looked at from the top, the head appears very round. They were extremely small people, the average height of a man being about 153-155cm and that of a female about 143cm. Of these three types the western Kyushu Yayoi people look the same as the Jomon people. As a result the Yayoi people of western Kyushu can be considered as being direct descendants of the Jomon. The northern Kyushu and Yamaguchi Yayoi people have few features in common with the Jomon. Thus the Yayoi of the two regions are probably from overseas. The hypothesis is still unclear though, further research still needs to be carried out on skeletons found in the Asian Continent. These skeletons date back 2,300-2,500 years to the Japanese historic periods of the late Jomon and the early Yayoi, to the Chinese historic periods of late Zhou, or the Age of the Warring States, Qin and the Former Han periods.

Our team conducted research of skeletons dating back to the Chinese historical periods of Zhou and the Former Han. These skeletons are kept at Zilin in Shandong Province, China. It can be seen that the features of these skeletons are very similar to those of the Yayoi people of northern Kyushu and Yamaguchi. Thus the origin of them must be in the Asian continent. However we are still not certain about the exact origin of the northern Kyushu and Yamaguchi Yayoi people.