Study on the origin of the Yayoi immigrants in South China.

长江下游(杭江)是一个非常重要的地区，有着悠久的水稻种植历史和关键的地理条件，作为公元前一千年末首次将水稻种植文化从亚洲大陆带入日本岛屿的移民的可能来源之一。在过去的三年中(1996-1998年)，我们对南京博物馆保存的江南或长江下游人类骨骼遗骸进行了直接对比调查。江南新石器时代头骨的骨骼形态与眼眶间平坦地区的外来雅瑶人相似，但与较高的颅顶、较窄的面部骨骼和较大的突度有很大的不同。另一方面，春秋-汉初时期的遗迹与雅瑶殖民者的遗迹相当接近，尽管由于样本量较小，牙齿特征和非测量颅骨特征表现出一定的差异。值得注意的是，线粒体DNA分析表明，良旺城人(春秋时期，两个样本)与九州北部的久马西田弥生人在D-loop区的碱基序列上是相似的。此外，梁王城两名男性上侧切牙的仪式消融表现出与日本弥生人相同的特征。这些结果表明，江南可能是雅瑶移民的发源地，尽管目前下结论似乎还为时过早。

The lower reaches of the Yangtze River (Hang jiang) is a very important region, with its long history of rice growing and the crucial geographical situation, as one of the possible origins of the immigrants who brought the rice cultivating culture for the first time from the Asiatic continent to the Japanese islands in the end of the first millennium B.C.During last three years (1996-1998), we made direct comparative investigations on the human skeletal remains from Jiangnan, or the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, that are kept in the Nanjing Museum.The skeletal morphology of the neolithic skulls from Jiangnan resemble the Yayoi population of foreign origin in the flatness of the interorbital region, but differ considerably with the higher cranial vault, narrower facial skeleton, and the greater prognathism. On the other hand, the remains of Spring and Autumn period - Earlier Han period are fairly close to the Yayoi colonists, although the dental characteristics and nonmetrical cranial traits show some differences due to probably small sample size. It is also interesting to note that the mitochondria DNA analysis show the similarity on the base sequence in D-loop region between Liangwangcheng (Spring-Autumn period, two sample) and Kuma-Nishioda Yayoi people in northern Kyushu. Furthermore, the ritual tooth ablation of upper lateral incisors in two male of Liangwangcheng displaying characteristics in common with that of Yayoi people in Japan. These results show that Jiangnan is a possible original place of the Yayoi immigrants, although it seems still premature to draw a conclusion at this moment.