Research on the Yayoi people and their society based on the mitochondria DNA analysis

利用形态和古人口学特征对九州北部绳索向弥生时期的过渡进行了人类学研究。九州北部是日本靠近朝鲜半岛的地区，过去受到外国文化和亚洲大陆移民的影响很大。这个地区的弥生人的特征被归因于来自朝鲜半岛或中国的基因移民的涌入。然而，有几个重要问题需要进一步审查，涉及从绳索人过渡到Yayoi人的问题，特别是在本应移民到该地区的早期阶段。解决与九州北部这两个时期过渡有关的这些问题的主要困难是缺乏属于这两个时期之间的适当骨架材料。因此，目前还不清楚日本第一批水稻农学家是谁。也就是说，包括新文化和全面稻作农业在内的哪一群人要为这场“弥合革命”负责，是原住民还是新移民群体？由于这些时期骨骼遗骸的缺乏，很难直接讨论这一问题，因此我们试图通过古人口学和形态分析来重建九州北部的这一过渡时期。从种群遗传学分析的结果来看，可以合理地假设早期有少量人从亚洲大陆迁徙出来，这与考古数据是一致的。此后，移民人口的规模大幅增加，他们，而不是当地的绳索人，从一开始就在弥合文化的发展中发挥了主要作用。

Anthropological study of the transition form the Jomon to the Yayoi Periods in northern Kyushu was performed using morphological and paleodemographical features. Northern Kyushu, the area of Japan located closet to the Korean Peninsula, has been considerably influenced by foreign culture and immigrants for the Asian mainland in the past. The feature of Yayoi people in this region has been attributed to a genetic influx of immigrants from the Korean Peninsula or China . However, several important questions require further scrutiny concerning with the transition from Jomon to Yayoi peoples, especially in the early stages of the supposed immigration into this region. The main difficulty in solving these questions concerning with the transition during these periods in the northern Kyushu has been the lack of suitable skeletal materials belonging to the time between the two periods. Therefore, it is unclear who the first rice agriculturalists in Japan were. In other words, which group of people is responsible for the "Yayoi revolution", including new culture and full scale rice agriculture, the native Jomon people or a new immigrant group? Because it is difficult to discuss this problem directly due to scarcity of skeletal remains from these periods, we attempt a reconstruction of this transitional period in northern Kyushu, by paleodemographic and morphological analyze. Judging from the results by population genetic analysis, it is reasonable to suppose that a small number of people initially migrated form the Asian mainland in early stage, which is consistent with the archaeological data. Following this the size of the immigrant population increased substantially and they, not the native Jomon people, played a principal role in the development of the Yayoi culture from its inception.