The origin of Japan

There is no conclusion yet on the ethnic origin of the Japanese. Most scholars believe that it was a mixture of people from different origins. As early as the Late Paleolithic Age, when the Japanese archipelago was still connected to the Asian continent, primitive people lived here, and their descendants are today's Ainu people. About 10,000 years ago, the Japanese archipelago began to separate from the Asian continent, and many groups of immigrants immigrated from the sea, becoming the foundation of the Yamato nation. These mainly include the Tungus people from Siberia and Northeast China, the Malays from the Nanyang Islands, the Indo-China people from the Indochina Peninsula, the Wuyue people from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the Han and Koreans who immigrated around BC. Due to the different immigration times and settlement locations of each group of immigrants, although a unified nation has been formed after thousands of years of mixing, there are still many local differences in traditional culture, lifestyle and physical characteristics. For thousands of years BC, the residents of the Japanese archipelago made a living by fishing, hunting, gathering or slash-and-burn agriculture, which historically belonged to the Jomon culture era. From the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD, metal tools, kiln-style pottery and rice cultivation techniques from mainland China were introduced to Kyushu, Japan via the Korean Peninsula. This was the Yayoi cultural era. In the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, the Yamato Kingdom was established with present-day Nara as the center and unified the various tribes in Japan. From then on, it was called the Yamato nation. During the 7th and 8th centuries AD, Japan absorbed agriculture, crafts, architecture, Buddhism and other cultures from China's prosperous Tang Dynasty, as well as Korean and Indian culture, and its social economy developed rapidly. After the Meiji Restoration, it absorbed a large amount of European and American culture, forming a great fusion of Eastern and Western cultures.