Who are the Ainu and where did they come from?
Early anthropologists were fascinated by the Ainu and made much of the physical differences that existed between Ainu and Japanese. These early researchers often exaggerated these physical qualities, and suggested that they were evidence of Caucasian ancestry. The Ainu were said to be a sort of “lost Caucasian race”. However, there is no genetic evidence of this and it is considered an outdated theory. The mystery remained however, since it was obvious that the Ainu people and ethnic Japanese were of different origins. There are many current ideas on the origins of the Ainu people. Some suggest that the same prehistoric group of people that produced the Australian aborigines, a sort of “Oceania race,” also inhabited the Japanese archipelago before the Jomon period of Japan (14,000 to 2,500 years ago). This is based on fossils dating back 10,000 years that seem to show similarities with the indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand. Others say that the Ainu are descendants of peopl
