Population History of Modern Ryukyuansas Viewed from Archaeology

Abstract

Is it possible that modern Ryukyuans are the descendants of Palaeolithic Minatogawa Man, and the people of the Shellmound Period, which is partially equivalentto the Jomon Period ? There is a blank period of about 10, 000 years between the Minatogawa population and the population of the Okinawan Shellmound Period. Sakishima prehistoric culture was one of the Southeast Asian prehistoric cultures until the beginning of the Heian Period. A dramatic cultural change occurred in Okinawa after the Shellmound Period, in the Gusuku Period, which began in the 10th to 11th centuries as a result of culturalinfluence from the Mediaeval Period of Kyushu. Darling 13th to 14th centuries the culture of the Gusuku Period also expanded into the Ryukyu Islands from Amami Islands to the Sakishima Islands, and there was a general rapid population increase. Modern Ryukyuans are descended from the populations of the Gusuku Period. Some geneticists and anthropologists insists that modern Ryukyuans possess hereditary blood factors found in northern Asian populations. It is suggested that those factors flowed into the Ryukyuan population in the Gusuku Period.