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Chapter II
The Early Japanese
Although the Japanese, like all other modern peoples, are the result of racial mixtures, they are essentially a Mongoloid people, closely related to their neighbors on the continent in Korea and China. According to popular theories the early Japanese came to their islands from the south by way of Formosa and the Ryukyu Islands, but archaeological evidence indicates clearly that most of the early Japanese came to Japan by way of Korea. Some originally may have come from more distant regions in northeastern Asia, and others may have come originally from the coastal areas of South China. There they may have been in contact with the peoples of Southeast Asia and the adjacent islands, which might explain the many close parallels between primitive Japanese institutions and those of the southern areas of the Far East.
Despite the basically Mongoloid origins of the Japanese, the first inhabitants of the islands seem to have been the ancestors of the modern Ainu, a people probably in part of proto-white stock; that is, a group which split off from the white race at such an early time that