not all the characteristics of the Caucasian type had as yet developed. The Ainu may once have inhabited all of Japan, but they possessed a neolithic culture inferior in many ways to the neolithic cultures of the early Mongoloid invaders of Japan. As a result they were gradually pushed eastward and northward through the Japanese chain of islands until they now exist only as a fast vanishing people living in primitive settlements in the more remote sections of the northern island of Hokkaido and in smaller islands even farther north.
The Ainu contributed little to Japanese culture, but they may have contributed considerably to Japanese physical characteristics, one of which is the relative hairiness of the Japanese when compared to other Mongoloid peoples. The bristling moustaches of the Japanese officers and business men may well be their Ainu legacy.
Bronze and iron probably first reached Japan about the first century of the Christian era, brought by a wave of Mongoloid invaders from Korea. These invaders clearly had close contacts with the semi-nomadic culture of the steppe lands of northeastern Asia. They were fighting men on horseback, carrying the long straight iron sword of northern Asia, and like the nomads of this region they buried their dead leaders in great mounds. One of their most common symbols was a semi-precious stone curved in the shape of a huge comma, and another was a round bronze mirror, usually considered to be the symbol of the sun. Similar curved jewels are common archaeological finds throughout Korea, and the bronze mirrors obviously were borrowed from the Chinese, showing that these people had