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I wanna debate about those Japanese phenotypes because some say they're Caucasoid-influenced. Here are their entries on humanphenotypes:
They might just be a gracilized version of Manchu-Korean, but why aren't they more common outside Japan besides a little bit in South Korea? Focus on their "Semitic features"m it'll be important.
It's stated Lundman considered them to be equivalent but I don't have access to that source. On the other hand Weisbach says the following in regards to the phenotypical picture of Japan in his Körpermessungen verschiedener Menschenrassen:
He proposes the differences between the Kulis (I don't know which phenotype is that, would it be Satsuma?) and the Yakonins may be due to lifestyle differences. The Yakonin, if represented by the upper classes, could inf act have a paler skin and be taller than the Kulis as a result of not having to work under the Sun and having a better nutrition, but how do we explain Yakonins having more elongated faces and even curved noses in contrast to the Kulis' more angular faces, small and flat noses and high cheekbones?In Yokuhama hatte Dr. Janka die günstige Gelegenheit, Männer
dieses neuestens so fortschrittsfreundlich scheinenden Volkes messen zu können und bemerkt überhaupt über die Japaner, „dass man bei ihnen zwei auffällige, von einander streng geschiedene Gruppen unterscheiden könne, die Kulis (Arbeiterklasse) und die Jakoninrasse", was jedoch von Dr. Mohnike geläugnet wird.
Nach Dr. Janka sind die Kulis starke, robuste Gestalten mit wunderbar ausgebildeter Muskulatur; ihre Hautfarbe ist dunkler, vom Wetter gebräunt, das Gesicht eckig, mit hohen, breiten Backenknochen, schlichtem, dichten, schwarzen Haare, wenig Bart und meist kleinen, schwarzen, minder weit geschlitzten Augen und flachgedrückter, meist kleiner Nase."
„Die Jakoninrasse scheint mehr zarterę Formen zu haben, wahrschein- lich von der Lebensweise; sie sind meist hagere Gestalten, grösser als die Kulis, ihre Gesichtsbildung nicht so eckig, mehr länglich, mit oft schöngewölbter Stirne und schöner, ja selbst gebogener Nase; ihre Haut ist blässer."
„Beim weiblichen Geschlechte sieht man oft schöne, zarte, blasse Gestalten mit feiner Haut und rosigen Wangen; ihre Gesammtform ist schön ebenmässig."
In Die körperlichen Eigenschaften der Japaner: Eine anthropologische Studie Baelz makes a few curious commentaries:
Notwithstanding the outlandish propositions that the Japanese high classes could be descended from an Israelite lost tribe - attempts to find their descendants were popular among a few people in periods bygone, e.g. British Israelism - or from Akkadians - who seemingly were proposed to be the ancestors of the Chinese by Boulger -, it seems there were some palatable phenotypical differences between the low and high classes in Japan, with the latter possessing a more Caucasoid aspect. I just haven't understood if the Akkadian proposal for the ancestry of the Chinese was equally based on their physical looks as it was for the Japanese nobility.Während die Gesichter aus dem Volke in Japan dem Europäer etwas Fremdartiges und in der Regel wegen der uns anerzogenen aesthetischen Begriffe et was Hässliches, oft Abstossendes haben, so begegnen wir unter den Höheren nicht selten Gesichtern, die uns bekannt scheinen. Sieht man genauer zu, so glaubt man Judenphysiognomieen zu erkennen, nicht die plumpen, hässlichen, übermarkirten, sondern die feinen, oft vornehmen. Die eigentümlich gekrümmte Nase, die Gestalt der Oberlippe, die Andeutung von Prognathismus, die vorstehenden Augen bilden die wichtigsten Aehnlichkeitsmerkmale; solche Gesichter finden sich im ganzen Kriegs- und Hofadel bis zur kaiserlichen Familie hinauf da und dort zerstreut. Der mutmassliche Thronerbe Japans hat ausgeprägte, feine, jüdische Gesichtszüge, und eine der schönsten Frauen Tokios würde in Europa unzweifelhaft für jüdischen Geblütes gehalten werden. Das Vorkommen derartiger Gesichter unter den herrschenden Klassen hat, wie wir im ersten Teil (Bd. III S. 345, S. 15-17 des Sonderabdrucks) ausführlich erörterten, Veranlassung gegeben, die Japaner von den verlorenen Stämmen Israels abzulei- ten. Kaempfer, unser deutscher Landsmann, dessen Werk über Japan noch heute, nach zweihundert Jahren, die Bewunderung jedes Lesers erregt, war der Erste, der den Ursprung der Japaner definitiv weit nach Westen verlegte und annahm, dass die selben sich beim Turmbau zu Babel von den anderen Stämmen trennten. Weit bestimmter, und direkt auf
die Juden zurückgreifend, leitet ein Sonderling und Curiositätenhändler in Yokohama, Mc Leod, den Ursprung der Japaner her, und er hat seine Ansichten
in einem ziemlich confusen Werke niedergelegt,
in dem er mit der Auslegung der Bibel ebenso frei umspringt als mit der japanischen Geschichte und mit japanischen Sitten und Institutionen. Ja sogar das kaiserliche Wappen der Japaner soll dem des Salomon gleichen, der Tempel zu Jerusalem soll das Vorbild der japanischen Tempel sein, und was der gleichen Phantasieen mehr sind. Eines aber muss man sagen, dass nämlich Mc Leod eine stattliche Sammlung von typisch jüdischen Gesichtern aus der japanischen Aristokratie zusammengestellt hat, ohne zu übertreiben. Ich kann dies versichern, weil ich die meisten der daselbst abgebildeten Leute aus
eigener Anschauung kenne. An oben erwähnter Stelle habe ich einer anderen Vermutung Raum gegeben, dass wir nämlich für den Ursprung der feinen Japaner zwar nicht auf die Juden oder auf den babylonischen Turmbau, aber auf ein Urvolk zurückzugehen haben, das die Niederungen des Eu- phrat und Tigris bewohnte, und das erst ganz neuerdings aus dem Schutte der Vergessenheit her- ausgegraben worden ist, auf die Akkadier. Eine nicht geringe Genugtuung war es mir, bald nach Erscheinen meines Aufsatzes zu erfahren, dass der vortreffliche Geschichtschreiber Chinas, Boulger, bezüglich der Abstammung der Chinesen zu analogen Schlüssen gekommen war.
Furthermore, in his book Les Races Humanes, Valois classifies the Japanese as a mixture of peoples, but adresses them under his discusson on Southern Mongoloids:
His description of the Satsuma type matches Lundman's Kuli, as I speculated.Les Japonais ont une taille moyenne de 1,58 m, un indice céphalique plus bas que les Mongols méridionaux vrais, 78 à 80, une peau
relativement claire. On distingue chez eux deux types différents. Le type fin ou type de Choshiu a le visage allongé avec un front haut, un
nez plus mince et parfois proéminent. Le type grossier ou type de Satsuma a la face large, les pommettes plus saillantes, le nez plus dilaté.
On ne sait si ces deux types correspondent à deux races distinctes, ou seulement à des différences de constitution. Il est en tout cas certain
que les Japonais résultent du mélange de plusieurs groupes anthropologiques. Le plus important provient d'envahisseurs arrivés bien avant
l'ère chrétienne et originaires probablement d'Indonésie. Refoulant les Aïnou primitifs, ils se sont plus ou moins mélangés à eux. Mais d'autres apports s'y sont ajoutés, venus de Corée et de Chine. Malgré les nombreux travaux des auteurs japonais, la part exacte de chacune de ces composantes n'a pas encore été dissociée.
In The Races of Man Deniker was in agreement with Baelz and called them the fine and coarse types. He also subscrybed to a mixture of Northern and Southern Mongoloids and Indonesian or Polynesian elements, not considered as "Mongols".
I think his remark of Ainu blood being present only in Northern Japan to be interesting as it's a known fact their villages are there but at first thought one could think the Caucasoid-influenced Japanese nobility could have been formed by their admixture. At a second thought, it'd be improbable to propose out of all social strata the highest one would be mixed with a marginalized people. It'd also mean the Yakonin phenotype would be more common in Northern Japan - which is not the case, as it's spread out evenly throughout the country -, unless one assumed the Ainu of Hokkaido didn't mix with the other populations of Japan while in the rest of the country they did, thus originating the phenotype.The Japanese exhibit, like so many other peoples, a certain diversity in their physical type; the variations fluctuate between two principal forms. The fine type (Figs. 16 and
120), which may chiefly be observed in the upper classes of society, is characterised by a tall, slim figure; a relative doli- chocephaly, elongated face, straight eyes in the men, more
or less oblique and Mongoloid in the women, thin, convex or straight nose, etc. The coarse type, common to the mass of the people, is marked by the following characters : a thick-set body, rounded skull, broad face with prominent cheek-bones, slightly oblique eyes, flattish nose, wide mouth (Balz). These two types may have been the result of crossings between Mongol sub-races (northern and southern) and Indonesian or even Polynesian elements. The influence of the Ainu blood is shown only in Northern Nippon.
Deniker also stated the Ainu were similar to Caucasoids and Australoids and yet were distinct from them, being a separate race by themselves.
So the Ainu may be related either to Siberians, Australoids or Southeast Asians and Amerindians. Or even to neither of them. But it doesn't end here, as Haddon, in The Races of Man and Their Distribution, quoted Baelz (a proposition of his I haven't found), Deniker and Keane.The Ainus (Figs. 49 and 117), who are classed among the Palseasiatics, inhabit the north and east parts of the island of Yezo, the south of Saghalien, and the three most southern
islands of the Kuriles. They form a group by themselves, different from all the other peoples of Asia. Their elongated heads (ceph. index on the liv. sub. 77.8), their prominent supraciliary ridges, the development of the pilous system, the form of the nose, give to them some resemblance to the Russians, the Todas, and the Australians ; but other characters(coloration of the skin, prominent cheek-bones, short stature, frequent occurrence of the os japonicum, etc.) distinguish them from these peoples and afford grounds for classing them as a separate race (see Chap. VIII.).
If the Yakonin were really the result of the Yayoi with the Ainu, then there'd another case for a connection to Semites or Causadois more broadly. And now there's also a suggestion for a Dravidian link and even for Alpine and "Celto-Slavic" ones, but weren't Celts closer to Germanic and Italic peoples? At least linguistically their languages are commonly considered closer to Romance ones than to any other group. Well, it'd be yet another case for a Mediterranean connection.The indigenous population of Japan consisted of the Ainu, who are characterised by a great profusion of black wavy hair; short, thick-set; mesaticephalic (index 77*8); orthognathous, with broad face; short, fairly broad nose; large horizontal eyes, Mongolian fold usually absent. Balz regards them as more or less related to the Alpine or “ Celto-Slavic ” Race, but Deniker classes them as Palaeasiatics, and Keane places them, along with Semites and Dravidians, in the Homo Mediterranensis group of the “Caucasic Peoples.”
Valois also cites some of the aforementioned hypothesis.
Les Aïnou sont des hommes de petite stature (1,58 m), à la peau d'un blanc mat sale, parfois rosée aux pommettes. Leurs membres sont épais et leur corps trapu. Les cheveux sont abondants, noirs et ondulés. Tout leur système pileux est extrêmement fourni, non seulement sur le corps, principalement la poitrine et les cuisses, mais aussi au
visage où la barbe est très développée. Une conséquence curieuse est que cette pilosité était devenue pour la race une sorte d'idéal esthétique et que les femmes se faisaient tatouer une moustache. Elle s'oppose à ce qu'on observe chez les Mongols où corps et visage sont presque glabres. La tête, presque dolichocéphale (ind. 76,5), a des arcades sourcilières marquées, sous lesquelles les yeux paraissent enfoncés dans les orbites. Le nez est droit ou concave, la face orthognathe. Les yeux, brun sombre ou brun clair, n'ont pas de pli mongolique ; leur forme
allongée et une légère saillie des pommettes sont les seules parties de la figure rappelant les races jaunes.
Tous ces caractères montrent que les Aïnou doivent être rangés parmi les Blancs ; ils y représentent une race spéciale. Mais comment expliquer leur [72] présence si loin de l'Europe, sur des îles qui sont à l'extrême Est de l'Asie ? On les avait, pour ce faire, tour à tour rapprochés des Australiens, des Indiens et des Indonésiens. Toutes ces thèses
se défendent mal, bien que la première ait été reprise depuis plusieurs années par un certain nombre d'anthropologistes. On admet plus volontiers que les Aïnou se rattachent à des populations blanches qui occupaient autrefois le Nord de la Sibérie. Submergées plus tard par les Jaunes, elles auraient par la suite presque complètement disparu.
Les Aïnou en seraient un des derniers restes ; longtemps sauvegardés par leur situation insulaire, ils ont fini à leur tour par se laisser refouler par les Japonais et leur disparition n'est plus qu'une question d'années.
Finally, Coon mentioned the abundance of classifications for the Ainu, favoring a Caucasoid origin with later Siberian and Japanese admixture.
Of distinctive note is their upper molar teeth similarity to Eskimo and Northern Europeans.No single people in the world has had more written about its origins, which are unknown, and its racial classification, which is undetermined, than the Ainu. These familiar-looking solidly built, bearded, hairy people living in the dim light of Hokkaido, Sakhalin Island, and formerly in the Kuriles, have been called outliers of an ancient migration from Europe; bleached Australoids whose ancestors moved up the island chain in remote an- tiquity; and Mongoloid variants. Without doubt they have been mixed with Mongoloids, both with the Japanese who drove them north out of Honshu, and with Siberian peoples whom they met in Hokkaido and elsewhere. But they have retained their distinctive features: a Caucasoid type of skin, brunette, white, hairy, and well provided with sweat glands; and a Caucasoid type of hair that varies from straight to curly, as among the Ainu who formerly inhabited the Kurile Islands. Typical of the Ainu are a broad forehead, moderately heavy browridges, a moderately low nasal bridge, snubbed tip, eyes far apart but usually without folds, and a light brown eye color, with a mixed greenish and grayish iris patterns in a few cases.
Today the indications are that they were originally Caucasoid, for the following reasons. The Ainu fingerprints show more loops than whorls. This is a Caucasoid characteristic. Both among Mongoloids and among Australoids whorls exceed loops. The Ainu have an incidence of 63 percent of sticky earwax. Sticky earwax is characteristic of Caucasoids; crumbly earwax of Mongoloids. The upper incisor teeth of the Ainu, although they are shoveled in one third of the individuals studied, do not show the extreme forms of shoveling seen among most Mongoloids, but are rather like the moderately shoveled teeth found occasionally in Northern Europe. Among the Ainu, upper molar teeth have pearl-like excrescences of enamel along the outer gingival border in 30 percent of the individuals studied. Three percent of Japanese skulls also show this. Enamel pearls are also found among the Eskimo and among Northern Europeans, particularly the medieval Icelanders.
So, after all of this and your own previous knowledge or maybe solely guesses, do you think the Yakonin and Choshiu phenotypes are the same as allegedly backed by Lundman? What are their origins? If you favor the Ainu admixture, how would you reconcile it with the fact they're a stigmatized minority? And what would be the provenance of the Ainu? If you advocate the gracilized Manchu-Korean proposal, why are they mainly found in Japan?
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