DNA Claims That The Majority of Japanese have Chinese Origins

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The origins of the Japanese people is not entirely clear yet. It is common for Japanese people to think that Japan is not part of Asia since it is an island, cut off from the continent. This tells a lot about how they see themselves in relation to their neighbours. But in spite of what the Japanese may think of themselves, they do not have extraterrestrial origins, and are indeed related to several peoples in Asia.

During the last Ice Age, which ended approximately 15,000 years ago, Japan was connected to the continent through several land bridges, notably one linking the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan and Kyushu, one linking Kyushu to the Korean peninsula, and another one connecting Hokkaido to Sakhalin and the Siberian mainland. In fact, the Philippines and Indonesia were also connected to the Asian mainland. This allowed migrations from China and Austronesia towards Japan, about 35,000 years ago. These were the ancestors of the modern Ryukyuans (Okinawans), and the first inhabitants of all Japan.

The Ainu came from Siberia and settled in Hokkaido and Honshu some 15,000 years ago, just before the water levels started rising again. Nowadays the Ryukuyans, the Ainus and the Japanese are considered three ethnically separate groups.

54% of Japanese men belong to haplogroup O, and more precisely to the subgroups O3 and O2b. Both of them could be of Han Chinese or Korean origin. A negligible percentage of the Japanese are O1 or O2a, two lineages that trace their roots among southern Chinese or south-east Asian people.

Y-DNA haplogroup D2, making up 36% of the Japanese male lineages, is interesting because it is only found in Japan. Its closest relatives are scattered around very specific regions of Asia : the Andaman Islands (between India and Myanmar), Indonesia (only a small minority), Southwest China (mostly among the Qiang ethnic group), Mongolia (also a small minority) and Tibet. Haplogroup D is thought to have originated in East Africa some 50,000 years before present. The first carriers of the gene would have migrated along the coasts of the Indian Ocean, through Indonesia, and gone up to Japan, South-East Siberia, then moved inland to Mongolia, with the last part of the group continuing as far as Tibet. However, whereas the Japanese belong to haplogroup D2, Tibetans are part of the completely separate D3a, the Qiang of D1, and the Andaman Islanders of D*. It means that their most recent common ancestors goes back tens of thousands of years. In other words the genetic gap between these ethnic groups is immense, despite false appearances of belonging to a common haplogroup

The 3% of haplogroups N may be of Siberian or Chinese origin. Haplogroup C3, representing also 3% of the population, is typical of the Mongols and Siberians. It might have come with the Ainu through Sakhalin island and Hokkaido, or along with the Yayoi farmers from Korea. C3 is indeed found at both extremities of the country but is rare in central Japan, suggesting two separate entries.

In conclusion, approximately 43% modern Japanese men carry a Y-chromosome of Jomon origin. The highest proportions of Y-DNA haplogroup C and D is found in northern Japan (over 60%) and the lowest in Western Japan (25%). This is concordant with the history of Japan; the Yayoi people of Sino-Korean origins having settled first and most heavily in Kyushu and Chūgoku, in Western Japan.

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Iraq: Can ancient Babylon be rescued?

By Christopher Torchia and Ammar Al-Musawi

BABYLON, Iraq — It was one of the world's first, greatest cities — a place where astronomers mapped the stars millennia ago and kings created an early code of law and planted what became known as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Yet little remains of the ancient capital, as seen by The Associated Press during a trip to Babylon last month on one of the few permits issued by Iraq's government since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The site has the aura of a theme park touched by the ambition of dictator Saddam Hussein and the opportunism of looters: Modern walkways run beside crumbling old walls, a reconstructed Greek theater and a palace built for Saddam atop an artificial hill.

Now, for the first time, global institutions led by the U.N. are thoroughly documenting the damage and how to fix it. A UNESCO report due out early next year will cite Saddam's construction but focus, at the Iraqi government's request, on damage done by U.S. forces from April to September 2003, and the Polish troops deployed there for more than a year afterward.

The U.S., which turned Babylon into a military base, says the looting would have been worse but for the troops' presence. The U.S. also says it will help rehabilitate Babylon, funding an effort by the World Monuments Fund and Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, but has yet to release precise funding figures.

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Koreans Claims on Invention of Chinese Written Language

Quate from the newsgroup soc.culture.china .I think this is the longest discussion thread I have ever seen, there is roughly 400
replies until today.

The so-called Chinese character was probably invented and
developed by Korean, although the populous Chinese also have used it as
their basic writing systems. I believe the number of population of any
ethnic group should not be a factor that obscures the origin. I explain some
evidences.

1. The original pictographs called 'gab-gol' (bone and shell) or 'bok-sa' in
Korean were certainly invented during the Yin dynasty (or Shang state, BC
1600~BC 1046), although it is uncertain who was the inventor. There is no
dispute regarding this matter between Korean and Chinese historians. There
are ample recent evidences that the dominant people of the Yin dynasty was
Korean, which some Chinese historians also acknowledge.

2. Among countries that adopted Chinese character, only Koreans use exactly
one syllable for one character. Chinese or Japanese used one or more
syllables for one character. A good example is the sounds denoting the
numbers. Only Koreans use just one syllable for one number. So, it is very
easy for Koreans to say any complex numbers quickly.

For another example, the sound for 'white' in Chinese character in 'baek'
(one syllable) in Korean but 'bai' (two syllable) in Chinese. Regarding the
character denoting 'head', it is 'doo' in Korean but 'tou' in Chinese. On
the other hand, it is the same for the character denoting 'mountain' -
'shan' in both Korean and Chinese.

Why have Koreans used only one syllable for one character, but Chinese one
or more syllables? It certainly shows that Chinese pronunciation system is a
variant from Korean counterpart.

3. Some basic pictographs reflect Korean life-style and customs.

For example, the character denoting 'house' (ga in Korean) contains a
character denoting a pig (hog) in the lower part. In the house, people live,
not a pig live. Why did they adopt a pig to denote a house? Only Koreans
raised pigs within their house.

Another example is the character denoting 'sun'. The character contains a
dot within a rectangle. Why did they contain the dot, seemingly
unnecessarily? The dot denotes a golden crow. Only Koreans had the legend
linking the sun to the golden crow.

Additional example is the character denoting 'surname' (ssi in Korean). In
Chinese, the character denotes only 'surname' while it denotes both
'surname' and 'seed' in Korean. 'Ssi' is a most common word in Korean and
compares the pedigree with the tree (i.e., the seed is a common symbol for
the original ancestor whose trace has been handed down by his surname).

4. Korean history book describes the origin of written systems, which is
inscribed in dolmens in Korea.

A Korean history book called Chun-bu-gyung records the origin of both
current Chinese character and Korean alphabet (hangul). Chinese character is
a kind of pictograph + ideograph, while hangul is the most advanced of
phonogram + ideogram in the world. Bone and shell inscriptions were a
pictograph, while hexagrams of I-ching invented by Fu Xi (Bokhwi in Korean)
are a kind of ideogram. The original character for both Chinese character
and hangul was 'Nok-doo-mun' (the most ancient writing system), according to
the Chun-bu-gyung. Currently, only Koreans still play a game called 'Yout',
which is believed to be very similar to the 'Nok-doo-mun'. The principles of
Yout game are essentially the same as I-Ching. Moreover, in Korea and
Manchuria, currently there are many ancient rocks (dolmen) in which various
kinds of primitive writings are inscribed (see some pictures at
http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~kbyon/culture/rokdo.htm)

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Mysterious Bird Cryptid Ruffles Feathers in Iran

Is it a bird or something else? The creature, which was discovered near Meshginshahr in Iran is reportedly bipedal, quickly decaying, and nothing like any of the other creatures ever discovered in the area - or anywhere else on Earth. Not only is the creature bipedal, it has massive teeth with fangs unlike anything we've seen flying through the air - at least not for several million years. Is this a survivor of the cretaceous period that somehow met its end recently in Iran? Or is this something completely different?

How could a creature that so clearly is very different from anything we've seen before survive near densely populated areas? And are there more of this species elsewhere in Iran? The creature, which was first reported by IRNA on Sunday had a long snout (or beak), feathers, and what appear to be two bird-like legs. But ornithologists looking into the case are saying those three things don't go together. Currently the incident is being investigated by the Iranian Environmental Protection Organization.

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Koreans Claims Legendary Chinese Warlord Cao Cao as Korean

As you may have heard, the tomb of legendary Eastern Han Dynasty warlord Cao Cao (155-220 AD) was recently claimed to have been discovered. It was said that he had 72 fake tombs to hide his true tomb and there is still some controversy that this tomb is really Cao Cao’s tomb.

As expected! Cao Cao ultimately becomes Korean si mi da
Following the discovery of Cao Cao’s tomb, enthusiasm over exploring the mysteries of Cao Cao’s tomb instantly rose up on the internet. With everyone discussing the discovery of the tomb to the grave robbers to the items and concubines buried with Cao Cao, and from these items exorbitant value to investigating the DNA of the remains, it can be said that the enthusiasm has become increasingly higher. Yesterday, a discussion forum shockingly reported some controversial news that people cannot help but be indignant. Let us take a look…

News from the 《大韩民报》 ["Da Han Min Bao"], Korea’s Ewha Womans University professor Zheng, while refuting that Cao Cao’s tomb is in Anyang [Henan] and following a discovery from Professor Zheng’s decades of research on Chinese and Korean history, said that the famously fierce Cao Cao from the late period of the Eastern Han Dynasty was actually Korean

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5 Curses You Probably Want to Stay Away From

1. The Madden Curse

As a pro football player, not only are you making ridiculous amounts of money for playing, but you also have a chance at scoring some serious endorsement money. However, you might want to reconsider if offered a deal as the new face of the Madden video game, considering the track record of your predecessors:

2000-Barry Sanders, Detroit Lions—Sanders didn’t play a single down during the 1999-2000 season (or ever again), retiring after a ten year career.

2000-Dorsey Levens, Green Bay Packers—Later copies of the game to featured Levens, who was bothered by a bad knee in the following season, leading to reduction to a reserve player (aka benchwarmer). He was fired in 2001.

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Did Japanese Originated From Koreans ?

During the Ice Ages, land bridges connected Japan's main islands to one another and to the mainland, allowing mammals ― including humans ― to arrive on foot. Archeologists have proposed four conflicting theories. Most popular in Japan is the view that the Japanese gradually evolved from ancient Ice Age people who occupied Japan long before 20,000 B.C. Also widespread in Japan is a theory that the Japanese descended from horse-riding Asian nomads who passed through Korea to conquer Japan in the fourth century, but who were themselves ― emphatically ― not Koreans. A theory favored by many Western archeologists and Koreans, and unpopular in some circles in Japan, is that the Japanese are descendants of immigrants from Korea who arrived with rice-paddy agriculture around 400 B.C. Finally, the fourth theory holds that the peoples named in the other three theories could have mixed to form the modern Japanese.

Why do they care so much? Unlike most other non-European countries, Japan preserved its independence and culture while emerging from isolation to create an industrialized society in the late nineteenth century. It was a remarkable achievement. Now the Japanese people are understandably concerned about maintaining their traditions in the face of massive Western cultural influences. They want to believe that their distinctive language and culture required uniquely complex developmental processes. To acknowledge a relationship of the Japanese language to any other language seems to constitute a surrender of cultural identity.

What makes it especially difficult to discuss Japanese archeology dispassionately is that Japanese interpretations of the past affect present behavior. Who among East Asian peoples brought culture to whom? Who has historical claims to whose land? These are not just academic questions. For instance, there is much archeological evidence that people and material objects passed between Japan and Korea in the period A.D. 300 to 700. Japanese interpret this to mean that Japan conquered Korea and brought Korean slaves and artisans to Japan; Koreans believe instead that Korea conquered Japan and that the founders of the Japanese imperial family were Korean.

Thus, when Japan sent troops to Korea and annexed it in 1910, Japanese military leaders celebrated the annexation as “the restoration of the legitimate arrangement of antiquity.” For the next 35 years, Japanese occupation forces tried to eradicate Korean culture and to replace the Korean language with Japanese in schools. The effort was a consequence of a centuries-old attitude of disdain. “Nose tombs” in Japan still contain 20,000 noses severed from Koreans and brought home as trophies of a sixteenth-century Japanese invasion. Not surprisingly, many Koreans loathe the Japanese, and their loathing is returned with contempt.

What really was “the legitimate arrangement of antiquity”? Today, Japan and Korea are both economic powerhouses, facing each other across the Korea Strait and viewing each other through colored lenses of false myths and past atrocities. It bodes ill for the future of East Asia if these two great peoples cannot find common ground. To do so, they will need a correct understanding of who the Japanese people really are.

Since languages change over time, the more similar two languages are, the more recently they must have diverged. By counting common words and features, linguists can estimate how long ago languages diverged, and such estimates suggest that Japanese and Korean parted company at least 4,000 years ago. As for the Ainu language, its origins are thoroughly in doubt; it may not have any special relationship to Japanese. After genes and language, a third type of evidence about Japanese origins comes from ancient portraits. The earliest preserved likenesses of Japan's inhabitants are statues called haniwa, erected outside tombs around 1,500 years ago. Those statues unmistakably depict East Asians. They do not resemble the heavily bearded Ainu. If the Japanese did replace the Ainu in Japan south of Hokkaido, that replacement must have occurred before A.D. 500.

Our earliest written information about Japan comes from Chinese chronicles, because China developed literacy long before Korea or Japan. In early Chinese accounts of various peoples referred to as “Eastern Barbarians", Japan is described under the name Wa, whose inhabitants were said to be divided into more than a hundred quarreling states. Only a few Korean or Japanese inscriptions before A.D. 700 have been preserved, but extensive chronicles were written in 712 and 720 in Japan and later in Korea. Those reveal massive transmission of culture to Japan from Korea itself, and from China via Korea. The chronicles are also full of accounts of Koreans in Japan and of Japanese in Korea ｡X interpreted by Japanese or Korean historians, respectively, as evidence of Japanese conquest of Korea or the reverse.

To understand the answer to this paradox, we have to remember that until 400 B.C., the Korea Strait separated not rich farmers from poor hunter-gatherers, but poor farmers from rich hunter-gatherers. China itself and Jomon Japan were probably not in direct contact. Instead Japan's trade contacts, such as they were, involved Korea. But rice had been domesticated in warm southern China and spread only slowly northward to much cooler Korea, because it took a long time to develop cold-resistant strains of rice. Early rice agriculture in Korea used dry-field methods rather than irrigated paddies and was not particularly productive. Hence early Korean agriculture could not compete with Jomon hunting and gathering. Jomon people themselves would have seen no advantage in adopting Korean agriculture, insofar as they were aware of its existence, and poor Korean farmers had no advantages that would let them force their way into Japan. As we shall see, the advantages finally reversed suddenly and dramatically.

More than 10,000 years after the invention of pottery and the subsequent Jomon population explosion, a second decisive event in Japanese history triggered a second population explosion. Around 400 B.C., a new lifestyle arrived from South Korea. This second transition poses in acute form our question about who the Japanese are. Does the transition mark the replacement of Jomon people with immigrants from Korea, ancestral to the modern Japanese? Or did Japan's original Jomon inhabitants continue to occupy Japan while learning valuable new tricks?

Which of the three theories is correct for Japan? The only direct way to answer this question is to compare Jomon and Yayoi skeletons and genes with those of modern Japanese and Ainu. Measurements have now been made of many skeletons. In addition, within the last three years molecular geneticists have begun to extract DNA from ancient human skeletons and compare the genes of Japan's ancient and modern populations. Jomon and Yayoi skeletons, researchers find, are on the average readily distinguishable. Jomon people tended to be shorter, with relatively longer forearms and lower legs, more wide-set eyes, shorter and wider faces, and much more pronounced facial topography, with strikingly raised browridges, noses, and nose bridges. Yayoi people averaged an inch or two taller, with close-set eyes, high and narrow faces, and flat browridges and noses. Some skeletons of the Yayoi period were still Jomon-like in appearance, but that is to be expected by almost any theory of the Jomon-Yayoi transition. By the time of the kofun period, all Japanese skeletons except those of the Ainu form a homogeneous group, resembling modern Japanese and Koreans.

In all these respects, Jomon skulls differ from those of modern Japanese and are most similar to those of modern Ainu, while Yayoi skulls most resemble those of modern Japanese. Similarly, geneticists attempting to calculate the relative contributions of Korean-like Yayoi genes and Ainu-like Jomon genes to the modern Japanese gene pool have concluded that the Yayoi contribution was generally dominant. Thus, immigrants from Korea really did make a big contribution to the modern Japanese, though we cannot yet say whether that was because of massive immigration or else modest immigration amplified by a high rate of population increase. Genetic studies of the past three years have also at last resolved the controversy about the origins of the Ainu: they are the descendants of Japan's ancient Jomon inhabitants, mixed with Korean genes of Yayoi colonists and of the modern Japanese.

Given the overwhelming advantage that rice agriculture gave Korean farmers, one has to wonder why the farmers achieved victory over Jomon hunters so suddenly, after making little headway in Japan for thousands of years. What finally tipped the balance and triggered the Yayoi transition was probably a combination of four developments: the farmers began raising rice in irrigated fields instead of in less productive dry fields; they developed rice strains that would grow well in a cool climate; their population expanded in Korea, putting pressure on Koreans to emigrate; and they invented iron tools that allowed them to mass-produce the wooden shovels, hoes, and other tools needed for rice-paddy agriculture. That iron and intensive farming reached Japan simultaneously is unlikely to have been a coincidence.

History gives the Japanese and the Koreans ample grounds for mutual distrust and contempt, so any conclusion confirming their close relationship is likely to be unpopular among both peoples. Like Arabs and Jews, Koreans and Japanese are joined by blood yet locked in traditional enmity. But enmity is mutually destructive, in East Asia as in the Middle East. As reluctant as Japanese and Koreans are to admit it, they are like twin brothers who shared their formative years. The political future of East Asia depends in large part on their success in rediscovering those ancient bonds between them.

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Remote viewing Tibetan monks see Extra Terrestrial powers saving the World from destroying itself in 2012

Remote viewing is nothing new in Tibetan monasteries. For thousands of years remote viewing in the middle of other spiritual activities have dominated Tibetan culture. What some Indian tourists came to learn from a few Tibetan monasteries under the current Chinese rule is extremely alarming and fascinating.

According to these tourists remote viewers are seeing world powers in the course of self-destruction. They also see that the world will not be destroyed. Between now and 2012 the world super powers will continue to engage in regional wars. Terrorism and covert war will be the main problem. In world politics something will happen in and around 2010. At that time the world powers will threaten to destroy each other.

Between 2010 and 2012, the whole world will get polarized and prepare for the ultimate dooms day. Heavy political maneuvers and negotiations will take place with little progress.

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Japanese Language Origins

As with all other languages, the Japanese language can be understood formally as a set of lingusitic characteristics or subjectively as a way of experiencing and ordering the world. However, unlike other languages, Japanese is unique to both linguists and to the people speaking the language. The Japanese by and large believe their language to be a highly unique language—some believe it to be unlike any other language in existence. Western linguists believe that Japanese is a language clearly related to other, Northern Asian languages, but there is a fair amount of disagreement among them. Suffice it to say that Japanese is the only human language where we can't quite decide where it came from or what other languages it's related to.

From the point of view of the Japanese, the experience of this language is based on two, widely held beliefs about the language. First, the Japanese believe that the language is somehow highly unique—almost a language unto itself. Second, the Japanese believe that their language is extremely difficult for non-Japanese to read or understand. In fact, the Japanese have a name for non-Japanese who can speak and understand the language: hen gaijin , or "crazy foreigners." So the "experience" of Japanese as a language is an exclusive experience, a sense that one is participating in a language that no others can share or penetrate.

From a Western perspective, Japanese is not an overly difficult language to learn (Chinese and Old Irish are considerably more difficult) nor is it a unique language. There, however, the agreement ends. For it's uncertain exactly what language family Japanese comes from. There are three main theories about the origin of the Japanese language among both Western and Japanese linguists:
1. Japanese is an Altaic language related to Korean, Mongolian, and Turkish.
2. Japanese is an Austronesian language related to Papuan, Malayan and other Pacific languages.
3. Japanese is a Souteast Asian language related to Vietnamese, Tibetan, Burmese or, in one school of thought, the Tamil languages of southern India and Ceylon.
Almost all linguists believe that Japanese

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Chilli pepper removed from lung after a year-long cough

A chilli pepper has been removed from the lung of a man in China's Heilongjiang province, one year after he choked on it.

Wang Yuxiang from Longjiang county visited his local hospital to treat his year-long cough, but doctors soon found the cause to be something rather unusual.

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Dog and goose become best pals

A dog and a goose have become unlikely best friends in China after the dog rescued the bird after it was hit by a car.

Yu Yanping, who owns both animals, feared the worst when he saw his pet dog carrying the limp goose into the yard of his home at Jiujiawan village in Urumchi, northwestern China.

But it turned out the goose had been only stunned and it came round after being carried to safety by Yu's pet dog in the village, part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Yu, 47, said: "I thought he would eat the goose - but instead he put him down and licked the bird until it came round - and since then the two have been inseparable.


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2012: 15 doomsday prophecies and how they turned out

Not many people working today, aside from Blofeld or maybe Lex Luthor, have hatched as many plots to destroy the world as director Roland Emmerich (certainly not on such a grand scale). In Independence Day, he used a worldwide alien assault to blast human civilization to rubble. In The Day After Tomorrow, he flooded the world and then flash-froze it like some kind of Clarence Birdseye with delusions of godhood.

Emmerich is prepping his new disaster movie 2012 for release on Friday. This time he's basing his world-smashing destruction on a bunch of theories floating around the blogosphere and the nutosphere that state that the world will end sometime during late 2012, around the time of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

So, in light of Emmerich's new plot to destroy the world, and with tinfoil hats firmly in place, we thought it'd be worthwhile to look over 15 end-of-the-world prophecies from the past 1800 years or so and see how they turned out

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