Early settlers in Okinawa might have originated from Taiwan based on anthropological evidence
Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/02
By: Judy Lin, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Taipei (Taiwan News)—The first people that set foot on Okinawa, an island in Japan,
A photo of a Japanese family from Okinawa taken in early 1900s.(By Wikimedia Commons)
more than 30,000 years ago, might have sailed there on bamboo rafts from Taiwan, according to studies by Japanese anthropologists.
Chief anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu of Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science hypothesized the ancestors of today’s Okinawans might have been from Taiwan based on human remains, DNA, sociology and Paleolithic sites found on the islands, as well as other factors.
After examining skeletons and other artifacts found from Paleolithic sites in Okinawa some 30,000 years ago, Japanese anthropologists found the items were closely related to those found from the Changbin Culture (長濱文化) in Baixing Caves in Taitung County.
[FULL STORY]
