As compared with China. and perhaps with Korea, the civilization of Japan is comparatively modern, for the coming of the continental :Mon goloid ancestors of the Japanese to the island may he fixed at B.C. 2000-1500. Their conquest of the various islands of the great archipelago was slow and apparently difficult. as the Japa nese annals themselves record. for the Aino and proto-A inn population was well distributed throughout the group. Relics of Aino origin are found almost everywhere, but naturally in more abundance toward the north. The amount of Aino blood in the modern Japanese is consider ably more than hitherto supposed, and the liberal policy of the present authorities toward the _linos of the extreme north is leading to a recognition of the abilities and intellectuality of this ancient and primitive people. pointing to their ultimate disappearance, not by dying out or extermina tion. but by absorption into the general popula tion. The question of the or Polynesian element in Japan is more difficult to elucidate.
Twice at least in Japanese annals there is men tion of swarthy foreigners from the south who made irruptions into Eastern and Central Japan.
These, according to several authorities, were Malayan or lalayoid tribes, NV110 Mlle by way of Formosa and the Loo-ehoo Islands, and the physical characteristics of this stvtion of Japan hear testimony to their presence and their num bers. Other evidence of a .11alayan influence ex ists. according to some ethnologists. in the struc ture of the house, the practice of massage. cer tain 'lances. luxury, and love of weapons. Some of these resemblanees are too general, however, and others too clearly the product of the Japa nese environment, to be conclusive evidence. The introduction of Chinese and Korean civilization into Japan dates back for its beginnings to about the first Christian century, and this intim-nee was strengthened after the transference of Bud dhism in the sixth century.