Free Republic

YONAGUNI, OKINAWA PREF. - A team of Japanese and Taiwanese paddlers in a dugout canoe on Tuesday successfully replicated a hypothetical human migration between Taiwan and Okinawa about 30,000 years ago. During the two-day, 200-kilometer voyage from Taitung County, southeastern Taiwan, to Yonaguni Island, Okinawa Prefecture, the team of five paddlers — one Taiwanese, three Japanese men and one Japanese woman — relied solely on the stars, sun and wind for their bearings. They departed Taiwan on Sunday afternoon in their 7.6-meter-long, 70-centimeter-wide wooden canoe, crossing the Black Stream, which begins off the Philippines and flows northeastward past Japan. The...

Researchers have unearthed an ancient forearm bone from the Mabuni Hantabaru archeological site in Itoman, Okinawa Prefecture, believed to be from a Jomon period male roughly 169 centimeters tall -- much taller than the average for the period. The bone, measuring about 28 centimeters, is believed to be from the late Jomon period, dating back 3,000-4,000 years. The average height of males from the same period is about 158 centimeters. Takayuki Matsushita, honorary head of the Doigahama Site Anthropological Museum in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which conducted a survey of the area, said the find was unusual. "Even on a national scale,...