Good find. Some people think Jomon and Ainus are the same people.
...and Ainu, Ainu, originated on Mork and Mindy.
Feel free to stop me at any time. ;')
I do. The oldest Jomon skeleton ever found is 13,000 years old and was found in Japan. The Jomon are believed to have been the first pottery makers and their pottery is marked with a distinctive 'cord-marked' pattern. Similar 'cord-markings' have been found in the Olmec sites in Mexico.
Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People
Recent DNA research shows that they are descended from the ancient Jomon people of Japan. Physically, the Ainu differed from Japanese and other nearby Asian peoples in language and especially in ...
www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/ainu/html/ room01.html · Cached page
The world's first known pottery was developed by the Jomon people in the 14th millennium BC. The name, "Jomon" (¿IÎÄ J¨mon), which means "cord-impressed pattern", comes from the characteristic markings found on the pottery.
The Jomon people were Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, though at least one middle to late Jomon site ca. 1200-1000 BC had a primitive rice-growing agriculture (ÄÏœÏÊÖ Minami misote site). They relied primarily on fish for protein. It is believed that the Jomon had very likely migrated from North Asia or Central Asia and became the Ainu of today.
Research suggests that the Ainu retain a certain degree of uniqueness in their genetic make-up, while having some affinities with different regional populations in Japan as well as the Nivkhs of the Russian Far East.(Tajima 2004)
Based on more than a dozen genetic markers on a variety of chromosomes and from archaeological data showing habitation of the Japanese Archipelago dating back 30,000 years, it is argued that the Jomon actually came from Northeastern Asia and settled on the islands far earlier than some have proposed.