Yezo via the long chain of the Kuriles to Kamchatka. The first of the
southwestern routes is from the northwest of Kyushu via the islands
of Iki and Tsushima to the southeast of Korea; and the second is from
the south of the Izumo promontory in Japan, by the aid of the current
which sets up the two southern routes. One of these is from the
southwest of Kyushu via the Goto Islands to southeastern China; the
other is from the south of Kyushu via the Ryukyu Islands, Formosa,
and the Philippines to Malaysia and Polynesia. It has also been
proved geologically* that the islands now forming Japan must at one
time have been a part of the Asiatic continent. Evidently these
various avenues may have given access to immigrants from Siberia,
from China, from Malaysia, and from Polynesia.

*There have been found in the gravel Tertiary mammals including
elephas primigenius, elephas Namadicus, stegodon Clifti, and unnamed
varieties of bear, deer, bison, ox, horse, rhinoceros, and whale.
(Outlines of the Geology of Japan; Imperial Geological Survey).

CULTURE

Archaeological research indicates the existence of two distinct
cultures in Japan together with traces of a third. One of these
cultures has left its relics chiefly in shell-heaps or embedded in
the soil, while the remains of another are found mainly in sepulchral
chambers or in caves. The relics themselves are palpably distinct
except when they show transitional approach to each other.

The older culture is attested by more than four thousand residential
sites and shell-heaps. Its most distinctive features are the absence
of all metallic objects and the presence of pottery not turned on the
wheel. Polished, finely chipped, and roughly hewn implements and
weapons of stone are found, as are implements of bone and horn.

It was, in short, a neolithic culture. The vestiges of the other
culture do not include weapons of stone. There are imitations of
sheath-knives, swords, and arrow-heads, and there are some models of
stone articles. But the alien features are iron weapons and hard
pottery always moulded on the wheel. Copper is present mainly in
connexion with the work of the goldsmith and the silversmith, and
arrow-heads, jingle-bells, mirrors, etc., are also present. The
former culture is identified as that of the aboriginal inhabitants,
the Yemishi; the latter belongs to the Yamato race, or Japanese
proper. Finally, "there are indications that a bronze culture
intervened in