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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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National Geographic and Celts
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gorseddphungus
185 posts

Japan questions II
Mar 16, 2006, 18:28
Thanks for those two books. I have read they are quite outdated though I have nothing against old books. The other two books I mentioned are very recent and, having a Japanese archaeologist in my family I could assure you that things only in the last two decades have revolutionized thinking there. Discoveries of stone circles (actually around Akita) are making news there. However, it is still vastly bound by academicism.

I have countless photos of post-yayoi kohun (the gorgeous megalithic pyramids) from western Japan which I have visited; I would also say that, archaeologically speaking, northern Japan (the 'savage' area) has nearly NO kohun, since these were mostly post-yayoi structures.

And regarding the Ainu again (which seems to bother Westerners so much) I can tell you that the way some of the remaining ones look is not that different from the rest of the Japanese population. In fact, I have friends in the west who look much wilder and almost entirely European. You will also always find tall guys in the streets (still 'Asian') who could go by unnoticed in the streets of, say, Italy. But to talk about race in Japan is almost taboo after the racist traumas of the second world war where the entire nation was said to be divine, etc etc

Japan was traditionally believed to be quite homogenous but in the same way that a Brit cannot be defined racially (including Indoeuropean and non-Indoeuropean elements, say, Welsh vs Saxon to understand each other) so have the islands of Japan accommodated many of the various peoples that rambled around the neighbouring areas in prehistoric times.

Cheers
XXX
GP
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