Summary:

Jari Okkonen, Emergence of the paradigm of racial uniqueness in Japan in the 1940s

All ideas of Palaeolithic settlement in Japan were rejected before the Second World War, so that the earliest phase in Japanese prehistory was defined as the “Ainu Stone Age” and the subsequent Yayoi period was characterized by the introduction of metallurgy and the expansion of rice cultivation. The fate of the Ainu was to retreat to the northern fringe of Honshu and Hokkaido. The paradigm fitted in well with the intellectual atmosphere of the expansive Japanese empire. After the disastrous war, however, the basic myths of the nation and the historical narratives linked to the national identity came under supervision from the U.S. occupation forces.

The main task of archaeology and physical anthropology in that situation was to study the roots of the Japanese people. At the time of decolonization and U.S. military occupation a new scientific theory was established in physical anthropology, principally by Professor Kotondo Hasebe (1882–1969) and his successor Hisashi Suzuki (1912–2004). According to this new paradigm, the Japanese people inhabited the islands from Palaeolithic times onwards without any notable migration from the continent. This presupposed the paradigmatic idea of a homogeneous Japanese race.