Satsumon culture

Partially archaeological, agricultural period of northern Honshū and Hokkaidō, Japan

The Satsumon culture is a partially agricultural, archeological culture of northern Honshu and southern Hokkaido that has been identified as Emishi, as a Japanese-Emishi mixed culture, as the incipient modern Ainu, or with all three synonymously. Scholars frequently equate Satsumon people with the Emishi, a culture that emerged in northern Honshu as early as the 5th century CE, and in being ancestral to the Ainu people. This proposition is based on similarities between Ainu and Emishi skeletal remains as well as a number of place names across Honshu that resemble Ainu words. It is possible that the emergence of Satsumon culture in Hokkaido was triggered by immigration of Emishi people from Honshu. However, there are many differences between Emishi and Satsumon. For instance, horse riding and rice agriculture, neither of which were present in ancient Hokkaido, were both central to Emishi lifestyle. It may have arisen as a merger of the Yayoi–Kofun and the Jōmon cultures. The Satsumon culture appears to have spread from northeastern Honshu into southern Hokkaido. The Satsumon culture is regarded to be ancestral to the later Ainu culture, under some influence of the Okhotsk culture.

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