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No one knows exactly where the Koreans
came from or who they are. It is believed that the humanoid - human-like
creatures - appeared about two and half million years ago and that the
humans as we know today, homo sapiens sapiens, came into being some 35,000
years ago. Although the oldest known writings - written language - date
back only 5,000 years at best, we can 'read' our history by studying fossils,
our DNA, geological data, cosmological data, our language, and so on,
and from these records, we can determine the origin, or rather the prehistoric
history, of the Korean
race, the baik-yi-min-jok - the 'White-clad People' (called "Dong-yi"
-- the eastern barbarians, 동이족 東夷族" and also 예맥족 濊貊族 by the Chinese
historians).
Koreans are
classified as the Mongoloid (the 'yellow' race) along with Chinese,
Japanese, Native
Americans, Mongols, Eskimos, and so on. The Yellow race makes up 33%
of the world population. The Caucasoid (the "white" race), including
the Australian aborigines, Arabs,
Indians, Polynesians, and so on, accounts for 59% of the world population,
while the Negroid (the 'black'
race) accounts for only 8%. It is believed the Negroid and Caucasoid
are more closely related than the Mongoloid, which gave rise to the regionalism
hypothesis whereby the Mongoloid has evolved from homo erectus while the
Negroid and the Caucasoid have evolved from a common ancestor homo antecessor.
The character 'Yi', as shown above, was originally meant for barbarians
in the east, but later expanded to be more an inclusive word to mean
aliens. The big Korean school of thought, touched on in prehistory section,
claimed that the Koreans were true
descendants of the Dongyi [Dong-yi] people. Hence, the identities of Koreans
had changed dramatically during the course of history. As one reader speculated,
"modern-day
Koreans" might very well have "appropriated their (Dongyi)
history and myths". Charcoal remains of 2000-year-old rice in western
Japan pointed to China's Yantze Delta as the origin. DNA studies conducted
on human remains excavated in Shandong Peninsula suggested southern and
northern points of origin for Jormon and Yayoi Japanese. On basis of various
historical records and modern technology analysis, I would speculate that
early Korean
culture was very much connected with eastern China as a result of
nascent human migration from south to north and ii) that Tungusic invasions
from Manchuria gradually overtook the early Continental traits. In both
cases, Tungusic or continental, Koreans shared inseparable relations with
the Chinese.
"May
Peace Prevail on Earth"
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