How ‘Circumpolar’ is Ainu Music? Musical and Genetic Perspectives on the History of the Japanese Archipelago

Understanding the cultural and genetic origins of the Ainu of northern Japan has important implications for understanding the history of the Japanese archipelago. Ethnomusicologists have tended to emphasise connections between Ainu music and a ‘circumpolar’ culture area. However, the ‘dual structure’ model from physical anthropology describes the Ainu as descendants of the first inhabitants of Japan with minimal circumpolar influence. To examine Ainu musical diversity empirically from a comparative perspective, we analysed 680 traditional songs from two Ainu and 33 surrounding East Asian and circumpolar populations. The Ainu repertoire contained a majority (∼50%) of unique stylistic song-types and lower frequencies of types shared with circumpolar (∼40%) and East Asian (∼10%) populations. These frequencies were similar to the corresponding frequencies of mitochondrial DNA types within the Ainu gene pool (∼50%, ∼30% and ∼20%, respectively), consistent with an emerging ‘triple structure’ model of Japanese archipelago history.

探明日本北部阿伊努族（Ainu）的文化与遗传起源，对于理解日本列岛（Japanese archipelago）的历史具有重要意义。民族音乐学家（ethnomusicologists）通常倾向于强调阿伊努音乐与“环北极文化圈（circumpolar culture area）”之间的关联。然而，体质人类学（physical anthropology）领域提出的“二元结构模型（dual structure model）”将阿伊努族视为日本首批原住民的后裔，且受环北极文化影响极微。为从比较研究的视角实证考察阿伊努音乐的多样性，我们分析了来自2个阿伊努族群以及33个周边东亚与环北极族群的共680首传统歌曲。阿伊努族的曲库中，绝大多数（约50%）为独具特色的风格化曲种，而与环北极族群（约40%）及东亚族群（约10%）共享的曲种占比相对较低。该占比分布与阿伊努基因库中线粒体DNA（mitochondrial DNA）类型的对应占比（分别约为50%、30%与20%）高度相似，与学界新近提出的日本列岛历史“三元结构模型（triple structure model）”相符。