(From NIPPO's fiftieth anniversary history, vol. 1, 1936)
In recent years, Japanese dogs have become actively bred, and many speculative theories have emerged about the ancestry and components of the Japanese dog.
It is also unfortunate that this is believed by the general public as if it were true.I think this is partly because people in the Japanese dog world, especially in the Japanese dog world, have little interest in such research, and partly because few people are interested in archaeological anthropology and the like.
The first theory about the prehistoric inhabitants of Japan was that of Korpokkur.Dr. Tsuboi and others have proposed a theory based on the legends of the Ainu people of Hokkaido that there was already a kind of dwarf inhabitant called Korpokkur before the Stone Age inhabitants of Japan.
No one in the current anthropological and prehistorical circles would consider this theory, which has no academic basis.
However, some people seem to think that there were already separate cave dwellers in the Japanese dog world before the Stone Age inhabitants, and try to link the ancestors of the Japanese dog to them.
The next concept was that the Stone Age inhabitants of our country were the Ainu people.This was primarily the result of research by Dr. Koganei and others.
However, Dr. Kenji Kiyono's recent comparative measurements of the skulls of modern Ainu, Japanese Stone Age, and excavated skulls from the Tsukumo shell mound, the main excavation site, have numerically proven that the difference in measurement between the skulls of modern Ainu and Stone Age people is even greater than the difference between the skulls of modern Ainu and those of the modern Yamato region people.
In other words, the Japanese Stone Age people are neither the Ainu themselves nor the modern Kinai people themselves.I believe that the most closely researched theory is that they are the ancestors of the modern Kinai people as well as the ancestors of the Ainu people.
Therefore, the ancestors of the Japanese dog are also the primary components of the domestic dogs kept by the inhabitants of the Stone Age in Japan.The skeletons of these domestic dogs have been excavated from shell middens all over Japan (Rikuzen, Musashi, Sagami, Echigo, Hokkaido, Shimousa, Totomi, Etchu, Bicchu, Chikugo, Higo, Satsuma) and are now in the possession of Dr. Hasebe of Tohoku Imperial University (now Tohoku University), the Institute of Prehistory of Duke Ohyama of Tokyo, and the laboratory of Hiroshi Saito.
In 1923, Dr. Hasebe presented a classification of the skeletal types of this Stone Age domestic dog into four general types.These four types are briefly divided into two categories from a canine perspective.
The characteristics of the First type are as follows
- The entire skull is small and the brain enclosure is low.
- Fulness of the bend and width of the bow are large.
- The slope across the nasal bone from the frontal bone is gradual and not depressed at the nasal root.
- The temple comb is not compatible with the left and right sides of the forehead
- Temples are never in phase with each other.
- They first meet shortly before the occipital tubercle in a low sagittal shape.
The characteristics of the Second type are as follows
- Skull is larger than the former.
- The sagittal segment is also strong, its upper margin almost straight and elevated to the occipital tubercle
- The fold of the cerebral enclosure is less opulent than in the anterior type. The occipital bones project strongly posteriorly. The line from the frontal bone to the caudal root shows considerable inclination.
In other words, in terms of living organisms, it is as follows.
The former has no stop at all and seems rather raised, whereas the latter shows some concavity of the stop.
When their physique as a living organism was compared with the skull of a modern Japanese dog, the limb bones of a Stone Age dog, the limb bones of a modern Japanese dog, and those of a modern Japanese dog, the largest number of them were of a size belonging to the small size of modern Japanese dogs.
Even the larger of these were about the size of a modern Japanese dog smaller than a medium-sized dog. In terms of height, it is a modern Japanese dog of about 1 shaku 2 sun to 1 shaku 6 sun 5 min (about 30.0 cm~53 cm).
However, the mandible bones previously excavated from the Monzen and Oodora shell mounds in Rikuzentoshi are equivalent to the medium size of a modern Japanese dog.However, the length of its lower first molar was very large, an example not seen in Japanese domestic dogs; rather, one was as large as a wolf and the other was even longer, so we do not consider it to be a domestic dog.
From the above, it is clear that the Japanese domestic dog of the Stone Age was smaller or medium-sized than the modern Japanese dog.When examining the countries nearby, the domestic dogs of the Stone Age in Ryukyu were small dogs, almost similar to the first type. One Korean Stone Age domestic dog, belonging to the medium size of a modern Japanese dog, has been excavated from the Gimhae shell mound.
However, the type differs from both the Japanese Stone Age domestic dog and the modern Japanese dog in that it has a rather elongated skull that forms a wedge shape without an ample arch overhang.Although the head shape of the dog is not clear because only a fragment of the mandible was unearthed, it is almost similar to a small Japanese Stone Age dog. In Manchuria, Dr. Hasebe discovered that the domestic dog skull in the Lushun Museum is almost identical to the first type of Japanese Stone Age domestic dog.
Based on the above, it can be inferred that the first domestic dogs to enter Japan belonged to the first type, which was small in size, the same as the stone age domestic dogs of Ryukyu, Manchuria, and Korea, followed by the second type.
Moreover, the size and type influence of the dog excavated at Gimhae, Korea, on Japanese Stone Age domestic dogs is not recognized, suggesting that the Gimhae dog is a different type from the first type and entered the Korean peninsula later. Since the small Type 1 was very similar to the Stone Age (lake dwelling period) domestic dogs of Switzerland as well as Manchuria, Korea, and Ryukyu, it may be reasonable to assume that this type of dog spread widely from Europe to Asia. The small type 1 domestic dogs of the Stone Age in Japan are the most widely distributed and excavated, but no domestic dogs belonging to this type have been found in any mountain villages today. It is thought to have the crossbreeding with a second type that may have entered next.Although the crossbreeding resulted in a small size, I believe that as a percentage it was close to a medium size.Then, around the beginning of history, other domestic dogs were introduced to Japan, and this is thought to have led to the development of the present Japanese dog.
There are some in the dog breeder community who take as their lifeline the misguided idea of a time when the Sea of Japan had not yet caved in and was connected to the continent by land.
This is an argument that seems to have been conceived because of the accidental discovery of ancient mammoth bones in Japan, and it is an argument that ignores the differences in time periods. Others believe that Japan and Korea were contacted by a number of islands, but this is also a theory that is not well understood by geoarchaeologists. Rather than those etc., we believe that those who have examined tidal relations are far more pertinent to the arrival of the ancients. Some people believe that Japanese medium-sized and large dogs were already introduced to Japan in prehistoric times under the influence of Tibetan mastiffs on the continent.
The Japanese Stone Age domestic dog and the Manchu and Korean Stone Age domestic dogs also have a skull morphology influenced by the Mastiff lineage, i.e., a very small brain housing, extremely low degree of folding, and extremely high sagittal segments. No skulls with a large muzzle width have yet been found.
Also, as mentioned earlier, there were no domestic dogs of such large stature.
There is also a theory that falconry was introduced from Central Asia to China, from China to Korea, and from Korea to Japan, and that many greyhounds from Central Asia and the Mongolian region came to Japan along with falcons, becoming one of the components of the Japanese medium-sized dog. I think that none of this is very much guesswork.
It is a fact that the art of falconry was introduced in this way.
However, the best falcons did not come from China or Mongolia, but were first produced in what is now called Hamgyeongbuk-do（咸鏡北道） Province.
This falconry was called Haedongqing (海東青/white falcon in modern times), and the dogs used for falconry were called Haedonggu（海東狗）, which were highly prized. On the contrary, Korean’s history clearly describes the great number of falcons and dogs that were sent from Korean to mainland China each year, and the great suffering that Korean endured over the generations.
Few falcons or dogs have ever come to Korea from China. A study of the goods that came to Japan from Korea shows that many falcons came to Japan, but almost no dogs.
Moreover, the Korean falconry dog was not a greyhound, as shown in a picture of falconry in the collection of the King Yi family. All that was depicted were small, triangular erect ears, coiled tails and deep coats that at first glance looked exactly like a medium-sized Japanese dog. It is possible that the Mongolian Greyhound may have come to Japan as a prized animal, but it is unlikely that it came as a falconry dog and was imported in large enough numbers to have a significant impact on Japanese dogs.
The Sakhalin Husky has an approximate skull measurement rate equivalent to the large size of the modern Japanese dog, but is completely different from the Japanese dog in the width of its muzzle.
Of course, they differ from Japanese stone age domestic dogs in size and other aspects. It is the Taiwanese native dogs（生蕃犬） that we consider most in need of attention.
The skull of a domesticated dog from one Taiwanese aboriginal settlement is proportionally similar to the first type of Japanese Stone Age domestic dog. Of course, it has much more approximations than the first type of modern Japanese small dogs, but we believe that more research is needed to determine that they are exactly the same species. It is also considered the breed that needs the most attention in the study of prehistoric dogs.
Some people believe that the ancestor of the small Japanese dog was the Indian jackal, and that the medium-sized dog was converted from the Siberian wolf, and some have even suggested a modern approximation of the two. I think they thought this was simply because of the many approximations they saw in the pictures.
That the jackal may be part of the ancestors of the small dogs of the world's livestock dog world is what each expert scholar has considered and is most interested in.
But those who think this is the result of the small size of the Japanese dog from the modern jackal itself are just as impossible as those who think the modern Japanese were formed from monkeys. This should be interpreted as a partial ancestral component of the Japanese small breed dog, which has a jackal ancestry.
As an experiment, Hiroshi Saito compared and measured the skull of a small Japanese dog bred by NIPPO Director Yonekichi Hiraiwa with that of a jackal. As a result, the very difference in their types was truly apparent.
If the nose root is concave like that of Japanese dogs, the muzzle should be lower than that of Japanese dogs due to the lower cerebral chassis. Thus, contrary to the Japanese dog, the jackal has a raised, not concave, shape at the root of the nose.
While the width of the viewing arch is almost the same, the maxillary alveolar margin spacing is much narrower in the jackals. Thus, the cheeks of the Japanese dog are curved in a full circle, whereas the cheeks of the jackal are wedge-shaped, with the cheeks protruding only near the ear canals and narrowing abruptly toward the front.
While the facial lengths are almost the same, the nasal bone length is slightly longer in jackals and the nostril width is much narrower. Thus, they do not have the muzzle of a Japanese dog, but rather a thin, pointed muzzle like a fox.
The difference in aspect due to the ecology of the two is quite stark. To put it simply, the first difference between the modern Siberian wolf and the Japanese medium-sized dog is the sheer difference in size.
Secondly, the sagittal comb, long and narrow occipital bone, long and thin rostrum, convexity of the root of the nose, and narrow arch are completely different from those of the Japanese medium-size dog.
The next theory, which has been handed down from generation to generation, is that the modern medium-sized Japanese dog was created through crossbreeding with wolves. It is extremely difficult for a true wild wolf, let alone a domestic dog gone wild, to spontaneously interbreed with a domestic dog, and even if it were possible to interbreed with human preparation and intention, it is unlikely that the breeding of its offspring could continue. Those who have studied wolves, etc. somewhat will agree that this is a satisfactory problem.
In the end, it is appropriate to interpret the modern Japanese dog as being based on the prehistoric domestic dog, which was somewhat fixed after prehistoric times under the influence of other factors, and then took on the local characteristics of each region of Japan until it reached the present day.
Of these, medium-sized and small dogs have the oldest history, and it seems reasonable to interpret that large dogs, compared to medium-sized and small dogs, were fixed under the influence of dogs from the continent and other large dogs, etc., in relatively modern times.
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