Hokkaido Jomon cultures continued during the Yayoi period long after the Jomon ended in southwestern Japan, but these continuing (or Epi-Jomon) sites developed a new character. Most sites consist of ...

Students in the inaugural class of an Ainu craft school in Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, are set to graduate soon, after completing their training to acquire skills of the indigenous ethnic group. At ...

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido is well known for its world-class powder snow, delicious food and unspoiled nature. Few people outside the country, however, are ...

SAPPORO, Japan - Separated by a short span of freezing sea, a local association of Ainu in Hokkaido has started efforts to forge relations with the Aleuts of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. As part of Ainu ...

Growing up in Japan, musician Oki Kano never knew he was part of a “vanishing people.” His Japanese mother was divorced and never told Kano that his birth father was an indigenous Ainu man. Kano was ...

FROM A DISTANCE, the National Ainu Museum glistens. When the sleek concrete-and-glass structure opened in 2020, it became the first national museum dedicated to the oft-forgotten indigenous people of ...

Chances are you haven’t met an Ainu speaker in Japan. After all, Google’s Endangered Languages Project puts the number of native speakers at fewer than five. But the Ainu people once populated a wide ...