Connections between these people and the five lowly castes of the ritsuryo system were mostly denied, but connections of these people with buraku in early-modern times during the Edo period has become a major theme of historical research.
律令制下の五色の賤との歴史的連続性については、ほぼ否定されているが、江戸時代の近世部落との連続性は、現在、歴史研究の主要な議論テーマとなっている。