Jōmon period
"Jōmon" means "patterns of plaited cord" or "cord-patterned"  from the way they decorated their pottery. The Jōmon people were closely related to the ancestors of other East Asians, but became isolated on the Japanese archipelago in 15,000BCE and recived some geneflow from an European-related population from Siberia along a North to South cline. It is suggested that the Jōmon, like other East Asians and Native Americans, ultimately originated in Southeast Asia. Cultural similarities exist with Native Americans.