BLOOD GROUPS OF KOREANS

KOREA has recently been the centre of a political conflict which has involved many nations of the world. The country has been subj ected to many migrations and invasions throughout its history and it is probable that these have all contributed to the ethnology of its present population. There is a belief that a Chinese migration entered Korea about 1122 b.c. and mixed with the earliest known inhabitants, who are thought to have been a proto-caucasoid or paleo-asiatic people. Although the accuracy of this legend has been doubted by some scholars, it suggests that there was contact between the Chinese and the Koreans in this early period. There are definite records of Chinese invasions about 500 b.c. and again about 300 b.c. After a further Chinese occupation about 108 b.c. the country was apparently under Chinese rule for some centuries. During the fourth century A.D. Korea was subjected to numerous invading attacks from Japan, Manchuria and Mongolia. In A.D. 1592 a Japanese army of some 300,000 men invaded Korea and war followed for six years, during which time a Chinese army of about 60,000 helped the Korean resistance. The Japanese were successful and their domination of the country continued until the latter part of the eighteenth century. It would seem that the humiliation of defeat prevented development of the country, but in recent times Japan has attempted to modernize both the urban and rural communities. During the nineteenth century Korea suffered at the hands of French and United States expeditions, but formed trading liaisons with Japan, China and Russia. The mixture of Korea's early population with warring and trading invaders has undoubtedly contributed to the development of the present population, the members of which differ from both the Chinese and Japanese in physiognomy although they have in common dark straight hair, dark oblique eyes, a tinge of bronze in the skin, high cheek bones and somewhat flattened noses.