page_title: Ainu people
section_title: Maternal lineages
hierarchical_section_title: Ainu people / Origins / Genetics / Maternal lineages
caption_attribution_description: English: A Japanese samurai and Ainu in Hokkaido around 1775. Ainu Genre Ema (絵馬), Hakodate City Museum, Hokkaido, Japan 日本語: 武士とアイヌ（1775年頃）。アイヌ風俗絵馬 「奉獻　安永四己末年正月吉日　藤原政展」
context_page_description: The Ainu or the Aynu, also known as the Ezo in historical Japanese texts, are an East Asian ethnic group indigenous to Japan, the original inhabitants of Hokkaidō and Russia.
  Official estimates place the total Ainu population of Japan at 25,000. Unofficial estimates place the total population at 200,000 or higher, as the near-total assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society has resulted in many individuals with Ainu heritage having no knowledge of their ancestry.
context_section_description: Based on analysis of one sample of 51 modern Ainus, their mtDNA lineages consist mainly of haplogroup Y (11/51 = 21.6% according to Tanaka et al. 2004, or 10/51 = 19.6% according to Adachi et al. 2009, who have cited Tajima et al. 2004), haplogroup D (9/51 = 17.6%, particularly D4(xD1)), haplogroup M7a (8/51 = 15.7%), and haplogroup G1 (8/51 = 15.7%). Other mtDNA haplogroups detected in this sample include A (2/51), M7b2 (2/51), N9b (1/51), B4f (1/51), F1b (1/51), and M9a (1/51). Most of the remaining individuals in this sample have been classified definitively only as belonging to macro-haplogroup M.
  According to Sato et al. (2009), who have studied the mtDNA of the same sample of modern Ainus (n=51), the major haplogroups of the Ainu are N9 (14/51 = 27.5%, including 10/51 Y and 4/51 N9(xY)), D (12/51 = 23.5%, including 8/51 D(xD5) and 4/51 D5), M7 (10/51 = 19.6%), and G (10/51 = 19.6%, including 8/51 G1 and 2/51 G2); the minor haplogroups are A (2/51), B (1/51), F (1/51), and M(xM7, M8, CZ, D, G) (1/51).
  Studies published in 2004 and 2007 show the combined frequency of M7a and N9b were observed in Jōmons and which are believed by some to be Jōmon maternal contribution at 28% in Okinawans (7/50 M7a1, 6/50 M7a(xM7a1), 1/50 N9b), 17.6% in Ainus (8/51 M7a(xM7a1), 1/51 N9b), and from 10% (97/1312 M7a(xM7a1), 1/1312 M7a1, 28/1312 N9b) to 17% (15/100 M7a1, 2/100 M7a(xM7a1)) in mainstream Japanese.
  In addition, haplogroups D4, D5, M7b, M9a, M10, G, A, B, and F have been found in Jōmon people as well.
caption: The samurai and the Ainu, Hokkaidō, c. 1775
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