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Prehistoric period Jeulmun Mumun
Ancient period Gojoseon  ? – 108 BC * Dangun * Gija * Wiman Jin 4th–2rd century BC Yemaek
Proto–Three Kingdoms period Buyeo Eastern Galsa Goguryeo Okjeo Dongye Samhan Ma Byeon Jin Four Commanderies of Han
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Later Three Kingdoms period Later Baekje 892–936 Taebong (Later Goguryeo) 901–918 Unified Silla (Later Silla) 668–935
Dynastic period Goryeo 918–1392 Joseon 1392–1897 Korean Empire 1897–1910
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Yemaek or Yamaek (Korean pronunciation: [jemɛk]) was an ancient tribal group in the northern Korean Peninsula and Manchuria who are regarded by many scholars as the ancestors of modern Koreans.^[1][2][3][4] According to iGENEA, a leading European genealogy service, their current research suggests that "modern Koreans are descended from the Yemaek people."^[5] The Yemaek had ancestral ties to various Korean kingdoms including Gojoseon, Buyeo, Goguryeo, and tribes including Okjeo, Dongye (Ye), Yangmaek (양맥; 梁貊) and Sosumaek (소수맥; 小水貊).^[6]

History

Yemaek is believed to be a combination of Ye (濊) and Maek (貊) people of two neighboring cultures.^[7]

The main culture is the Seodansan culture. He Qiutao (何秋涛) said Ye is the short name of Buyeo.^[8] Dongye first appears in history as a vassal state of Gojoseon until its fall to the Han dynasty in 108 BC.^[9] It was known as the Huiyetou (穢邪頭) state in Shuowen Jiezi.^[10][11] It later became a vassal of the increasingly powerful Goguryeo. According to the Chinese Records of Three Kingdoms, Ye worshiped tigers,^[12] whereas the Chinese characters 貊 (OC ZS *mɡraːɡ) & 貉 (OC *mbraːɡ), which were used to transcribe Maek, were sometimes also used to as a homophonic phonetic loan character to write 貘 (OC *mraːɡ), which means "white leopard" according to Erya;^[13] yet Guo Pu's commentary indicates that 貘 means a kind of bear,^[14] now identified as the giant panda since 1970s.^[15] Gomnaru, the capital of Baekje, also means the "bear port". Historians suggest tigers and bears may have been totems worshiped by Ye and Maek tribes. 狛, which is a variant form of the Chinese character 貊 for Maek, is used in the Japanese language to transcribe the word Koma (cf. Komainu); Koma is also sometimes written with the characters 高麗 "Go(gu)ryeo, Goryeo." The similarity between the pronunciation of Koma and Korean gōm "bear" (also cf. Japanese kuma "bear") is notable.

A recent study considers the ancestor of Maek (貊) to be Bal (發). According to Records of the Grand Historian, the Bal were adjacent to Shanrong and Sushen. According to Guanzi, Bal-Joseon sold patterned fur skins and visited the Royal Court. In Yi Zhou Shu, there are Ye and Bal in the book, but there are no Maek. According to this, at least Bal and Gojoseon are believed to have lived in adjacent areas.^{[16][17][18][19][20]}

Korean historians believe that the Yemaek established their cultural zone around the 12th to 10th century BC, and that these tribes began to grow more heterogenously by the 7th and 8th centuries BC due to different geographical and environmental circumstances.^[21] The Yemaek were believed to have been culturally influenced by the "Mongol-Siberian" nomadic cultures and that their ethnic origins were distinct from the ancestors of the Han Chinese.^[22] Korean historians also believe that during the late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, the Yemaek were technologically influenced by ancient Chinese who introduced iron-making technology to the Yemaek.^[23]

In 705 BC, Shanrong (山戎) carried out the plunder based on the Guzhu (孤竹國) between the Yan, Qi and Zhao kingdoms. However, it was defeated by the allied forces of the Yan and Qi of 660 BC and pushed northward. There were numerous northern peoples within the Shanrong Alliance for plunder, one of which was the Bal (發). This seems to be why Goguryeo people think they came from Guzhu (孤竹國).^[24][25] After the Gojoseon–Yan War and Han conquest of Gojoseon, Bal (發) who is from north of Gojoseon is thought to move east and become a Maek family.

Several history books suggest Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom in history, was established by the Yemaek.^[26][27]

• In Dangun's ancestry legend of Gojoseon recorded in Samguk Yusa, a tiger and a bear prayed to Hwanung that they may become human but had to stay in a cave eating only garlic and mugwort, and while the tiger shortly gave up and left the cave, the bear remained and after 21 days was transformed into a woman who later married Hwanung and then gave birth to Dangun Wanggeom,^[28] which is believed to symbolize combination of Ye and Maek tribes into one Yemaek tribe.^[29]
• Tombstone of Yeon Namsan (연남산) found in Luoyang says Yeon, son of Goguryeo's leader Yeon Gaesomun, is a Joseon person.^[30]
• According to Shiji records, to the east of Xiongnu were Yemaek and Gojoseon.^[31]

Korean historian Hyung Il Pai notes that the connection between Yemaek and the origins of the "Korean race" was first made by Japanese colonial researchers such as Shiratori Kurakichi, who sought to trace Korean racial origins to Manchuria and therefore treated Ye and Yemaek as a single racial entity. However, Hyung Il Pai argues that there is no firm evidence linking Yemaek and the earlier Ye people or the Maek (Mo) people mentioned in Chinese records.^[32] In addition, due to the inconsistency of Chinese records, frequently mentioning Ye without any connection to Maek, and coupling the Ye and Maek with many other peoples such as Hu-Maek, Yi-Maek, and Wuhuan Ye-Maek, Hyung Il Pak argues that Ye or Maek could not have referred to a homogeneous tribe or racial unity, or a unified state.^[32]

Language

There have been some academic attempts to recover Yemaek words based on the fragments of toponyms recorded in the Samguk Sagi for the areas once possessed by Goguryeo and Buyeo-Baekje.

Legacy

According to Samguk Sagi, Silla was established as a confederacy of six clans composed of Gojoseon refugees,^[33] and the Royal Seal of Ye (예왕지인; 濊王之印), previously used by Buyeo's kings, was found in Silla in 19 AD and presented for King Namhae of Silla.^[34] Furthermore, the Goguryeo, Baekje, Buyeo and Gaya are all also believed to have originated from the Yemaek tribes.^[35]

It is estimated that the replacement of the Yemaek and Gojoseon language, which is a superior position in the existing three kingdoms, was accelerated by the southward movement of northern people in the late 3rd century.^[36]

The Yemaek culture can be seen as ancestral to the modern Culture of Korea as well as to the various kingdoms in Korea and parts of northeastern China.^[37] Some nationalist historians such as Yeo Ho-kyu argue that the origins of the Korean people lay in the Yemaek tribes.^[38]

The historian Sang-Yil Kim claims that the Koreanic Yemaek tribe did also influence the early Chinese culture. He suggests that the Yemaek tribe had a large cultural impact on East Asia and that at least some of the Dongyi were of proto-Korean origin.^[39]

See also

• History of Korea
• History of Manchuria
• List of Korean monarchs
• Gojoseon
• Buyeo
• Goguryeo

References