The Yamato or Wajin , also known as the Japanese, are an East Asian ethnic group that comprises over 98% of the population of Japan and are the primary Japanese people. Genetic and anthropometric studies have shown that the Yamato people predominantly descend from the Yayoi people, who migrated to Japan from the continent beginning during the 1st millennium BC, with some ancestry from the indigenous Jōmon people who had inhabited the Japanese archipelago for millennia prior.