Doctor plans global trek to explore how Japanese got here  A
Tokyo surgeon and explorer plans to embark on a five-year
journey Thursday to trace the origins of the Japanese people.
Yoshiharu Sekino, 55, of the western Tokyo suburb of Kokubunji,
begins his new adventure roughly two years after completing a
50,000-km trek to trace the “great journey” that humans are
believed to have taken as they migrated from Africa to other
parts of the world millions of years ago.  He plans to trace
what he calls the three possible paths that the ancestors of the
Japanese are believed to have taken about 30,000 to 40,000 years
ago to reach Japan.  The “northern” route is believed to have
brought people to Japan from Siberia via Russia’s Sakhalin
Island, the “continental” route from China via the Korean
Peninsula, and the “kuroshio” route from Southeast Asia along
the Japan Current.  Sekino also plans to explore an additional
sea route, which people are believed to have taken to reach
Pacific islands.  During his previous jo