Yayoi

The Yayoi period (Japanese: ????, Yayoi-jidai) is an era in Japan from 300 BC to AD 250. It is named after the section of Tokyo where archaeological investigations uncovered its first recognized traces. The Yayoi period is marked either by the start of the practice of growing rice in a paddy field or a new Yayoi-style earthenware.

Related Topics:
Japanese - Japan - 300 BC - 250 - Tokyo

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Following the J?mon period (10,000 BC to 300 BC), the Yayoi period flourished between about 300 BC and AD 250 from southern Kyushu to northern Honshu. Recent discoveries suggest that it may have started as early as 900 BC though. Because of the seemingly abrupt and dramatic cultural changes associated with the Yayoi period, it is generally assumed that the Yayoi culture did not develop directly from the J?mon one, but that the Yayoi were a people who migrated from the Asian mainland. Evidence of dry rice farming predating wet rice farming, and the fact that the genetic makeup of Japanese rice is similar to that of the sticky rice found on parts of the mainland, may make the following theory more tentative.

Related Topics:
J?mon - 10,000 BC - 300 BC - AD 250 - Kyushu - Honshu - 900 BC - Asia - Sticky rice

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As Korea is the most accessible location, a theory publicized in the early Meiji period in Japan argued that the Yayoi culture was brought to the Japanese islands by immigrants from the Korean peninsula, most likely from Goguryeo (Koguryo) or Baekje (Paekche). This theory is further continued on by many western scholars and internationally oriented Japanese scholars due to the many archaeological findings that "clearly derive from the Korean peninsula" including, "bunded paddy fields, new types of polished stone tools, wooden farming implements, iron tools, weaving teachnology, ceramic storage jars, exterior bonding of clay coils in pottery fabrication, ditched settlements, domesticated pigs, jawbone rituals, and megalithic tombs"- {{Book reference | Author=Mark J Hudson | Title=Ruins of Identity Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands | Publisher =University Hawai'i Press | Year=1999 | ID=0-8248-2156-4}}. Although this theory does intially present a few problems such as the fact that there are limited similarities between the Korean and Japanese languages, and that it is unlikely that the roughly 4 million people needed to fill the population gap between the J?mon and Yayoi periods could have migrated in such a short time. The larger population of the Yayoi period could be accounted for by the greater nutrition possible from an agriculturally-based diet, as opposed to the more limited caloric intake of a hunter-gatherer diet. To account for the linguistical weakness, the grammatical structures are similar between the two languages, and some aspects of the Japanese language closely resemble that of Goguryeo (modern Korean being derived from the language of Silla, not of Goguryeo or Baekje,). Historians such as Jared Diamond have theorized that the Yayoi may have been related to the Goguryeo or the Baekje, tribes that were eventually incorporated into the medieval Korean statehttp://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/PacificRimReadings/JapaneseRoots.html. Information on the Goguryeo language is limited, but analysis by Christopher Beckwith and others support a connection with Goguryeo/Baekje and ancient Japanese.http://www.brill.nl/m_catalogue_sub6_id22045.htm

Related Topics:
Korea - Goguryeo - Baekje - Korean - Japanese language - Silla - Jared Diamond - Christopher Beckwith

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One current theory is that the Yayoi culture did emerge out of the J?mon culture with only limited immigration from Baekje upon its extinction. The practice of rice farming that was once believed to have been passed on from China through the Korean peninsula is instead thought to have been passed from southern China by way of Okinawa, and continued into southern Korea. However, this theory or limited migration neither is consistent nor offers an explanation for the two very different physical types of people in Japan. They are differentiated by tooth shape, body type, and several skull features (including overall shape of the head, eye sockets, and nose).

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The earliest Yayoi people, themselves using chipped stone tools, appear to have started from northern Kyushu and intermixed with the J?mon. Although the pottery of the Yayoi was more technologically advanced?produced on a potter's wheel?it was more simply decorated than J?mon ware. The Yayoi made bronze ceremonial bells, mirrors, and weapons and, by the 1st century A.D., iron agricultural tools and weapons. As the population increased and society became more complex, they wove cloth, lived in permanent farming villages, constructed buildings of wood and stone, accumulated wealth through land ownership and the storage of grain, and developed distinct social classes. Their irrigated, wet-rice culture was similar to that of central and south China, requiring heavy human labor, which led to the development and eventual growth of a highly sedentary, agrarian society. Unlike China, which had to undertake massive public works and water-control projects, leading to a highly centralized government, Japan had abundant water. In Japan, then, local political and social developments were relatively more important than the activities of the central authority and a stratified society.

Related Topics:
Pottery - Bronze - 1st century - Iron - China

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The earliest written records about Japan are from Chinese sources from this period. Wa 倭 (the Japanese pronunciation of an early Chinese name for Japan) was first mentioned in A.D. 257 in the Wei zhi, a Chinese history. Early Chinese historians described Wa as a land of hundreds of scattered tribal communities, not the unified land with a 700-year tradition as laid out in the 8th-century work Nihongi, the part-mythical, part-historical account of Japan which puts the foundation of the country at 660 BC. 3rd century Chinese sources reported that the Wa people lived on raw vegetables, rice, and fish served on bamboo and wooden trays, had vassal-master relations, collected taxes, had provincial granaries and markets, clapped their hands in worship (something still done in Shinto shrines), had violent succession struggles, built earthen grave mounds, and observed mourning. A ruler known as Himiko in Japanese, a female ruler of an early political federation known as Yamatai, flourished during the 3rd century. While Himiko reigned as spiritual leader, her younger brother carried out affairs of state, which included diplomatic relations with the court of the Chinese Kingdom of Wei (A.D. 220?265).

Related Topics:
Wa - 257 - Nihongi - 660 BC - 3rd century - Shinto shrine - Himiko - Yamatai - Kingdom of Wei - 220 - 265

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