Yayoi period

The is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 BC to 250 AD. It is named after the section of Tokyo where archaeological findings first uncovered artifacts from that era. Depending upon the source, the Yayoi period is marked by the start of the practice of growing rice in a paddy field or a new style of pottery. Following the Jomon period (10,000 BC to 300 BC), Yayoi culture flourished from southern Kyushu to northern Honshu.

Recent discoveries, however, suggest that the Yayoi period may have started as early as 900 BC.

Features of Yayoi Culture

The earliest Yayoi people are believed to have first emerged in northern Kyushu, later moving on to the main island of Honshu, where they largely displaced the native Jōmon, though there was some mixing of the two distinct genetic stocks. Although Yayoi pottery was technologically advanced compared to that of the Jōmon (being produced on a potter's wheel), it was more simply decorated. The Yayoi also made bronze ceremonial bells, mirrors, and weapons. By the 1st century A.D., they began using iron agricultural tools and weapons.

The Yayoi population increased and their 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. This was possible due to the introduction of an irrigated, wet-rice culture from Korea which was similar to that of central and southern China. Rice production required heavy human labor, which led to the development and eventual growth of a sedentary, agrarian society in Japan. However, unlike in Korea or China, local political and social developments in Japan were more important than the activities of the central authority with a stratified society.

Yayoi in Chinese History

The earliest written records about people in Japan are from Chinese sources from this period. Wa (倭), the Japanese pronunciation of an early Chinese name for Japan, was mentioned in 57 CE; the Na state of Wa received a golden seal from the Emperor of the Later Han dynasty. This was recorded in the Book of Later Han (Hou-Han Shu). The seal itself was discovered in northern Kyushu in the 18th century.^* Wa was also mentioned in 257 in the Wei zhi (The Records of Wei), a section of the San Guo Zhi, a Chinese historical record.

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, a part-mythical, part-historical account of Japan which dates the foundation of the country at 660 BC. Third century Chinese sources reported that the Wa people lived on raw fish, vegetables, and rice served on bamboo and wooden trays, clapped their hands in worship (something still done in Shinto shrines today), and built earthen grave mounds. They also maintained vassal-master relations, collected taxes, had provincial granaries and markets, and observed mourning. Society was characterized by violent struggles.

A woman, known as Himiko in Japanese, ruled an early political federation known as Yamatai, which 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 (220–265).

When asked of their origins by the Wei embassy, the people of Wa claimed to be descendants of King Taibo of Wu, a historic figure who founded the first Wu Kingdom (吳國) around the Yangtze Delta of China. (Original Chinese from the Records of Wei: 「倭人自謂太伯之後」.)

The Origin of Yayoi Culture

The Origin of Yayoi Culture has long been debated and there are several major theories as shown below.

Yayoi culture was brought to Japan by migrants from Korea

A theory publicized in the early Meiji period argued that the Yayoi culture was brought to Japan by migrants from Korea. Some, however, contest whether these migrants constitute modern day Koreans. Nevertheless, many Western and Japanese scholars have concluded that archaeological findings from the Yayoi period "clearly derive from Korea". These include "bunded paddy fields, new types of polished stone tools, wooden farming implements, iron tools, weaving technology, ceramic storage jars, exterior bonding of clay coils in pottery fabrication, ditched settlements, domesticated pigs, jawbone rituals, and megalithic tombs."-

This theory also gains strength due to the fact that Yayoi culture began on the north coast of Kyushu, where Japan is closest to Korea. Yayoi pottery was discovered to be very similar to the pottery of southern Korea. In addition, "other elements of the new Yayoi culture were unmistakably Korean and previously foreign to Japan, including bronze objects, weaving, glass beads, and styles of tools and houses." [http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so191/PacificRimReadings/JapaneseRoots.html

However, some argue that the increase of roughly 4 million people in Japan between the Jōmon and Yayoi periods cannot be explained by migration alone. They attribute the increase primarily to a shift from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural diet on the islands.

Regardless, archaeological evidence supports a mass influx of farmers from Korea to Japan, overwhelming the native hunter-gatherer population. Direct comparisons between Jomon and Yayoi skeletons show that the two peoples are noticeably distinguishable. The Jomon tended to be shorter, with relatively longer forearms and lower legs, more wide-set eyes, shorter and wider faces, and much more pronounced facial topography. They also have strikingly raised browridges, noses, and nose bridges. Yayoi people, on the other hand, averaged an inch or two taller, with close-set eyes, high and narrow faces, and flat browridges and noses. By the Kofun period, almost all skeletons excavated in Japan, except those of the Ainu and Okinawans, resemble those of modern day Japanese and Koreans. ^*.

Genetic evidence also supports this theory. The Ainu are believed to be descendants of the Jomon people, with some intermingling of genes from Yayoi colonists. Modern genetics has also determined that the Yayoi genes dominate over Jomon genes in the genetic make-up of today's Japanese, and thus migrants from Korea did make a significant contribution to the population of Japan we see today. ^*.

Yayoi culture was created by immigrants from China

The emergence of the Yayoi culture was sudden. The Yayoi culture was very advanced compared to the Jomon-period culture it replaced. It introduced skills to Japan such as the manufacturing of bronze and copper weapons, bronze mirrors, bells, as well as irrigated paddy rice cultivation. The most notable fact that lends evidence to this claim is that three major symbols of the Yayoi Culture - the bronze mirror, the sword, and the royal seal stone - are exactly the same symbols used by Qin dynasty China.^*

In recent years, more archaelogical and genetic evidence have been found in both eastern China and western Japan to lend credibility to this argument. Between 1996 and 1999, a team led by Satoshi Yamaguchi, a researcher at Japan's National Science Museum, compared Yayoi remains found in Japan's Yamaguchi and Fukuoka prefectures with those from early Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-8) in China's coastal Jiangsu province, and found many similarities between the skulls and limbs of Yayoi people and the Jiangsu remains. Two Jiangsu skulls showed spots where the front teeth had been pulled, a practice common in Japan in the Yayoi and preceding Jomon period. The genetic samples from three of the 36 Jiangsu skeletons also matched part of the DNA base arrangements of samples from the Yayoi remains. This finding, according to the Japanese team of scientists, suggests that some of the first wet-rice farmers in Japan might have migrated from the lower basin of China's Yangtze River more than 2,000 years ago. ^*

This information appears to confirm historical Chinese accounts that when the Wei Dynasty sent an embassy to Yayoi Japan, the people there claimed to be descendants of King Taibo (太伯) of Wu (呉), a coastal region on the Yangtze Delta that includes present-day Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang.

Yayoi culture was created by the mixing of the native Jomon and immigrants from China

Some pieces of Yayoi pottery clearly show the influence of Jomon ceramics. In addition, the Yayoi lived in the same kind of pit-type or circular dwellings as that of the Jomon. Other examples of commonality are chipped stone tools for hunting, bone tools for fishing, bracelets made from shells, and lacquer skills for vessels and accessories. The National Science Museum of Japan once held an exhibition named "Long Journey to Prehistorical Japan" which theorized that the Yayoi came from southern China because bones resembling theirs were discovered there. ^*

Yayoi culture emerged out of the Jomon culture with only limited immigration from China

The practice of rice farming that was once believed to have been passed on from China through Korea is instead thought to have been passed from southern China by way of Okinawa, continuing into southern Korea. The different physical types of people living in Japan today can be explained by changes in diet and way of life. The fact that the Japanese are a relatively homogenous people (with the exception of the Ainu and Okinawans) suggests that the bulk of Japanese did not originate from China. Although this last theory is comforting for the undoubtedly large numbers of Japanese who would prefer not to believe that they share significant genetic material with their Asian neighbors, it is the theory least ascribed to by modern day professional anthropologists specializing in Japanese anthropology. ^*.

End and legacy

The next archeological period in Japan is called the Kofun period, which is the first part of the Yamato period. Yayoi society developed into a society with a dominant military aristocracy and patriarchally-led clans, characteristic of the Kofun era. This change was quite possibly facilitated by immigration from the mainland.

A recent study

A new study used the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry method to analyze carbonized remains on pottery and wooden stakes, and discovered that these were dated back to 900–800 BC, nearly 500 years earlier than previously believed. These artifacts came from the northern region of Kyushu, and to further confirm this finding, artifacts from Korea and Jomon earthenware from the Tohoku region of the same time period as the initial study were compared with the same results. Another researcher used other artifacts from similar Yayoi period sites and found that these were dated back to 400–500 BC.

External links

Long Journey to Prehistorical Japan (in Japanese) by the National Science Museum of Japan
Yayoi Culture by Charles T. Keally
Yayoi Culture at the Metropolitan Museum
Yayoi period at Japanese History Online (under construction)
An article by Richard Hooker on the Yayoi and the Jomon.
Photos of Yoshinogari Historical Park at PHOTOGUIDE.JP
Article on Japanese Roots by Dr. Jared Diamond at DISCOVER Magazine
Article "Japanese Roots Surprisingly Shallow" from Japan Times
Yamato Wa at Korean History Project
Hidden Korea at PBS (Public Broadcasting System)

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