It is not known when humans first settled on the Japanese archipelago. It was long believed that there was no Paleolithic occupation in Japan, but since World War II thousands of sites have been unearthed throughout the country, yielding a wide variety of Paleolithic tools. These include both core tools, made by chipping away the surface of a stone, and flake tools, made by working with a stone flake broken off from a larger piece of stone. There is little doubt that the people who used these implements moved to Japan from the Asian continent. At one stage, land connections via what are now the Korea and Tsushima straits made immigration from the Korean peninsula possible, while another connection, via what are now the Soya and Tsugaru straits, allowed people to come in from northeastern Asia.

The Paleolithic Period in Japan is variously dated from 30,000 to 10,000 years ago, although the argument has been made for a Lower Paleolithic culture prior to 35,000 BC. Nothing certain is known of the culture of the period, though it seems likely that people lived by hunting and gathering, used fire, and made their homes either in pit-type dwellings or in caves. No bone or horn artifacts of the kind associated with this period in other areas of the world have yet been found in Japan. Since there was no knowledge whatsoever of pottery, the period is referred to as the Pre-Ceramic era.

The Pre-Ceramic era was followed by two better-recorded cultures, the Jomon and the Yayoi. The former takes its name from a type of pottery found throughout the archipelago; its discoverer, the 19th-century American zoologist Edward S. Morse, called the pottery jomon ("cord marks") to describe the patterns pressed into the clay.

A convincing theory dates the period during which Jomon pottery was used from about 10,000 years ago until the 2nd or 3rd century BC. Of the features common to Neolithic cultures throughout the world--progress from chipped tools to polished tools, the manufacture of pottery, the beginnings of agriculture and pasturage, the development of weaving, and the erection of monuments using massive stones--the first two are prominent features of the Jomon period, but the remaining three did not appear until the succeeding Yayoi period. Pottery, for example, first appeared in northern Kyushu (the southernmost of the four main Japanese islands) about 10,000 BC, in an era that is sometimes called the "incipient" Jomon period. While continental influence is suspected, the fact that Kyushu pottery remains predate any Chinese findings strongly suggests that the impetus to develop pottery was local. Jomon is thus best described as a Mesolithic culture, while Yayoi is fully Neolithic.

The manufacture of pottery, however, was highly developed, and the work of Jomon peoples has a diversity and complexity of form and an exuberance of artistic decoration. It is customary to regard changes in pottery types as a basis for subdividing the age into six periods: incipient, very early, early, middle, late, and very late. Since Jomon culture spread over the entire archipelago, it also developed regional differences, and this combination of both chronological and regional variations gives the evolution of Jomon pottery a high degree of complexity.

The pottery of the very early period includes many deep, urn like vessels with tapered, bullet-shaped bases. In the early period the vessels of eastern Japan become roughly cylindrical in shape, with flat bases, and the walls contain an admixture of vegetable fiber. In the middle period there were rapid strides in pottery techniques; the pots produced during this time in the central mountain areas are generally considered to be the finest of the whole Jomon era. The surface of these normally cylindrical vessels is covered with complex patterns of raised lines, and powerfully decorative projections rise from the rim to form handles. From the middle period onward there is increasing variety in the types of vessels, and a clear distinction developed between high-quality ware using elaborate techniques and simpler pots made for purely practical use. The amount of the latter increases steadily, preparing the way for the transition to Yayoi pottery.

Jomon dwelling sites have been found in various parts of the country. They can be classified into two types: one, the pit-type dwelling, consisted of a shallow pit with a floor of trodden earth and a roof; the other was made by laying a circular or oval floor of clay or stones on the surface of the ground and covering it with a roof. Remains of such dwellings have been found in groups ranging from five or six to several dozen, apparently representing the size of human settlements at the time. Most of these settlements form a horseshoe shape, with a space in the centre that seems to have been used for communal purposes. Nothing certain is known, however, concerning social or political organization at this period. It can be deduced that each household was made up of several family members and that the settlement made up of such households was led by a headman or shaman.

The people of the Jomon period lived mainly by hunting and fishing and by gathering edible nuts and roots. The appearance of large settlements from the middle period onward has been interpreted by some scholars as implying the cultivation of certain types of crop--a hypothesis seemingly supported by the fact that the chipped-stone axes of this period are not sharp but seem to have been used for digging soil. Doubtless there was some form of cultivation: starchy yams and taro, probably originating from the continent, were raised, the starch from them formed into a type of bread. This incipient agriculture seems related to a cultural florescence in mid-Jomon times that lasted about 1,000 years.

Weaving was still unknown, and archaeological findings indicate that clothes were largely made of bark. Body ornamentation included bracelets made of seashells, earrings of stone or clay, and necklaces and hair ornaments of stone or bone and horn. From the latter part of the period, the custom also spread throughout the archipelago of extracting or pointing certain teeth, probably performed as a rite marking the attainment of adulthood.

No especially elaborate rites of burial evolved, and the dead were buried in a small pit dug near the dwelling. Sometimes the body was buried with its knees drawn up or with a stone clasped to its chest, a procedure that probably had some religious or magical significance. A large number of clay figurines have been found, many representing female forms that were probably magical objects associated with primitive fertility cults.

For years certain scholars have claimed that the bearers of the Jomon culture were not of Japanese ethnicity but were ancestors of the Ainu, an aboriginal people often regarded as having European (Caucasian) racial connections who now are found in northern Japan. Scientific investigation of the bones of Jomon people carried out since the beginning of the 20th century, however, has disproved this theory. The Jomon people might be called proto-Japanese, and they were spread throughout the archipelago. Despite certain variations in character arising from differences in period or place, they seem to have constituted a single ethnic stock with more or less consistent characteristics.

The present Japanese people were produced by an admixture of certain strains from the Asian continent and from the South Pacific, together with adaptations made in accordance with environmental changes. Linguistic evidence suggests that a people speaking a language belonging to the Ural-Altaic family moved eastward across Siberia and entered Japan via Sakhalin Island and Hokkaido. Nothing can yet be proved concerning their relationship with the people of the Pre-Ceramic period, but it cannot be asserted that they were entirely unrelated.

The new Yayoi culture that arose in Kyushu, while the Jomon culture was still undergoing development elsewhere, spread gradually eastward, overwhelming the Jomon culture as it went, until it reached the northern districts of Honshu (the largest island of Japan). The name Yayoi derives from the name of the district in Tokyo where, in 1884, the unearthing of pottery of this type first drew the attention of scholars.

Yayoi pottery was fired at higher temperatures than Jomon pottery and was turned on wheels. It is distinguished partly by this marked advance in technique and partly by an absence of the proliferating decoration that characterized Jomon pottery. It developed, in short, as pottery for practical use. It is accompanied by metal objects and is associated with the wet (i.e., irrigated) cultivation of rice. Culturally, the Yayoi represents a notable advance over the Jomon period and is believed to have lasted for some five or six centuries, from the 3rd or 2nd century BC to the 2nd or 3rd century AD.

In China the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC correspond with the period of the unified empire under the Ch'in (221-206 BC) and Han (206 BC-AD 220) dynasties, which already had entered the Iron Age. In 108 BC the armies of the emperor Wu Ti occupied Manchuria and the northern part of the Korean peninsula, where they established Lo-lang and three other colonies. These colonies served as a base for a strong influx of Chinese culture into Korea, whence, in turn, it spread to Japan. The fact that Yayoi culture had iron implements from the outset, and bronze implements somewhat later, probably indicates borrowings from Han culture. Since iron rusts easily, comparatively few objects have been found, but they seem to have been widespread at the time. These include axes, knives, sickles and hoes, arrowheads, and swords. The bronze objects are also varied, including halberds, swords, spears, taku (bell-shaped devotional objects from China), and mirrors. The halberds, swords, and spears seem not to have been used in Japan for the practical purposes for which they were evolved in China but rather to have been prized as precious objects.

The cultivation of rice, probably introduced from the Yangtze River delta area of southern China, was one of the most important features of Yayoi culture. The earliest Yayoi pottery and sites, discovered in northern Kyushu, have yielded marks of rice husks as well as carbonized grains of rice; this suggests that rice growing was carried on in Japan from the earliest days of the culture. Traces of paddy fields, their divisions marked with wooden piles, have been found close to sites of settlements in various districts, along with irrigation channels equipped with dams and underdrains, showing that techniques of making and maintaining paddy fields were quite advanced. Rice was first grown in dry (i.e., nonirrigated) fields and marshy areas, however, before paddy cultivation--involving considerable investment of time, labor, and capital--came to predominate.

Generally speaking, the settlements of this period were built on low-lying alluvial land to facilitate the irrigation of the paddies, but at one stage they were built instead in the hills or on high ground. It is not clear whether this was dictated by the needs of defense or whether dry cultivation was being practiced. Much as in the Jomon period, there were two types of dwelling--the pit type and the type built on the surface--but in addition to these, raised-floor structures appeared and were used for storing grain out of the reach of rodents.

With the acquisition of a knowledge of textiles, clothing made great strides compared with the Jomon period. The cloth was woven on primitive looms using vegetable fibers.

The dead were buried in either large clay urns or heavy stone coffins. Both were common in northern Kyushu and neighboring areas; similar urns and coffins also are found on the Korean peninsula, where they probably originated. The graves were usually marked by mounds of earth or circles of stones, but a special type employed a dolmen (a large slab of stone supported over the grave by a number of smaller stones). Since the erection of dolmens was widely practiced in Manchuria and Korea, these, too, are believed to be a sign of an influx of continental culture. Normally, graves occur in clusters, but occasionally one is found apart, surrounded by a ditch and with swords, beads, and mirrors buried along with the dead. Such special graves suggest that society was already divided into classes.

While these new cultural elements represent a migration to Japan from the Korean peninsula or China, the migration was not of a magnitude to change the character of the people who had inhabited the islands from Jomon times. Yayoi culture undoubtedly represents an admixture of new sanguineous elements, but it seems likely that the chief strain of proto-Japanese found throughout the country during the Jomon period was not disrupted but was carried over into later ages. Differences in Jomon and Yayoi skeletal remains can better be explained by nutritional than genetic reasons. This point of view is supported by the accounts of the "people of Wo," found in the Chinese history Wei chih.

Japan first appears in Chinese chronicles under the name of Wo (in Japanese, Wa). The Han histories relate that "in the seas off Lo-lang lie the people of Wo, who are divided into more than 100 states, and who bring tribute at fixed intervals." Lo-lang was one of the Han colonies established in the Korean peninsula. A history of the Later (Eastern) Han (AD 25-220) records that in AD 57 the "state of Nu in Wo" sent emissaries to the Later Han court and that the emperor gave them a gold seal. The "state of Nu," located around what is now Hakata Bay, in Kyushu, was one of more than 100 states that constituted Wo. This account was confirmed by a gold seal, apparently the identical seal awarded by the Chinese emperor, unearthed on the island of Shikano, at the mouth of Hakata Bay, in 1748.

In the latter half of the 2nd century, there was civil war in the state of Wo; Queen Himiko had pacified the land and, relying on her religious powers, ruled over a confederation of more than 30 states that maintained communications with the Wei dynasty (220-264) in China. Wei, too, sent emissaries to Wo, and friendly relations between the two sides continued during the first half of the 3rd century. The Wei chih contains a detailed account of the route from Lo-lang to the court of the Wo queen in "Yamatai."

Scholars are divided as to whether Yamatai was located in northern Kyushu or in the Kinai district (central Honshu). If it was in northern Kyushu, then the union of states was a purely local government, unrelated to the Yamato court of later times; but if it was in the Kinai district, then it would be natural to see it as the ancestor of that court. This would suggest, in turn, that Japan had already achieved a considerable degree of political unification. Japanese historians long sought to emphasize the antiquity and degree of unity of Yamatai in order to aggrandize Japan's relations with other East Asian nations. It seems most likely, however, that Yamatai was a local centre of power in Kyushu, and that further unification did not take place until at least a century later.

according to the Wei chih, the people of Wo already had reached a fairly high degree of civilization. Society had clear-cut divisions of rank, and the people paid taxes. There were impressive raised-floor buildings. The various provinces held fairs where goods were bartered. Since there were exchanges of letters with Wo, it seems, too, that there were already some who could read and write.

The questions of how the unification of Japan was first achieved and of how the Yamato court, with the tenno ("emperor of heaven") at its centre, came into being in central Honshu have inspired many hypotheses, none of which has so far proved entirely convincing. With the help of Chinese and Korean records, however, it is possible to get at least an approximate idea of the date by which substantial unification had occurred. The relations that Yamatai had begun with Wei were continued with the successor Chin dynasty (265-317); but, following the dispatch of a mission in 266, all records of exchanges cease, and it is not until 147 years later, in 413 during the Eastern Chin dynasty (317-419), that the name of Wo again appears in Chinese documents. It is most likely that the blank period resulted from conditions within Japan that made exchanges with other countries impossible. The collapse of Yamatai and the birth pangs of the Yamato kingdom that took its place probably occurred during this period.

It is possible to push the date of unification of the nation back a few decades earlier than 413: a memorial erected in 414 commemorating the achievements of King Kwanggaet'o of Koguryo (a Korean state; 37 BC-AD 668), describing the fighting between Wo and Koguryo on the Korean peninsula from the end of the 4th century into the beginning of the 5th century, makes special mention of a great army sent to the peninsula in 391 by Wo. Such military success presupposes a long period of preparation. The 8th-century Nihon shoki ("Chronicles of Japan"), one of Japan's two oldest histories, mentions the dispatch of troops by Japan in 369. Such displays of strength would hardly have been possible unless Japan were already significantly unified, and the date of the unification of the country may therefore be about the mid-4th century at the latest.

Post-World War II historians have greatly revised the view of the place of Yamato in Asian affairs, downplaying the degree of control the Japanese formerly asserted that Yamato held over the Korean peninsula in ancient times. Most divide this period into three stages: a time of growth and expansion from about 250 to the end of the 4th century, a period of florescence that covers the 5th century, and then a period of decline from the early 6th century.

Rise and expansion of Yamato

The period is commonly called the Tumulus, or Tomb, period from the presence of large burial mounds (kofun), its most common archaeological feature. Whereas Jomon and Yayoi burial practices were rather primitive, from the 3rd century large tombs, both circular and uniquely keystone-shaped, began to proliferate throughout Japan, marked most especially by the enormous tumuli in and around the Osaka area. It is from the very construction of the tombs themselves, from an examination of the grave goods, as well as from increasingly reliable written sources both domestic and foreign that a picture of the Yamato kingdom has emerged.

In the first stage of Yamato development, tombs clustered around the Shiki area of Yamato province (modern Nara prefecture), in the southwestern corner of the Nara (Yamato) Basin. Rulers there held sway over an expanding portion of the archipelago. The Yamato kings (called kimi and written with the appropriated Chinese characters for "great ruler") were centered around Mount Miwa, the object of worship. Although the kimi exercised both secular and sacred functions, it seems that their primary focus was a priestly one, based on a sacred connection with Mount Miwa. Archaeological findings suggest, however, that improved agricultural techniques--such as the use of iron tools for cultivation and improved techniques for leveling and flooding paddy fields--allowed the Yamato rulers to exercise control over significant manpower resources, both to construct large tombs and to expand the area under their control outward from the Nara plain.

From about 350, power shifted north to the Saki area, near the present city of Nara. The nature of the burial goods in the tombs constructed there, the legendary accounts in Kojiki and Nihon shoki, as well as records from the continent all indicate that this was a period of Yamato expansion throughout the archipelago and even into the Korean peninsula, where, as mentioned above, its armies were engaged in the warfare among the three Korean kingdoms on the peninsula. Although the rulers continued to worship Mount Miwa, the religious focus of the court seems to have been concentrated upon the Isonokami Shrine at Tenri, south of Nara. The rulers there seem to have been somewhat more military in nature than their Miwa predecessors, and archaeological findings suggest that the most treasured items of the Isonokami Shrine were in fact weapons--especially the so-called "seven-pronged sword" (shichishito), which now is designated a National Treasure.

Thus, by the end of the 4th century, Yamato was a kingdom well settled on the Nara plain with considerable control over the peoples of the archipelago. It was in contact with Chinese rulers, exchanged diplomatic envoys with several of the kingdoms on the Korean peninsula, and was even strong enough to have sent an army against the powerful state of Koguryo, which then dominated the peninsula. Yamato was most closely associated with the southeastern kingdom of Paekche, whence came the "seven-pronged sword." Contact with the mainland, although involving conflict, also encouraged a marked rise in standards of living in the archipelago, as many of the fruits of advanced Chinese civilization reached Japan via people from the peninsula. Weavers, smiths, and irrigation experts migrated to Japan, and the Chinese ideographic script also was introduced at that time, together with Confucian works written in this script. Claims by historians prior to World War II that Paekche paid "tribute" to Japan, and that Japan conquered the southern tip of the peninsula where it established a "colony" called Mimana have since been largely discounted by historians in both Japan and Korea.

The Yamato court reached its peak in the early 5th century, during the second stage of its existence. Once again, there was a shift in the centre of power, this time directly westward to the provinces of Kawachi and Izumi (modern Osaka urban prefecture). The 5th century was one of spectacular development for Yamato, as evidenced by the enormous keyhole-shaped tombs in the suburbs of the modern Osaka region. The move into this region is thought to have resulted in a power shift either among or within clan federations. It is now customary to regard the 5th-century rulers as a new line, distinct from those of the Shiki and Saki areas.

What distinguishes the 5th-century tombs from earlier ones is both their enormous size--the tomb attributed to the semi legendary emperor Ojin is some 1,380 feet (420 metres) in length--as well as their character. These rulers had access to great power in order to construct their tombs. It has been estimated that the construction of Ojin's tomb would have taken 1,000 laborers, working from morning to night, four years to complete. The goods associated with these tombs are far more military in nature than those found in the earlier tombs: iron swords, arrowheads, and tools; armour; and all the trappings of a mounted warrior culture. All this suggests that the 5th-century rulers represent a more military, secular line of leaders in comparison with the priestly kings of the earlier Yamato area.

While most historians regard the 5th-century rulers as representing a new line, there is disagreement over their origin. Some have postulated an invasion of continental "horse riders" who seized control in the archipelago and established a new line of rulers. Myths related to Ojin's birth on the Korean peninsula while his mother was supposedly leading Yamato armies there, the location of the centre of power at the port of Naniwa (modern Osaka), Ojin's arrival there by boat, and the awesome size of the tombs (which suggest excess slave labor available for their construction)--all these hint tantalizingly at a conquest theory. The consensus, however, still supports an indigenous shift in leaders relying on control of increased agricultural output and monopolizing superior military technology. From the court at Yamato, its rulers extended control along the Inland Sea and beyond, developing more sophisticated offices and units to control the peoples of the archipelago.

The Yamato polity

The pattern of administrative control established is called the uji-kabane system. Uji is usually translated as "clan" in English. The uji are thought to be extensions of original agricultural communities, perhaps what early Chinese records referred to as "states." Essentially, farming communities were associated into lineal groups, united by the belief that harvests would be bountiful if proper respect was paid to the group's ancestral deity (kami). Heads of the community functioned primarily as priests, mediating the relationship between the group and its deity. As clans joined together--probably largely by conquest--vertical relationships began to develop between heads of the communities and the queen or king at emergent courts. By the 5th century, these groups, possibly already called uji, were drawn together into economic, military, religious and familial ties with the Yamato kings. Some scholars have even argued that uji were purely political units, so designated by the Yamato ruler. Uji appeared first in the Nara Basin, in close association with the court; as the Yamato kingdom developed greater power, uji appeared in other areas as well.

By the 5th century, the Yamato ruler was designating the heads of the most powerful uji, who developed close ties with the ruler over time. The Yamato court was thus headed by a hereditary ruler, while its members were drawn from the group of powerful clan leaders awarded kabane (titles). The two major titles appear to have been muraji and omi, held only by clan leaders of powerful communities serving in the area of the Yamato court. Lower-ranking titles were awarded to leaders of smaller, distant clans who nonetheless swore allegiance. The highest officers of the emerging state were the o-muraji and the o-omi, the heads and representatives of those two groups.

Another factor that aided the expansion of the emergent state was the economic and military support of occupational groups, called be or tomo, attached to the court and its supporting uji. Structurally somewhat similar to clans, these occupational groups were distinguished by providing a special service to the court or to a superior clan. Earlier be were more likely to provide personal services or specialize in religious functions; but as the power of the Yamato court spread throughout the archipelago in the 5th century, newer be came to be involved with the production of weapons, armour, and mirrors or with the construction of irrigation systems. Many of them were composed of recent migrants from Paekche who specialized in raising horses or iron working; in fact, the term be itself is of Korean origin. Some be were directly controlled by the court, including special ones called nashiro and koshiro set up for the support of certain royal relatives. Others were controlled by powerful clans directly in the service of the court, such as the yugei, the quiver bearers, who were attached to the Otomo clan, a major military support group for the Yamato ruling house.

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