Yayoi period
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The Yayoi period (弥生時代, Yayoi jidai) started in the late Neolithic period in Japan, continued through the Bronze Age, and towards its end crossed into the Iron Age.[1]
Since the 1980s, scholars have argued that a period previously classified as a transition from the Jōmon period should be reclassified as Early Yayoi.[2] The date of the beginning of this transition is controversial, with estimates ranging from the 10th to the 3rd centuries BC.[1][3]
The period is named after the neighbourhood of Tokyo where archaeologists first uncovered artifacts and features from that era in the late 19th century. Distinguishing characteristics of the Yayoi period include the appearance of new Yayoi pottery styles, improved carpentry and architecture, and the start of an intensive rice agriculture in paddy fields.[4] A hierarchical social class structure dates from this period and has its origin in China. Techniques in metallurgy based on the use of bronze and iron were also introduced from China via Korea to Japan in this period.[5]
The Yayoi followed the Jōmon period and Yayoi culture flourished in a geographic area from southern
Features
The Yayoi period is, generally, accepted to date from circa 300 BC to 300 AD.
The earliest archaeological evidence of the Yayoi Period is found on northern Kyūshū,
As the Yayoi population increased, the society became more stratified and complex. They wove
Direct comparisons between Jōmon and Yayoi skeletons show that the two peoples are noticeably distinguishable.[20] The Jōmon tended to be shorter, with relatively longer forearms and lower legs, more deep-set eyes, shorter and wider faces, and much more pronounced facial topography. They also have strikingly raised brow ridges, noses, and nose bridges. Yayoi people, on the other hand, averaged 2.5–5 cm (0.98–1.97 in) taller, with shallow-set eyes, high and narrow faces, and flat brow ridges and noses. By the Kofun period, almost all skeletons excavated in Japan except those of the Ainu are of the Yayoi type with some having small Jōmon admixture,[21] resembling those of modern-day Japanese.[22]
History
Origin of the Yayoi people
The origin of Yayoi culture and the
Chinese influence was obvious in the bronze and copper weapons, dōkyō, dōtaku, as well as irrigated paddy rice cultivation. Three major symbols of Yayoi culture are the bronze mirror, the bronze sword, and the royal seal stone.
Between 1996 and 1999, a team led by Satoshi Yamaguchi, a researcher at Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science, compared Yayoi remains found in Japan's Yamaguchi and Fukuoka prefectures with those from China's coastal Jiangsu province and found many similarities between the Yayoi and the Jiangsu remains.[26][27]
Further links to the Korean Peninsula have been discovered, and several researchers have reported discoveries/evidence that strongly link the Yayoi culture to the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. Mark J. Hudson has cited archaeological evidence that included "bounded 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, and jawbone rituals".[28] The migrant transfusion from the Korean peninsula gains strength because Yayoi culture began on the north coast of Kyūshū, where Japan is closest to Korea. Yayoi pottery, burial mounds, and food preservation were discovered to be very similar to the pottery of southern Korea.[29]
However, some scholars argue that the rapid increase of roughly four 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, with the introduction of rice. It is quite likely that rice cultivation and its subsequent deification allowed for a slow and gradual population increase.[30] Regardless, there is archaeological evidence that supports the idea that there was an influx of farmers from the continent to Japan that absorbed or overwhelmed the native hunter-gatherer population.[29]
Some pieces of Yayoi pottery clearly show the influence of Jōmon ceramics. In addition, the Yayoi lived in the same type of pit or circular dwelling as that of the Jōmon. Other examples of commonality are chipped stone tools for hunting, bone tools for fishing, shells in bracelet construction, and lacquer decoration for vessels and accessories.
According to several linguists, Japonic or proto-Japonic was present on large parts of the southern Korean peninsula.
Languages
Most linguists and archaeologists agree that the Japonic language family was introduced to and spread through the archipelago during the Yayoi period.
Emergence of Wo in Chinese history texts
The earliest written records about people in Japan are from
Early Chinese historians described Wo as a land of hundreds of scattered tribal communities rather than the unified land with a 700-year tradition as laid out in the 8th-century work Nihon Shoki, a partly mythical, partly historical account of Japan which dates the foundation of the country at 660 BC. Archaeological evidence also suggests that frequent conflicts between settlements or statelets broke out in the period. Many excavated settlements were moated or built at the tops of hills. Headless human skeletons[44] discovered in Yoshinogari site are regarded as typical examples of finds from the period. In the coastal area of the Inland Sea, stone arrowheads are often found among funerary objects.
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),[45] and built earthen-grave mounds. They also maintained vassal-master relations, collected taxes, had provincial granaries and markets, and observed mourning. Society was characterised by violent struggles.[citation needed]
Yamataikoku
The Wei Zhi (
For many years, the location of Yamataikoku and the identity of Queen Himiko have been subject of research. Two possible sites, Yoshinogari in Saga Prefecture and Makimuku in Nara Prefecture have been suggested.[47] Recent archaeological research in Makimuku suggests that Yamataikoku was located in the area.[48][49] Some scholars assume that the Hashihaka kofun in Makimuku was the tomb of Himiko.[50] Its relation to the origin of the Yamato polity in the following Kofun period is also under debate.
See also
- Japanese era name
- Ainu people
- Emishi people
- Yayoi people
- Wa (Japan)
- Zenpokoenfun
References
- ^ a b c Shōda, Shinya (2007). "A Comment on the Yayoi Period Dating Controversy". Bulletin of the Society for East Asian Archaeology. 1.
- ^ Habu 2004, p. 258.
- ISBN 978-0-521-88490-7.
- OCLC 3071841.
- S2CID 162644598.
- ^ Hays, J. (n.d.). Yayoi people, life, and culture (400 B.C.-A.D. 300). Facts and Details. https://factsanddetails.com/japan/cat16/sub105/entry-5285.html
- ^ "Yayoi Period (300 BCE – 250 CE)". Japan Module. Pitt.
- ^ "Timelines: Japan". Asia for Educators. Columbia University.
- ^ "Bronze mirror". Pitt Rivers Museum Body Arts. Oxford.
- ^ a b Keally, Charles T. (2006-06-03). "Yayoi Culture". Japanese Archaeology. Charles T. Keally. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
- ^ "The Yayoi Period: Analyzing its Culture Through Agricultural Tools". Japan Times. 16 August 2012.
- ^ Picken, Stuart D. B. Historical Dictionary of Japanese Business. Scarecrow Press. p. 13.
- ^ a b Imamura, Keiji. Prehistoric Japan: New Perspectives on Insular East Asia. University of Hawaii Press. p. 13.
- ^ "Annual Report on Research Activity 2004". JP: Rekihaku.
- ^ Seiji Kobayashi. "Eastern Japanese Pottery During the Jomon-Yayoi Transition: A Study in Forager-Farmer Interaction". Kokugakuin Tochigi Junior College. Archived from the original on 2009-09-23.
- ^ Yayo, Met museum
- ^ Lock, Margaret (1998). "Japanese". The Encyclopedia of World Cultures CD-ROM. Macmillan. Archived from the original on December 13, 2012. Retrieved July 10, 2015.
- ^ Pearson, Richard J. Chiefly Exchange Between Kyushu and Okinawa, Japan, in the Yayoi Period. Antiquity 64(245) 912–22, 1990.
- ^ Earlier Start for Japanese Rice Cultivation, Dennis Normile, Science, 2003 (archive)
- ^ 縄文人の顔と骨格-骨格の比較 Archived 2007-12-23 at the Wayback Machine, Information technology Promotion Agency
- ^ "Repository" (PDF). University of the Ryukyus. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-09-25. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
- ^ Diamond, Jared (June 1, 1998). "Japanese Roots". Discover Magazine. 19 (6 June 1998). Archived from the original on 2007-11-24. Retrieved 14 December 2013.
- ^ Mizoguchi (2013), p. 54.
- ISBN 978-0-521-22352-2. p. 81.
- ^ Mizoguchi (2013), p. 53.
- ^ "Long Journey to Prehistorical Japan" (in Japanese). National Science Museum of Japan. Archived from the original on 21 April 2015.
- ^ "Yayoi linked to Yangtze area: DNA tests reveal similarities to early wet-rice farmers". The Japan Times. March 19, 1999.
- ISBN 0-8248-2156-4.
- ^ a b Jared Diamond (June 1, 1998). "Japanese Roots". Discover Magazine. 19 (6, June 1998). Retrieved 2008-05-12.
Unlike Jomon pottery, Yayoi pottery was very similar to contemporary South Korean pottery in shape. Many 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.
- ^ Mizoguchi (2013), p. 119.
- ^ Janhunen, Juha (2010). "Reconstructing the Language Map of Prehistorical Northeast Asia". Studia Orientalia (108).
... there are strong indications that the neighbouring Baekje state (in the southwest) was predominantly Japonic-speaking until it was linguistically Koreanized.
- ^ Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean". Korean Linguistics. 15 (2): 222–240.
- ^ Beckwith (2004), pp. 27–28.
- ^ Whitman (2011), p. 157.
- ^ a b Miyamoto (2016), pp. 69–70.
- ^ Serafim (2008), p. 98.
- ^ Vovin (2017).
- ISSN 1939-8433.
- ^ Janhunen (2010), p. 294.
- ^ Vovin (2013), pp. 222, 237.
- ^ Unger (2009), p. 87.
- ^ "Gold Seal (Kin-in)". Fukuoka City Museum. Retrieved 2007-11-10.
- ^ 魏志倭人伝 Archived 2010-10-16 at the Wayback Machine, Chinese texts and its Japanese translation
- ISBN 978-0-19-970974-8.
- ^ Wikisource
- ^ 魏志倭人伝, Chinese texts of the Wei Zhi, Wikisource
- ^ Karako-kagi Archaeological Museum (2007). "ヤマト王権はいかにして始まったか". Comprehensive Database of Archaeological Site Reports in Japan. Retrieved 2016-09-01.
- ^ 古墳2タイプ、同時に出現か・奈良の古墳群で判明 [permanent dead link], Nikkei Net, March 6, 2008
- ^ 最古級の奈良・桜井“3兄弟古墳”、形状ほぼ判明 卑弥呼の時代に相次いで築造 Archived 2008-03-08 at the Wayback Machine, Sankei Shimbun, March 6, 2008
- JSTOR 2385316.
Books cited
- ISBN 978-90-04-13949-7.
- Habu, Junko (2004), Ancient Jomon of Japan, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Press, ISBN 978-0-521-77670-7.
- Miyamoto, Kazuo (2016), "Archaeological Explanation for the Diffusion Theory of the Japonic and Koreanic Language" (PDF), Japanese Journal of Archeology, 4 (1): 53–75.
- Serafim, Leon A. (2008), "The uses of Ryukyuan in understanding Japanese language history", in Frellesvig, Bjarke; Whitman, John (eds.), Proto-Japanese: Issues and Prospects, John Benjamins, pp. 79–99, ISBN 978-90-272-4809-1.
- ISBN 978-0-8248-3279-7.
- Vovin, Alexander (2013), "From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean", Korean Linguistics, 15 (2): 222–240, .
- Vovin, Alexander (2017), "Origins of the Japanese Language", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-938465-5.
Further reading
- Schirokauer, Conrad (2013). A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
- Silberman, Neil Asher (2012). The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. New York: Oxford University Press.
External links
- Yayoi Culture, Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Yayoi period Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine at Japanese History Online (under construction) Archived 2020-09-23 at the Wayback Machine
- An article by Richard Hooker on the Yayoi and the Jōmon.
- Comprehensive Database of Archaeological Site Reports in Japan, Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties
- Article "Japanese Roots Surprisingly Shallow" from Japan Times