History of Japan

Ancient Japan to 1185

Prehistoric Japan

Pre-Ceramic culture

Japanese historical sites

Japanese historical sites

Important Japanese historical sites.

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 Sōya and Tsugaru straits, allowed people to go 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 BCE. 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.

Climatic changes help to account for the existence of a Mesolithic stage in early Japanese culture, a time
when much of the abundant fauna of earlier times became depleted by the expanding human
population of the archipelago. The introduction of the bow and arrow is regarded as a local response to
a decrease in game available for food.

Jōmon culture (c. 10,500 to c. 300 BCE)

The Pre-Ceramic era was followed by two better-recorded cultures, the Jōmon 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 jōmon (“cord marks”) to describe the
patterns pressed into the clay. A convincing theory dates the period during which Jōmon pottery was
used from about 10,500 until about the 3rd century BCE. 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 Jōmon 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 10,500 BCE, in an era that is called
the Incipient Jōmon 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.
Jōmon 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 Jōmon 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 (c. 10,500–8000
BCE), Initial (c. 8000–5000 BCE), Early (c. 5000–2500 BCE), Middle (c. 2500–1500 BCE), Late (c. 1500–
1000 BCE), and Final (c. 1000–300 BCE). Since Jōmon culture spread over the entire archipelago, it also
developed regional differences, and this combination of both chronological and regional variations gives
the evolution of Jōmon pottery a high degree of complexity.

The pottery of the Incipient and Initial periods includes many deep urnlike 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 fibre. In the Middle period there were rapid
strides in pottery techniques; the pots produced in the central mountain areas during this time are
generally considered to be the finest of the whole Jōmon era. The surfaces of these normally cylindrical
vessels are covered with complex patterns of raised lines, and powerfully decorative projections rise
from the rims 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, purely functional pots. The amount of the latter type increases steadily, preparing the way for
the transition to Yayoi pottery.

Jōmon 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 Jōmon 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-Jōmon times that lasted about 1,000 years.

Weaving of fibres was still unknown, though woven baskets have been found dating to the Early period.
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 sharpening 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 Jōmon culture were ancestors of the
Ainu, an indigenous people of northern Japan. Scientific investigation of the bones of Jōmon people
carried out since the beginning of the 20th century, however, has disproved this theory. The Jōmon
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. There is evidence to
suggest that people 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 Yayoi period (c. 300 BCE–c. 250 CE)

The new Yayoi culture that arose in Kyushu, while the Jōmon culture was still undergoing development
elsewhere, spread gradually eastward, overwhelming the Jōmon 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 Jōmon 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 Jōmon 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,
thought to have begun around the end of the Late Jōmon period. Culturally, the Yayoi represents a
notable advance over the Jōmon period and is believed to have lasted for some five or six centuries,
from about the 3rd century BCE to the 2nd or 3rd century CE.

In China the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE correspond with the period of the unified empire under the Qin
(221–207 BCE) and Han (206 BCE–220 CE) dynasties, which already had entered the Iron Age. In 108 BCE
the armies of the emperor Wudi occupied Manchuria and the northern part of the Korean peninsula,
where they established Lelang (Nangnang) 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 developed 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,
labour, 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 Jōmon 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 Jōmon
period. The cloth was woven on primitive looms, using vegetable fibres.

The dead were buried in either large clay urns or heavy stone coffins. Both were common in northern
Kyushu and neighbouring 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 of grave 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 Jōmon 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 Jōmon period was not disrupted but was carried over into later ages. Differences in Jōmon
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 zhi (297 CE).

Chinese chronicles

Japan first appears in Chinese chronicles under the name of Wo (in Japanese, Wa). The Han histories
relate that “in the seas off Lelang lie the people of Wo, who are divided into more than 100 states, and
who bring tribute at fixed intervals.” Lelang was one of the Han colonies established in the Korean
peninsula. A history of the Dong (Eastern) Han (25–220 CE) records that in 57 CE the “state of Nu in Wo”
sent emissaries to the Dong Han court and that the emperor gave them a gold seal. The “state of Nu,”
located on what is now Hakata Bay, in Kyushu, was one of the 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 kingdom (220–265/266) in northern 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 zhi contains a detailed account of the route from Lelang 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 zhi, 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 Tumulus (Tomb) period (c. 250–552)

The unification of the nation

The questions of how the unification of Japan was first achieved and of how the Yamato court, with the
tennō (“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 Jin dynasty (265–316/317); however, 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 Dong (Eastern) Jin dynasty (317–
420), 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 Koguryŏ (a Korean
state; 2nd century BCE–668 CE), describing the fighting between Wo and Koguryŏ 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 was already significantly unified, and the date of the unification of the country
may therefore be about the mid-4th century at the latest.