|
Japan Ancient Cultures
On the basis of archaeological finds, it has been
postulated
that hominid activity in Japan may date as early as
200,000 B.C.,
when the islands were connected to the Asian mainland.
Although
some scholars doubt this early date for habitation, most
agree that
by around 40,000 B.C. glaciation had reconnected the
islands with
the mainland. Based on archaeological evidence, they also
agree
that by between 35,000 and 30,000 B.C. Homo sapiens
had
migrated to the islands from eastern and southeastern Asia
and had
well-established patterns of hunting and gathering and
stone toolmaking . Stone tools, inhabitation sites, and human fossils
from
this period have been found throughout all the islands of
Japan
(see
fig. 1).
More stable living patterns gave rise by around 10,000
B.C. to
a Neolithic or, as some scholars argue, Mesolithic
culture.
Possibly distant ancestors of the Ainu aboriginal people
of modern
Japan, members of the heterogeneous Jomon culture (ca.
10,000-300
B.C.) left the clearest archaeological record. By 3,000
B.C., the
Jomon people were making clay figures and vessels
decorated with
patterns made by impressing the wet clay with braided or
unbraided
cord and sticks (jomon means "patterns of plaited
cord")
with a growing sophistication. These people also used
chipped stone
tools, traps, and bows and were hunters, gatherers, and
skillful
coastal and deep-water fishermen. They practiced a
rudimentary form
of agriculture and lived in caves and later in groups of
either
temporary shallow pit dwellings or above-ground houses,
leaving
rich kitchen middens for modern anthropological study.
By the late Jomon period, a dramatic shift had taken
place
according to archaeological studies. Incipient cultivation
had
evolved into sophisticated rice-paddy farming and
government
control. Many other elements of Japanese culture also may
date from
this period and reflect a mingled migration from the
northern Asian
continent and the southern Pacific areas. Among these
elements are
Shinto mythology, marriage customs, architectural styles,
and
technological developments, such as lacquerware, textiles,
metalworking, and glass making.
The next cultural period, the Yayoi (named after the
section of
Tokyo where archaeological investigations uncovered its
traces)
flourished between about 300 B.C. and A.D. 250 from
southern Kyushu
to northern Honshu. The earliest of these people, who are
thought
to have migrated from Korea to northern Kyushu and
intermixed with
the Jomon, also used chipped stone tools. Although the
pottery of
the Yayoi was more technologically advanced--produced on a
potter's
wheel--it was more simply decorated than Jomon ware. The
Yayoi made
bronze ceremonial nonfunctional bells, mirrors, and
weapons and, by
the first 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
landownership 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 inputs of 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.
The earliest written records about Japan are from
Chinese
sources from this period. Wa (the Japanese pronunciation
of an
early Chinese name for Japan) was first mentioned in A.D.
57. 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 Nihongi, which puts the
foundation of
Japan at 660 B.C. Third-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.
Himiko, a female ruler of an early political federation
known as
Yamatai, flourished during the third 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 Wei Dynasty (A.D. 220-65).
Data as of January 1994
|
