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The Land of the Rising Sun: Japanese History (2 threads, 60 posts)
Japan does not appear in history until 57 AD when it is first mentioned in Chinese histories, where it is referred to as "Wa." The Chinese historians tell us of a land divided into a hundred or so separate tribal communities without writing or political cohesion. The Japanese do not start writing their histories until around 600 AD; this historical writing culminates in 700 AD in the massive chronicles, The Record of Ancient Matters and the Chronicles of Japan. These chronicles tell a much different and much more legendary history of Japan, deriving the people of Japan from the gods themselves. ...
    Prehistoric Japan: Jomon and Yayoi
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    Jomon civilization (ca. 14,000 - 300 B.C.E.) Yayoi civilization (ca. 300 B.C.E. - ca. AD. 300)

    Although the Japanese do not settle Japan until the third century B.C., humans had lived in Japan from about 30,000 B.C.. For Japan was not always an island. During the Ice Ages, it was connected to the Korean peninsula by means of a land bridge. All four main Japanese islands were connected, and the southern island of Kyushu was connected to the Korean peninsula while the northern island of Hokkaido was connected to Siberia. Stone Age humans crossed this land bridge in much the same way they crossed the Bering land bridge into the Americas. We can date these humans back to around 30,000 B.C. from the flint tools that they left behind. Then around 14,000 B.C., these original inhabitants developed a unique culture which lasted for several thousand years: the Jomon culture. As with all preliterate people, all we know of them comes from fragments of artifacts and the imaginative guessing of anthropologists and archaeologists. Jomon means "cord pattern," for these people designed cord patterns on their pottery—the oldest of its kind in human history. Pottery, however, is a characteristic of Neolithic peoples; the Jomon, however, were Mesolithic peoples (Middle Stone Age). All the evidence shows that they were a hunting, gathering, and fishing society that lived in very small tribal groups. But in addition to making pottery, they also fashioned mysterious figurines that appear to be female. An ancient goddess worship?

    We divide the Jomon into six separate eras— more than ten thousand years, after all, is a long time and even preliterate cultures change dramatically over time. These eras are the Incipient, Initial, Early, Middle, Late, and Final Jomon periods.

    The Jomon culture, in essence a Mesolithic culture (although they display Neolithic traits, such as pottery-making), thrived in Japan from the fifteenth century to the third century B.C., when it was displaced by a wave of immigrants from the mainland. These were the Yayoi, and their origins lay in the north of China. Northern China was originally a temperate and lush place full of forests, streams, and rainfall. It began to dry out, however, a few thousand years before the common era. This dessication, which eventually produced one of the largest deserts in the world, the Gobi, drove the original inhabitants south and east. These peoples pushed into Korea and displaced indigenous populations. Eventually, these new settlers were displaced by a new wave of immigrations from northern China and a large number of them crossed over into the Japanese islands. For this reason, the languages of the area north of China, the language of Korea, and Japanese are all in the same family of languages according to most linguists. Because Mongolian (spoken in the area north of China) is also part of this language family and because the Mongolians conquered the world far to the west, this means that the language family to which Japanese belongs is spoken across a geographical region from Japan to Europe. The westernmost language in this family is Magyar, spoken in Hungary, and the easternmost language in this family is Japanese.

    The Yayoi brought with them agriculture, the working of bronze and iron, and a new religion which would eventually develop into Shinto (which wasn't given this name until much, much later). While we don't know what these immigrations did to the indigenous peoples, there are several possibilities. According to one theory, which is widely accepted in Japan, the waves of Yayoi immigrants were very small. While they brought new technologies with them, they were nevertheless assimilated into the native Jomon culture. By this account, Japanese culture, particularly as it is represented by the Shinto religion, is very ancient and indigenous Japan. Some Japanese believe that the Jomon spoke an Austronesian language, that is, that the Jomon were more closely related to south Pacific islanders and that Japanese is still largely a Pacific island language. In the West, historians believe that the Yayoi displaced the indigenous Jomon and thus ended their culture permanently. The Yayoi displaced the indigenous language, social patterns, and religion of the original inhabitants. In this view, Japanese culture is a foreign import deriving ultimately from the north of China and ancient Korea, a view that is not popular among the modern Japanese.

    Whatever the origins of Japanese culture, it is clear that the Japanese language, social structure, and religion can be dated no farther back in Japan than the Yayoi immigrants. So for all practical purposes, the Yayoi are a new beginning in Japanese culture. The transition was dramatic, far surpassing even the transition represented by the industrial revolution. Japanese culture changed overnight with these new immigrants; thousands of years of cultural placidity were dramatically hoisted into the agricultural age.


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     * Xolotl Huascar, Feb 23, 2003 - 10:47

    4 Members have made 15 Posts here to date.




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