An Outline of Japan's Prehistoric Cultures

Extract

Until quite recently the cultural prehistory of Japan has been, like many other areas of Asia, very inadequately known to most American and European students. There is now enough material available to enable me to present to you an outline of the prehistoric cultural development of Japan with a high degree of reliability in its essential validity. Much remains to be done, however, both in the sphere of “dirt archaeology” and in the field of analysis, synthesis, and foreign relationships.

The term “Jomon” has become entrenched as the designation for the entire period of Japanese culture preceding the entrance of the Yayoi people with their bronze-age culture from Korea and the adjacent areas into Kyushu. This migration must have commenced at least as early as the second century B.C. since it is known that Yayoi centers were flourishing in Kyushu and southwest Honshu in the first century B.C. Absolute dates for the earliest cultural manifestations in Japan are lacking but my guess would be about 3000 B.C.