“Horse,” “Sumo Wrestler” and “Chair,” haniwa figures excavated from Ishiya Tumulus, Shimane Prefecture (Kofun Period, mid-5th century) | Credit source: MATSUE CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION, SHIMANE
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- Faces of dogu figurines
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- Birth of the Chinese script and its adoption in Japan
- Ohaguro, the Japanese teeth-blackening custom, known to have been practised from the Kofun period, was shared by ancient Southeast Asian tribes
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- 1. Along the Paleolithic Path
- A love affair with rock
- In the news: Upper Paleolithic humans “mined” stone from Mount Takaharayama to produce trapezoid and other stone tools 35,000 years ago
- Stone tool inventory
- Types of Chipped Stone Artifacts
- Stone Age News: Early humans in Japan produced stone tools
- Did Japan’s palaeolithic era begin earlier than thought?
- Ruins of possibly Japan’s oldest settlement on Tanegashima Island show nut-gathering culture began very early
- Suggested field trip: Visit Jomon obsidian island – Kozushima Island
- The puzzle of tracing the origin of the world’s earliest polished stone tools
- Stone Age News: Early humans in Japan produced stone tools
- Types of Chipped Stone Artifacts
- How to choose a stone age home
- Kambayashi iseki: What a Paleolithic campsite looked like
- Large animals rule until 12,000 years ago
- NHK Science News Watch: The oldest ever found lacquer tree in Japan
- Origins of the Palaeolithic people of Japan
- 2011 in the news: 24,000-year-old human bone fragment in a cave on Ishigaki island in Okinawa Prefecture
- A 2012 paper on the Paleolithic contingent in modern Japanese
- Echoes of Siberia in Palaeolithic and prehistoric Japan
- Scientists face obstacles in giving an accurate account of the earliest arrivals in the Japanese archipelago — where, when and how
- The peopling of Ryukyu Islands: when and how did the first humans arrive?
- The voyage(s) to and the early settlement of the Ryukyu islands
- Palaeolithic Art in Japan
- Resource: On dispersal of humans and stone tools of Paleolithic Asia
- Was the New World colonized by the prehistoric people of Japan?
- Ancestors of Ainu people migrated across Beringia carrying HTLV-I virus (subtype A) to the American continent in the Paleolithic era
- Evidence of a Recent Common Ancestry between Native Americans and Indigenous (Siberian-) Altaians … and Japan
- In the news: DNA tests show Sican culture in Peru genetically linked to Ainu people, along with populations of Siberia and Taiwan
- New evidence suggests that the first Americans arrived in at least three waves.
- Were the Ainu C3 lineages descended from migrants from South America?
- What went onto Paleolithic plates (what foods they ate)
- A love affair with rock
- 2. Amazing Jomon Japan
- Faces of dogu figurines
- Jomon Cultural Milestones: Ten thousand years is a long time
- New analysis suggests that Himalayans share northeast Asian common ancestor and origins with ancient Jomon
- Out of Africa to East Asia: Gleaning the genetic tale of origins and migration from our mitochondria
- Origins of the Jomon, Jomon connections with the continent and with today’s Japanese
- Anthropological Science Overview of genetic variation in Y chromosome of Japanese males
- First-time ever DNA study: haplogroup N9b marker shows continuity from Jomon to Emishi people of Tohoku
- GM markers based on immunoglobin G show all Japanese populations have strongest affinities with northern Mongoloid population groups
- In the news: Riken study — 2 genetic types of Japanese exist
- Jomon mtDNA affinity to maritime tribes of the Northeast Asian coast
- Life expectancy of Jomon at age 15 was 32.3 years, and possibly as high as ∼35.3 years
- mtDNA haplogroup M9a1a1 found to have dispersed from southern China/SEA to northern China, Korea and Japan
- Presence of D1 haplogroup (mtDNA) is direct evidence of genetic affinity between the northern Jomon and Native American populations
- Revisiting ancestral Y chromosome haplogroups DE-YAP+ and D lineages
- Who are the Ainu people?
- Ainu architecture: The “chise”
- Ainu populations share genetic affinities with Nivkhi and other peoples from North Asia including Sakhalin.
- Ainu’s affinity to northeast Asian Ul’chis (Orochis) – prehistoric Paleo-Siberian neighbours and cousins of the Ainu and Jomon people
- Disease and virus markers are useful to show co-migration and population structure
- DNA news: Migrants from Northeast Siberia move into the Okhotsk and into Hokkaido
- Genetic origins of the Ainu inferred from combined DNA analyses of maternal and paternal lineages.
- In the news: Ainu produce film to tell the story of Tokyo Ainu communities
- New research establishes that native Okinawans and Hokkaido’s Ainu share genetic characteristics that pre-date Yayoi arrivals
- Notes and bibliography: The unresolved engima of the northern or southern origins of the Jomon people
- Resources on Ainu DNA
- Who are the Okhotsk people?
- Yomiuri Shimbun reports: Earwax map may show the early distributions and origins of Jomon and Yayoi populations
- Origins of the Jomon, Jomon connections with the continent and with today’s Japanese
- The Mystery at YONAGUNI: Is there a 10,000 year old pyramid and city underwater at Yonaguni?
- Ways of the Jomon World
- A-hunting we will go!
- Akita dog, one of the earliest breeds to be domesticated
- Boom of the barter trade
- Did the Jomon have a calendar?
- Did the Jomon people go to war?
- Did the Jomon people keep any pets?
- Fashion: clothing and jewellery of Jomon times
- Field Trip! Experience life as a Jomon hunter-gatherer.
- Gone fishing!
- Fishing techniques of the Jomon people may have diffused from fishermen of the Wallacea-Spice Islander / Sundaland-Sahul region
- In the news: Ancient weirs found at Jomon-period site
- In the news: Bones unearthed near Okinoshima show that dolphins were being fished for about 1,000 years in the early Jomon period between about 6,500 B.C. and 7,500 B.C off Tateyama coast of Chiba prefecture
- Jomon architecture
- Jomon crafts and what they were for
- Cave art by the Epi-Jomon people
- Jomon Dogu: The Mystery of the Broken Clay Dolls
- Challenge & activity: An exercise in comparing Venus Figurines
- In the news: 13,000 year old female figurine, one of the oldest in Japan, uncovered from the Aidanikumahara site in Higashiomi, Shiga Prefecture
- Mystery of the Fat Venus
- The multiple interpretations of the meaning of female figurines
- What can the dogu tell us?
- Jomon pottery… why archaeologists go potty over them
- Origins of ‘dragon blood’ or cinnabar use in Japan and the possible origin of the mining technology
- Ritual use of phallic objects or stones alongside of female figurines increased during the Middle Jomon period
- Take this hunter-gatherer quiz: Will you survive the wilds in prehistoric Japan?
- The all-natural Jomon toilet
- The Jomon diet
- Did the Jomon people do any farming?
- During what season did the Jomon gather shellfish?
- Oldest maize weevils discovered in Jomon potteries, but researchers say they are not related to cultivated rice
- TAKE THIS HUNTER-GATHERER QUIZ: WOULD YOU HAVE SURVIVED DURING JOMON DAYS?
- The Jomon Seasonal Calendar
- The largest soybeans in East Asia appear to have emerged earliest in Jomon Japan
- The Jomon Hearth and Home
- The Jomon world of ceremony and ritual
- Face-tattooing, dental ablation and other body scarification and modification practices from the South
- Magic mushrooms used ritually during Jomon times
- Mortuary Practices for Children in prehistoric Japan
- Music and musical instruments the Jomon people made
- Pottery masks of the Prehistoric Beifudi site in Yixian County, Hebei Province
- Ritual tooth ablation: Why did prehistoric people pull perfectly healthy teeth?
- Travel Jomon-style
- Views on the Jomon village
- What happened when a Jomon villager died?
- What was the climate and environment like ?
- 3. The Yayoi Years
- Advent of Agriculture and the Rice Revolution
- Every pot tells a story
- Irrigated rice culture appeared in 930 BCE in northern Kyushu
- In the news: Accelerator mass spectrometry dating gives early dates for rice found in ten primitive Yayoi-style pots – 780 to 830 B.C.
- Shandong/Liaoning expansion hypothesis: Paper examines linguistic and archaeological evidence for the spread of rice agriculture from Shandong/Liaoning to Korea and Japan
- Life in a Wet Rice Farming Village
- A 2014 paper throws light on the origins of rice agriculture in Japan and Korea
- Earliest geta footwear excavated from ancient paddy fields, have likely origin in South China
- Earliest origins of rice: South Korea vs. China? China vs. India?
- 10,000 year old rice from Shangshan remains, China
- ADH1B*47His allele map’s distribution and frequency reveals origin and path of expansion of rice domestication from South China’s Zhejiang center to Japan
- In the news: DNA ‘map’ shows mother of all cultivated rice came from China’s Pearl River
- In the news: Earliest known cultivated rice fields discovered in Zhejiang province, China date to 7,700 years bp
- The Early Rice Project seeks to clarify the origins of Asian rice agriculture
- Field trip: Views of the Otsu, a fortified village of the Yayoi Period
- Growth and prosperity of a prehistoric village: Yoshinogari
- In the news: Archaeologists discover 2,500-year-old uncarbonized rice at the Akitsu site, Goze
- Organizing gods, parishes and parishioners: Ujigami, chinjugami and ubusugami
- The origin of the Japonic language, its connection with the Liaoning dagger culture and/or dispersal of rice agriculture
- War!!! Fortified fiefdoms and moat-making activity
- Yayoi architectural styles
- Queen Himiko and the mystery of Yamatai-koku
- Etymology of ‘Wa’, ‘Yamatai’ and ‘Nippon’
- In the news: Excavations of Makimuku ruins in Nara expected to reveal much about nation’s first true city and Himiko’s Yamatai
- In the news: Shamanic-magician rulers likely conjured up magical displays with bronze mirrors
- The Yamatai Puzzle: Where were Himiko’s headquarters?
- Wet-rice farming marker HLA B46 haplotype found in Korea and Japan is of SEA origin
- When Japan entered the Iron & Bronze Age
- Lifestyle and Society of the land of Wa
- Continental connections and international relations
- Hg 02b and O2b1: Proto-Korean and Yayoi population’s affinity to and origins in Altaic-Tungus populations
- In the news: Advances in chemical analyses helped show Southeast Asian and Indian origins of ancient glass beads
- In the news: Chinese writing was first introduced during Yayoi period
- In the news: More recent finds of Lelang pottery finds on Honshu from the Yayoi Period prove Chinese sphere of influence included proto-historic and ancient Japan
- Korean footprints in Japan
- Migrants of the Yayoi period brought the ALDH2 mutation and CY genotype JCVirus to Japan
- Revisiting the peopling of Japan: an admixture perspective
- Study of vermillion found in 1st- and 2nd- century burials proves Yayoi people traded with China
- The Tree of Life and worldview of the Amur Mohe Buyeo Sushen (Tungusic people)
- Days of mourning and ways of burying
- Field trip – visit a megalithic dolmen site
- Field Trip: Ikegami-Sone ruins and Osaka Prefectural Museum of Yayoi Culture
- In the news: Ceremonial mask uncovered from among ruin’s warrior artefacts in Sakurai City, Nara
- In the news: Discovery of one of the largest Yayoi burial mounds in Hiyoshigaoka Ruins in the town of Kaya, Kyoto dating to Yayoi period
- In the news: Mid-Yayoi (2nd century) stone burial mound uncovered at the Narishige site in Shirotori, Kagawa
- Why were some of the Yayoi coffins boat-shaped?
- Domestic cats were pets of the nobles in the 3rd century AD
- Entering the realm of rice, ritual and religion
- Magic, superstitions, religious rituals of the Yayoi culture
- Bibliography: Reading sources for a comparative look at shamanism in North and East Asia
- Early mountain sun worship rites were practised on Mt Mitake
- Restored Yayoi shrine opened to public
- Study of Yayoi-period stone rods shows continuity of Jomon lineage in their morphology suggesting a Jomon-Yayoi transition that saw very rapid fusion and co-existence of two different Jomon and Yayoi groups
- Yayoi clay figurine head excavated from Kambara ruins of Soja city in Okayama prefecture
- Magic, superstitions, religious rituals of the Yayoi culture
- In the news: Carp farming during the Yayoi Period
- Trade and Tribal Wealth and Status
- Continental connections and international relations
- Origins of the Yayoi people
- A 2007 study found that most Japanese to belong to three major Y-DNA clades, C, D, or O.
- aDNA from Doigahama site closest to 2,500 year-old remains in Linzi, China
- Dead men tell no tales … what were the Yayoi people like?
- Finding on dialects casts new light on the origins of the Japanese People
- In the news: DNA shows origin of most Japanese linked to migrants from mainland
- In the news: Genetic differences found between mainland and Okinawan Japanese
- Journey of the East Asian lineage of y-chromosome O3a3c-bearing men into Japan
- Making sense of DNA data and the origins of the Japanese
- 2020 new data: Genetic and phenotypic landscapes of mtDNA in the Japanese population
- Analyses of virus migration markers, Denisovan and Neanderthal genes in modern Asians suggest more complex migration routes than southern (coastal) dispersal route to Oceania model
- C2 haplogroup (yDNA) and presence of Diego blood group confirm recent branching of Mongolian group from northern China, Korea and Japan
- Japanese population history at a glance from mtDNA data
- Two OCA2 polymorphisms may have brought lighter skin colour changes from East Asian populations into Yayoi Japan
- Tracing the origins and migratory paths of East Asians, their founding fathers and their Y chromosome haplotypes
- Yayoi linked to Yangtze area: DNA tests reveal similarities to early wet-rice farmers
- Advent of Agriculture and the Rice Revolution
- 4. Towering tumuli of the Kofun era
- 3rd century: Powerful priest kings of Yamato and sacred Mt Miwa
- 3rd through 5th century: Sacred-Secular Dual Kingship model of society seen from examinations of Kofun Period tombs
- In the news: Mid-3rd century safflower pollen from Nara’s Makimuku ruins evidence of trade or diplomatic activities with China
- King of the Kibi and other Okayama Kofun burial mounds surveyed using information software systems
- Sacred mountain orientations and beliefs of proto-historic Japan – the Tibetan connection?
- The revolution of rites
- 4th century: The Legend of Prince Yamatotakeru: the path he took and Yamato’s expansion
- 5th century: The rise of royal estates
- Book “Ancient Japan Archaeology for State Formative Processes” suggests early nation state was already formed in Japan in the latter half of the 5th century, which developed and evolved into the Ritsuryo nation, much earlier than the widely believed 7th century
- In the news: Ancient horse trappings dug up at burial mound
- When did horses arrive in Japan? When were they domesticated?
- Horse-riding warriors: they came, they saw and they conquered … or did they?
- In the news: Horses were domesticated 5,500 years ago on the steppes of Central Asia
- In the news: Kofun people raised horses on pastureland in the 6th c. …eleven hundred years earlier than the Europeans did
- Treasures (horse, sumo and boat haniwa) artifacts excavated from Izumo Taisha shrine
- When did horses arrive in Japan? When were they domesticated?
- In the news: Excavations at the Motodaka Yumi no Ki Iseki reveal Kofun period iron tools and engineering and irrigation-works
- In the news: Roman glass beads uncovered in Japanese 5th century nobleman’s tomb near Kyoto
- Kofun period people sought after shell bracelets and amulets from the southern islands
- The first Japanese state emerged in the fifth century…says Anthropologist Gina Barnes
- The role of power and warfare in emerging statehood
- Uji clans, titles and the organization of production and trade
- Complex continental connections of the Kofun age
- Barbarization and sinizicization processes of the Steppe-pastoralist-and-East Asian-agrarian interaction sphere
- Chinese researchers publish four landmark academic papers reporting research finds on the site of capital cities and tombs of the ancient Koguryo Kingdom
- Excavations illuminate Kaya’s history and interactions with Japan
- Study of Xiongnu remains at Eiigin Gol show close affinity with Jomon, Ainu and also with Japanese
- Complex continental connections of the Kofun age
- Village settlement patterns: the homestead emerges
- 6th century: Japan gets its first calendar
- 6th century~8th century Yokoana rockcut cave or tunnel tombs
- Faces and scenes at court during the Kofun Period
- In the news: Dendrochronological research establishes that the Kofun Period emerged 100 years earlier than previously thought
- Types of tumuli and their evolution
- Designs of the decorated tombs – what did they mean?
- Did keyhole-shaped tombs originate in the Korean peninsula?
- Haniwa – terracotta figurines [Photo gallery]
- In the news: Discovery of boat-shaped haniwa shows belief of souls transported to the afterlife by ship
- In the news: Sixth century tomb’s ‘haniwa’ is two-faced first
- National Geographic: Japanese Royal Tomb Opened to Scholars for First Time
- Recommended field trip: Sakitama ancient burial mounds
- The emergence and development of stone houses, stone shelves along with decorated kofun and other archaeological elements of the Kikuchi River region of north Kumamoto Prefecture, spreading across Kyushu
- Tomb treasures of the ancient tumuli
- Archaeologist develops geographic IT software analyze and obtain details of tumuli landscape and artefacts
- Fujinoki Tomb: Horse’s harness, splendid glass, stones and other tomb treasures hint of Korean connections
- In the news: Third century Japanese tomb yields 81 bronze mirrors
- Origin and types of bronze mirrors in East Asia
- Twin fish pendants from North Caucasus to northeast Asia
- Who lies entombed within?
- Kofun period mtDNA data from 5 sites
- National Geographic: Japanese Royal Tomb Opened to Scholars for First Time
- Out of Central Asia and Silk Road migrations to Japan
- Rare DNA gleaned from Tohoku
- 3rd century: Powerful priest kings of Yamato and sacred Mt Miwa
- 5. Buddhism blossoms in Asuka
- How Buddhism took root in Japan
- 7th c.- 9th c. rivalry of the ritualist clans, and rituals of the royal court
- Civil war breaks out! Prince Otomo vs. Prince Oama
- Statesman Prince Shotoku, legend or real national hero?
- Caps and court rank: the Kan’i junikai system
- In the news: Archaeological site in Dazaifu, Fukuoka yields the oldest (late 7th century) koseki records in the country
- Prince Shotoku and what it means to be a Confucian leader
- The excavated finds of Darumaji, and the Legend of Shotoku Taishi and his encounter with the starving beggar
- Taika reforms entrench the emperor’s place at the apex of the state
- Tales of Mystic Mountain: The Legend of the Levitating Monk of Mt Horaiji
- Tenji and Temmu’s ritsuryo religion: “there is only one imperial way”
- The Light of Buddha: Symbolism of the oldest stone and bronze lanterns of Nara
- Reviewing the ruins of the Asuka-kyo and Fujiwara-kyo, the first imperial capitals of Japan
- Ancient stone sluiceway of Asuka
- Architecture of Asuka: palaces & pagodas
- Asuka architecture: Yamadadera Temple ruins
- Defense projects of Dazaifu: The “Water Fortress”
- In the news: Horyuji Temple’s timbers dated to before the fire of 670
- In the news: Living quarters of Asuka Kiyomihara Palace discovered among Asuka ruins
- In the news: Nara dig yields oldest accession ruins to date
- Asuka’s burial practices: from stone tombs to cremation
- In the news: Ancient Kazumayama tomb discovery suggests Korean Paekche kingdom’s royalty may have fled to Japan
- NHK Science View Aug. 2, Thu. Reviving the Asuka Beauties: Restoration of the Takamatsuzuka Tomb Wall Paintings
- Preserving ruins of an ancient era /Asukamura maintains cultural heritage while looking to the future
- The art of Asuka
- “Kneeling angel” tile excavated from Oka-dera temple, Nara
- In the news: Manichaeism cosmology painting found
- Manyoshu poems and other legacies of Asuka
- They played “keepy uppy” or kemari in the Asuka period (through till today)
- How Buddhism took root in Japan
- 6. Nara Period nurtures Chinese culture
- Nara capital built in the shadow of the Chinese empire & under the influences of the Silk Road
- Ganjin & Gyoki: Monks on a Mission
- In the news: 13-layered Buddhist pagoda in Sakai, Osaka has been restored
- In the news: Discovery of possible remains of part of the West Palace of Nagaoka-kyo (Nara period)
- In the news: Nara celebrates 1,300th Heijyokyo anniversary
- In the news: Silk road Islamic ceramic fragments excavated from Nara’s Saidaiji site are oldest finds in Japan
- Nara period religion: A vision of the Pure Land as seen in the Taima Mandala
- Origins of the Onigawara ceramic rooftile
- Nara Court and Ceremony and the flowering of the Tempyo Culture
- Tempyo arts
- Early Shosoin, Isonokami warehouse and shrine architecture may have had Altaic or other Central Asian influences
- In the news: Shoso-in and Emperor Shomu
- Musical instruments of the Nara Period
- The construction of the colossal and cosmic Buddha of Nara
- The discovery of a multitude of multi-purpose mokkan
- Todai-ji and Emperor Shomu’s “Three Treasures”
- Field trip: Ashura (Buddhist sculpture from Kofukuji, Nara period) at the Tokyo National Museum, Ueno
- In the news: Lost sacred swords of Todaiji recovered
- In the news: Newly excavated ruins of 8th century Shin-Yakushiiji as large as largest existing wooden structure today
- The history of incense since the Nara Period
- Treasures of the world’s oldest and most visited museum – the Shosoin
- Nara capital built in the shadow of the Chinese empire & under the influences of the Silk Road
- 7. AINU FAMILY-LIFE & RELIGION
- Ancient Jomon DNA show Jomon populations were more heterogeneous than previously thought
- DNA analyses and inferred genetic origins of the Ainu
- Early Japanese belong to the M7 (mtDNA) family of Austronesian Southeast Asia (among other lineages) – source readings, Bibliography
- New aDNA data from Ainu of Edo period calls for review of dual structure population theory
- COPYRIGHT CONTACT
- 1. Along the Paleolithic Path
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