Beginning of Agriculture and Immigrants from the Korean Peninsula in Prehistoric Japan

Summary

In Japan a transition from the hunting-gathering Jomon economy to the food producing Yayoi economy took place at some point in the first millennium B.C., and this transition resulted in considerable cultural change. It is widely accepted among Japanese archaeologists that this transition was greatly facilitated by immigration from the southern Korean peninsula who had already practiced agriculture, including wet rice cultivation. In order to approach relationships between the Korean immigrants and native Japanese people in the first millennium B.C., the author has analyzed pottery in the southern Korean peninsula and northern Kyushu island of Japan, with special reference to the pottery function and production techniques. As a result, it is impossible to distinguish the "Korean type" of pottery from the local pottery assemblage in Kyushu, which suggests that Korean immigrants quickly and peacefully incorporated themselves into local population through marriage.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Tribes, Chiefdoms and early states in late prehistoric Japan

Keywords

Spatial Coverage