Editing Yayoi period (section)

===Origin of the Yayoi people===
{{Main|Yayoi people}}
{{See also|Genetic history of East Asians}}

[[File:Korea Strait.png|thumb|left|Northern Kyushu is the part of Japan closest to the Asian mainland.]]

The origin of Yayoi culture and the [[Yayoi people]] has long been debated. The earliest archaeological sites are Itazuke or Nabata in the northern part of Kyūshū. Contacts between fishing communities on this coast and the southern coast of Korea date from the [[Jōmon]] period, as witnessed by the exchange of trade items such as fishhooks and obsidian.<ref>Mizoguchi (2013), p. 54.</ref> During the Yayoi period, [[Korean influence on Japanese culture|cultural features from Korea]] and China arrived in this area at various times over several centuries, and later spread to the south and east.<ref>{{cite book | chapter = The earliest societies in Japan | given = J. Edward Jr. | surname = Kidder | pages = 48–107 | title = Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 1: Ancient Japan | editor-given = Delmer | editor-surname = Brown | editor-link = Delmer Brown | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1993 | isbn = 978-0-521-22352-2}} p. 81.</ref> This was a period of mixture between immigrants and the indigenous population, and between new cultural influences and existing practices.<ref>Mizoguchi (2013), p. 53.</ref>

Chinese influence was obvious in the bronze and copper weapons, [[Bronze mirror|dōkyō]], [[dōtaku]], as well as irrigated paddy rice cultivation. Three major symbols of Yayoi culture are the bronze mirror, the bronze sword, and the royal seal stone.

Between 1996 and 1999, a team led by Satoshi Yamaguchi, a researcher at Japan's [[National Museum of Nature and Science]], compared Yayoi remains found in Japan's [[Yamaguchi Prefecture|Yamaguchi]] and [[Fukuoka Prefecture|Fukuoka]] prefectures with those from China's coastal [[Jiangsu]] province and found many similarities between the Yayoi and the Jiangsu remains.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kahaku.go.jp/special/past/japanese/ipix/5/5-14.html|title=Long Journey to Prehistorical Japan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150421054014/http://www.kahaku.go.jp/special/past/japanese/ipix/5/5-14.html|archive-date=21 April 2015|publisher=National Science Museum of Japan|language=ja}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news111.htm |title=Yayoi linked to Yangtze area: DNA tests reveal similarities to early wet-rice farmers|newspaper=[[The Japan Times]]|date=March 19, 1999}}</ref>

[[File:DotakuBronzeBellLateYayoi3rdCenturyCE.jpg|thumb|left|A Yayoi period [[dōtaku]] bell, 3rd century AD]]
Further links to the Korean Peninsula have been discovered, and several researchers have reported discoveries/evidence that strongly link the Yayoi culture to the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. [[Mark J. Hudson]] has cited archaeological evidence that included "bounded paddy fields, new types of polished stone tools, wooden farming implements, iron tools, weaving technology, ceramic storage jars, exterior bonding of clay coils in pottery fabrication, [[Moated settlements|ditched settlements]], domesticated pigs, and jawbone rituals".<ref>{{cite book | author=Mark J. Hudson | title=Ruins of Identity Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands | publisher =University Hawai'i Press | year=1999 | isbn=0-8248-2156-4}}</ref> The migrant transfusion from the Korean peninsula gains strength because Yayoi culture began on the north coast of Kyūshū, where Japan is closest to Korea. Yayoi pottery, burial mounds, and [[food preservation]] were discovered to be very similar to the pottery of southern Korea.<ref name="Diamond">{{cite journal |author= Jared Diamond|date=June 1, 1998 |title=Japanese Roots |journal=Discover Magazine |volume=19|issue=6, June 1998 |url=http://discovermagazine.com/1998/jun/japaneseroots1455/ |access-date=2008-05-12 | quote = Unlike Jomon pottery, Yayoi pottery was very similar to contemporary South Korean pottery in shape. Many other elements of the new Yayoi culture were unmistakably Korean and previously foreign to Japan, including bronze objects, weaving, glass beads, and styles of tools and houses.|author-link=Jared Diamond }}</ref>

[[File:Bronze Mirror in Ancient Japan.jpg|thumb|right|[[Shinju-kyo]] [[bronze mirror]] excavated in Tsubai-otsukayama kofun, [[Yamashiro, Kyoto]]]]
However, some scholars argue that the rapid increase of roughly four million people in Japan between the Jōmon and Yayoi periods cannot be explained by migration alone. They attribute the increase primarily to a shift from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural diet on the islands, with the introduction of rice. It is quite likely that rice cultivation and its subsequent deification allowed for a slow and gradual population increase.<ref>Mizoguchi (2013), p. 119.</ref> Regardless, there is archaeological evidence that supports the idea that there was an influx of farmers from the continent to Japan that absorbed or overwhelmed the native hunter-gatherer population.<ref name="Diamond"/>

Some pieces of Yayoi pottery clearly show the influence of Jōmon ceramics. In addition, the Yayoi lived in the same type of pit or circular dwelling as that of the Jōmon. Other examples of commonality are chipped stone tools for hunting, bone tools for fishing, shells in bracelet construction, and lacquer decoration for vessels and accessories.

According to several linguists, Japonic or proto-Japonic was present on large parts of the southern Korean peninsula.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Janhunen |first=Juha |date=2010 |title=Reconstructing the Language Map of Prehistorical Northeast Asia |journal=Studia Orientalia |number=108|quote=... there are strong indications that the neighbouring Baekje state (in the southwest) was predominantly Japonic-speaking until it was linguistically Koreanized.}}</ref><ref name=":1">Vovin, Alexander (2013). "From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean". ''Korean Linguistics''. '''15''' (2): 222–240.</ref> These [[Peninsular Japonic]] languages, now extinct, were eventually replaced by [[Koreanic languages]].{{sfnp|Beckwith|2004|pp=27–28}} Similarly Whitman suggests that the Yayoi are not related to the proto-Koreans but that they (the Yayoi) were present on the Korean peninsula during the [[Mumun pottery period]]. According to him and several other researchers, Japonic/proto-Japonic arrived in the Korean peninsula around 1500 BC{{sfnp|Whitman|2011|p=157}}{{sfnp|Miyamoto|2016|pp=69–70}} and was brought to the Japanese archipelago by Yayoi [[wet-rice]] farmers at some time between 700 and 300 BC.{{sfnp|Serafim|2008|p=98}}{{sfnp|Vovin|2017}} Whitman and Miyamoto associate Japonic as the language family of both Mumun and Yayoi cultures.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Whitman|first=John|date=2011-12-01|title=Northeast Asian Linguistic Ecology and the Advent of Rice Agriculture in Korea and Japan|journal=Rice|language=en|volume=4|issue=3|pages=149–158|doi=10.1007/s12284-011-9080-0|issn=1939-8433|doi-access=free|bibcode=2011Rice....4..149W }}</ref>{{sfnp|Miyamoto|2016|pp=69–70}} Several linguists believe that speakers of Koreanic/proto-Koreanic arrived in the Korean Peninsula at some time after the Japonic/proto-Japonic speakers and coexisted with these peoples (i.e. the descendants of both the Mumun and Yayoi cultures) and possibly assimilated them. Both Koreanic and Japonic had prolonged influence on each other and a later [[founder effect]] diminished the internal variety of both language families.{{sfnp|Janhunen|2010|p=294}}{{sfnp|Vovin|2013|pp=222, 237}}{{sfnp|Unger|2009|p=87}}