ABSTRACT
Settled agriculture, based on the techniques of rice cultivation, was probably brought to the Japanese islands around the third century BC by the influx of migrants from the Asian mainland known as the Yayoi people. Over the centuries thereafter, cultivation systems developed to high levels of technical sophistication to suit the climatic and geographic conditions of the various parts of the country. Paddy rice, which was capable of being grown annually without fallow periods and thus of supporting a densely-packed population on a limited land area, was cultivated wherever conditions permitted, but depended on a reliable supply of irrigation water.
