ABSTRACT
Wet-field rice cultivation as a means of subsistence appears in Japan around the fifth to fourth centuries BC or a little earlier and is considered to mark the beginning of the Yayoi period. We can be fairly certain that the southern part of the Korean peninsula is the origin of rice farming in Japan. In addition to paddy-field agriculture, a number of other cultural traits were introduced from Korea into Japan at this time. According to previous studies in archeology and physical anthropology (Tanaka 1991, 2002; Tanaka and Ozawa 2001), it is clear that a certain number of immigrants from the southern part of the Korean peninsula participated in this phenomenon. Further, it is thought that the immigrants were accepted into the indigenous groups of the Japanese islands and that the two peoples coexisted in the same villages. This fusion of Korea’s Mumun Pottery culture and Japan’s Jomon culture resulted in the Yayoi culture. Figure 10.1 shows the relationship between the Mumun Pottery period in the southern part of the Korean peninsula and the Yayoi period in the northern Kyushu region of Japan (Takesue 2004).
