ABSTRACT
The deeper roots of Japanese population, ecological adaptation, and cultural tradition are much older, however—on current evidence reaching back to the Upper Paleolithic, about 35,000 years ago. This chapter begins with these antecedent people and traditions, describing how their huntingfishing-gathering lifeways persisted over thousands of years. It then focuses on the story of how the unique people and culture we know today came into being on Japanese soil in fairly recent times. In Late and Final Jomon times, the Jomon communities of northern Japan persisted and continued to elaborate their ceramic, artistic, social, and ceremonial productions in distinctive ways. During southern Japan's Final Jomon period, new cultural influences emanating from Korea were beginning to be felt in Kyushu. The pervasive physical presence and sheer number of Japan's kofun-period mounded tombs, and not least their often rich contents, impressively demonstrate the wealth and power enjoyed by the aristocratic families that buried their leaders in them.
