9781422283547

Exploring Japan

Rice and Emperors

B etween 300 bce and 300 ce the Japanese learned to grow rice, to work iron and bronze and to weave cloth. These advances had come from China, probably brought by migrant peoples moving into Japan from Korea or Okinawa. This period is called the Yayoi period, after a village called Yayoicho. When the village was excavated, archaeologists found a new kind of pottery, smooth and painted, quite different from the Jomon. They also found that bronze—a mixture of tin and copper—had been used to make mirrors, bells, swords and spears, and that iron had been used to make tools and farming implements. Growing regular rice crops provided a more reliable food supply than hunting, so the population began to grow

T he Japanese learned the skill of rice-growing from the Chinese. These figures come from a Chinese painting. They are sorting the rice and transporting it.

and people lived in larger villages. The leaders of the more powerful villages became chieftains, ruling over their neighbors. When they died, some were buried in mounds, which were separate from ordinary burial-grounds, to show that they were important.

T his woman (below) is working

in a flooded paddy-field,

transplanting rice seedlings by hand. Transplanting was traditionally women’s work.

8