Talk:Yayoi period

About revising this article

I have revised this article to provide a neutral point of view.Please remember this article belongs to "History of Japan",and I believe a fair point of view is to respect how Japan has autonomously developed itself.This article is not for other ethnic groups to exaggerate,boast influence on Japan.Nobu Sho 11:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Fairness does not require bowing to nationalism. Factual accuracy is more important than avoiding the implication that the Japanese are related to the Koreans. The Jomon and Yayoi peoples are genetically distinct (i.e. one group did not spring fresh from the other), and most evidence points to a migration from Korea into Japan. --71.56.32.77 10:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

You both are talking about the part deleted by Nobu Sho on Dec. 29 last year? I have something to feel like talking to you both...

Nobu Sho, if you say somebody exaggerated or boasted something, you should have clarified what they were... and you should put a blank after a comma and a period.

And Mr./Ms. 71.56.32.77, to use words like "nationalism" abruptly can sometimes offend somebody.

But it's also true that I have felt some unnaturalness when the matters on Korea and Japan are discussed on Wikipedia. Nobody can deny Yayoi time Japan had some relationship with Korea, but Korea was not an only region that had something to do with Japan then. During Yayoi period in Japan, Korea was much less populated than Chunqiu and Zhanguo period China, and it's no wonder Japan had much more immigrants from China through Korea, as some archaeological sites suggest. (BTW, how much population did Korean peninsula have during Japan's Yayoi period? Korea has and had colder climate than Japan, so was Korea more suitable to inhabit in than Japan?) Mentioning on China and Polynesia (which are likely to be origines of Japan's rice farming) will not make people look down on Korea. We can calm down a bit more. -222.4.16.15 11:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion, 222.4.16.15. What made me frustrated about the fomer article is that it would only emphasize one particular "Immigrants from the Korean peninsula" theory. In addition it includes Korean Kingdoms such as Goguryeo or Baekje which never existed at that time. Ignoring other theories could not make a fair article, therefore I have decided to introduce some others. Maybe I could have talked like this from the beginning. I've forgot to login in when I revised this article again. Nobu Sho 23:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Korean "nationalists" get a kick out of boasting that Japanese this and Japanese that originated in Korea partly because of their agonizing experience of subservience to Japan in the early 20th century. For example:

Alexander Bennett, ph. D, KOREA: The Black Ships of Kendo: "Recently, a new phenomenon has started to become apparent. One of the most significant contributors to the popularization of budo in recent years is not only the Japanese, but also the Koreans. There has been a noticeable trend in the appearance of dojang around the world rather than dojo. Dojang is the Korean word for dojo, and where the Japanese left off, the Koreans are taking positive strides to pick up on the basis of most of the reasons I have outlined above....　This interesting phenomenon of the gradual Koreanisation of budo overseas is perceived by the Koreans as the internationalization of their own Korean martial arts heritage. The Koreans are aggressive in their dissemination, sometimes nationalistic, and often very commercial in their approach, providing attractive packages for their students and instructors alike, not to mention propositions of business partnerships with already existing dojo.... What effect could this possibly have on Japanese budo? In this paper I will consider the case example of kendo.... As colonies of Japan, the Taiwanese and Korean populace were also 'encouraged' to participate in these activities. Koreans took to budo with unexpected enthusiasm, and even when the war ended and the Republic of Korea was established, they maintained a commitment to kendo that persists to this day, evident in the comparatively high level and large population of enthusiasts. However, in many ways the old wounds of the occupation have still not healed, and in a nationwide revisionist stance, Koreans for the most part refuse to entertain the notion that the sport's origins lie in Japan, and instead call it 'kumdo', insisting that it originated in Korea. For example, to demonstrate this [color=red]revisionist[/color] mentality, I have quoted the historical information placed on the official homepage of the Korea Kumdo Association."

That so many Korean posters take almost obsessive interests in the topic of ancient Japanese history on Wikipedia and other internet discussion forums is not without a reason. It should also be remembered that the nation that we know today as "Korea" did not exist back in the ancient days, and that anyone writing a statement like "such and such came from Korea" is politicizing historical facts (knowingly or not). For whatever came from the Korean peninsula is just that, it came from the Korean peninsula, period; it doesn't necessarily follow that it came from "Korea" because chances are that the ancient kingdoms that existed on the peninsula thousands of years ago were not all of ethnics that are direct ancestors of modernday "Koreans." Being attached to the Eurasia continent the population drift has been much more active on the peninsula. Goguryeo, for one, is considered to be most likely a kingdom of the Buyeo, who were related to today's Manchurians. --207.232.153.30 00:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

let's not get carried away to either extreme. there are probably at least as many japanese contributors obsessed with korean history articles here. & 207.232.153.30 may have his own version of history, but there is no real controversy about korean kingdoms dominating the peninsula by around 300 AD (obviously having grown from states founded much earlier), that the languages and culture of the korean kingdoms were closely related, and that migration and cultural flow generally travelled from china to korea to japan (yes, specifically from korean kingdoms on the korean peninsula, not just somewhere vaguely in the "mainland" or "continent"). the correctly balanced version may be between the two being reverted, but some basic facts about migration or cultural flow are not quite so mysterious or contentious among reputable scholars. Appleby 01:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Just a point though, Appleby, is that the period that we're talking about (the Yayoi) does not relate to the Silla/Paekche/Goguryeo period, but rather to the Three Han period (which became Silla, Paekche and Kaya/Mimana), and the end of the preceding Lo-Lang Commandarie in Korean history. With your talk of cultural transmission you seem to be confusing and combining the interations which took place around the start of the Yayoi period (which this article necessarily deals with) and later, more direct interventions, politically and militarily, between the Three Kingdoms and Yamato through the 4th-6th centuries, during the Kofun/Asuka Eras. There could have been no transmission from Korea to Japan during the Yayoi period as you imply, because neither nation existed as such.

Personally, I tend to favour the peninsular (NOT Korean) transmission theory based upon the archaeological evidence found on both sides of the straits, but to assign a flavour other than continental to it is unsupportable.Kurohone 06:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting to note that there tends to be this bias in favor of calling the islands then specifically "Japan" and the peninsula then more vaguely "the Korean peninsula" or "Asian continent". The fact of the matter is that civilization on the peninsula was far more developed than on the islands at the time. There was indeed a distinctly Korean civilization already present with organized monarchies, while the islands were still comprised of tribes. Anyhow, the general consensus among historians and archaeologists is that there was undeniably a huge transfusion of culture and large-scale migration from what is now Korea to Japan during the Yayoi period.--Sir Edgar 06:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Geneticists attempting to calculate the relative contributions of Korean-like Yayoi genes and Ainu-like Jomon genes to the modem Japanese gene pool have concluded that the Yayoi contribution was generally dominant. Thus, immigrants from Korea really did make a big contribution to the modern Japanese, though we cannot yet say whether that was because of massive immigration or else modest immigration amplified by a high rate of population increase. Genetic studies of the past three years have also at last resolved the controversy about the origins of the Ainu: they are the descendants of Japan's ancient Jomon inhabitants, mixed with Korean genes of Yayoi colonists and of the modern Japanese. [1]

"The Yayoi period (c. 300 BCE to 300 CE) saw the introduction of a full-scale agricultural economy into the islands of Japan. This economy was initially associated with immigration from the Korean Peninsula. Currently the most widely accepted interpretation of this evidence is that continental rice farmers spread to Japan from the Korean Peninsula at the beginning of the Yayoi period. It has been argued that the Japanese language also spread to the archipelago at this time. As well as rice farming, a variety of other items and technologies were introduced from Korea in the Yayoi. These include the use of bronze and iron, domesticated pigs, wooden and stone agricultural tools, megalithic burials, and certain types of pottery. [2]

The Yayoi period brought also the introduction of iron and other modern ideas from Korea into Japan. [3]

In the Initial and Early Yayoi, and in the Korean Plain Pottery that formed the roots of Yayoi ceramics, more fuel was used than in the Middle and Late phases. [4]

Dolmens have been investigated as an important trait of the rice agriculture-based cultural complex introduced from the southern region of the Korean peninsula to Japan in the Initial and Early Yayoi periods. The dolmens of Japan originated in the Nam-gung River basin of Southern Korea. Dolmens were firstly introduced to the Genkai-nada coastal region and then diffused to the surrounding regions. [5]

now, the flow & wording can certainly be improved, & the content should be modified when you provide appropriate citations to different theories. i'm not saying there are no alternative theories, but we have to present them roughly proportionally, as viewed by the academic field. if you just continue to revert to your fringe nationalistic theories presented as equally plausible, equally accepted scholarly theories, without any citations, we will have to go to mediation. Appleby 18:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

That some corpses from the Yahoi had the same mtDNA sequence as the ones of some modernday Korean individuals means just that. The most that could be inferred from this finding is that the Yahoi and Koreans might have had the same ancestors. It doesn't follow that Yayoi came from "Korea" for the Yayoi and "Koreans" might have diverged in two when they were still living up in the northern Eurasia several thousands of years ago and not at the time of the Yayoi period. As usual the Korean mass media swarmed on this finding when it came out, and Takao Inoue, one of the researchers, excessed his concern of the abuse of the scientific research result for political agenda (see [6]). 207.232.153.30 05:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)