Hello, and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, Episode 2, A Kingdom called Waugh.

Today we're going to be covering two versions of the origins of Japan, the historical

version and the mythical version.

We'll begin with the historical.

The earliest credible evidence for human habitation in Japan dates from around 130,000 years ago.

There's extensive evidence of a Paleolithic culture, a hunter-gatherer culture, from around 32,000 years ago.

Now, the first culture for which we have a name is the Jomone culture, which dates from

13,000 BC to 300 BC. This culture is usually described as mesolithic or neolithic, which is a fancy way of saying that it's a mixed, agricultural, and hunter-gatherer society.

In other words, they both hunted food, gathered berries, and they planted some crops.

The term Jolmon literally means rope mark, and that comes from the type of pottery made by the Jolmon civilization.

It was decorated with patterns made by the imprint of ropes.

I've put two pictures of Jomon pottery, one from the early Jomon and one from the mid-Jomon on the website,

so you can see what these kind of markings look like.

Now, the population of Jolm Japan was very small, as of about

4,500 years ago was maybe a quarter of a million people. Around 300 BC, Jolmon culture was

supplanted by the Yai'oi culture, which was agricultural and bronze using. The term Y Yayoi refers to a neighborhood of modern Tokyo.

That's where the first sites of this culture were discovered.

One of the major features of Yaoi culture is agriculture, especially rice agriculture.

This appears to have been introduced by immigrants from Korea, who first started arriving in the southern island of Kyushu around 500 BC.

This introduction of rice agriculture creates a spike in population.

Japan's population hits about a million by around 0 AD.

Most of the population settles along the alluvial plains, the silt plains from rivers,

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