Ancient Japan

I'm one of those people who's "too lazy to write out everything in their own words and will take from Wikipedia instead." C:

The Japanese Paleolithic (旧石器時代, kyū-sekki-jidai?) covers a period starting from around 100,000 to 30,000 BC, when the earliest stone tool implements have been found, and ending around 12,000 BC, at the end of the last ice age, corresponding with the beginning of the Mesolithic Jōmon period. A start date of around 35,000 BC is most generally accepted.2 The Japanese archipelago was disconnected from the continent after the last ice age, around 11,000 BC. After a hoax by an amateur researcher, Shinichi Fujimura, had been exposed 3, the Lower and Middle Paleolithic evidence reported by Fujimura and his associates has been rejected after thorough reinvestigation. Only some Upper Paleolithic evidence not associated with Fujimura can be considered well established.

The Jōmon period (縄文時代, Jōmon-jidai - lit. "period of patterns of plaited cord"?) lasted from about 14,000 BC to 300 BC. The first signs of civilization and stable living patterns appeared around 14,000 BC with the Jōmon culture, characterized by a mesolithic to neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer lifestyle of wood stilt house and pit dwelling and a rudimentary form of agriculture. Weaving was still unknown and clothes were often made of fur. The Jōmon people started to make clay vessels, decorated with patterns made by impressing the wet clay with braided or unbraided cord and sticks. Some of the oldest surviving examples of pottery in the world may be found in Japan, based on radio-carbon dating, along with daggers, jade, combs made of shells, and other household items dated to the 11th millennium BC,4 although the specific dating is disputed. Clay figures (dogu) were also excavated. The household items suggest trade routes existed with places as far away as Okinawa. DNA analysis suggests that the Ainu, an indigenous people that lived in Hokkaidō and the northern part of Honshū are descended from the Jōmon and thus represent descendants of the first inhabitants of Japan.

The Yayoi period (弥生時代, Yayoi-jidai?) lasted from about 400 or 300 BC to 250 AD. It is named after Yayoi town, the subsection of Bunkyō, Tokyo where archaeological investigations uncovered its first recognized traces.
The start of the Yayoi period marked the influx of new practices such as weaving, rice farming, shamanism and iron and bronze-making brought from Korea or China.5 For example, some paleoethnobotany studies show that wet-rice cultivation began about 8000 BC in the Yangtze River Delta and spread to Japan about 1000 BC.6
Japan first appeared in written records in AD 57 with the following mention in China's Book of Later Han:7 Across the ocean from Luoyang are the people of Wa. Formed from more than one hundred tribes, they come and pay tribute frequently. The Sanguo Zhi written in the 3rd century noted the country was the unification of some 30 small tribes or states and ruled by a shaman queen named Himiko of Yamataikoku.
During the Han Dynasty and Wei Dynasty, Chinese travelers to Kyūshū recorded its inhabitants and claimed that they were the descendants of the Grand Count (Tàibó) of the Wu. The inhabitants also show traits of the pre-sinicized Wu people with tattooing, teeth-pulling and baby-carrying. The Sanguo Zhi records the physical descriptions which are similar to ones on Haniwa statues, such men with braided hair, tattooing and women wearing large, single-piece clothing.
The Yoshinogari site is the most famous archaeological site in the Yayoi period and reveals a large, continuously inhabited settlement in Kyūshū for several hundreds of years. Excavation has shown the most ancient parts to be around 400 BC. Among the artifacts are iron and bronze objects, including those from China. It appears the inhabitants had frequent communication with the mainland and trade relations. Today some reconstructed buildings stand in the park on the archaeological site.

The Yamato polity was the main ruling power in Japan from the middle of the 3rd century until 710. The Kofun period (mid 3rd century – mid 6th century), is defined by the construction of many keyhole-shaped tumuli. At the beginning of the Asuka period (mid 6th century – 710), the capital was moved to Asuka, the southernmost part of Nara Basin. The main difference between the Yayoi period and the Kofun-Asuka periods is the development from a sedentary and agricultural culture to a more advanced and militaristic culture due to influences from China via the Korean peninsula. This was replaced by Tang Dynasty Chinese influences during the Nara period which introduced centralized imperial government, new aesthetics and new religious ideas instead of the military advances of the Yamato era.89
The Ryukyuan languages and Japanese most likely diverged during this period 10.

The Kofun period (古墳時代, - Kofun-jidai, lit. "period of ancient mound/tomb"?), beginning around AD 250, is named after the large burial mounds (kofun) that appeared at the time. The Kofun period saw the establishment of strong military states centered around powerful clans, and the establishment of the dominant Yamato polity centered in the Yamato and Kawachi provinces, from the 3rd century to the 7th century, origin of the Japanese imperial lineage. The polity, suppressing the clans and acquiring agricultural lands, maintained a strong influence in the western part of Japan. Japan started to send tributes to Imperial China in the 5th century. In the Chinese history records, the polity was called Wa and its five kings were recorded. Based upon the Chinese model, they developed a central administration and an imperial court system and its society was organized into occupation groups.
Close relationships between the Three Kingdoms of Korea and Japan began during the middle of this period, around the end of the 4th century. According to a controversial part on the Gwanggaeto Stele, Japan actively participated with large armies on the Korean Peninsula during the late 4th and early 5th centuries. According to the Book of Song, of the Liu Song Dynasty, the Liu-Song emperor formally awarded the king of Yamato, which he considered to be his vassal, the title of military sovereignty over Silla and the Gaya confederacy.11 However, others dispute this theory, claiming there is no evidence of Japanese rule in Gaya or any other part of Korea.121314 The Samguk Sagi (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms) recorded Baekje and Silla sent their princes as hostages to the Wa to ensure military support; King Asin of Baekje sent his son Jeonji in 39715 and King Silseong of Silla sent his son in 402.16 This interpretation is complicated by the claim that the rulers of Japan could be of Korean descent.17[18]

The Asuka period (飛鳥時代, - lit. "period of flying bird"?), 538 to 710, is when the proto-Japanese Yamato polity gradually became a clearly centralized state, defining and applying a code of governing laws, such as the Taika Reform and Taihō Codes.19 The introduction of Buddhism led to the discontinuing of the practice of large kofun.
Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 538 by Baekje, to which Japan provided military support, 20 and it was promoted by the ruling class. Prince Shotoku devoted his efforts to the spread of Buddhism and Chinese culture in Japan. He is credited with bringing relative peace to Japan through the proclamation of the Jūshichijō kenpō (十七条憲法), often referred to in Japan as the Seventeen-article constitution, a Confucian style document that focused on the kinds of morals and virtues that were to be expected of government officials and the emperor's subjects.
In a letter brought to the Emperor of China by an emissary from Japan in 607 stated that the Emperor of the Land where the Sun rises (Japan) sends a letter to the Emperor of the land where Sun sets (China),21 thereby implying an equal footing with China which angered the Chinese emperor.22
Starting with the Taika Reform Edicts of 645, Japanese intensified the adoption of Chinese cultural practices and reorganized the government and the penal code in accordance with the Chinese administrative structure (Ritsuryo) of the time. This paved the way for the influential Confucian philosophy in Japan until the 19th century. This period also saw the first uses of the word Nihon (日本) as a name for the emerging state.

The Nara period (奈良時代, Nara period?) of the 8th century marked the first emergence of a strong Japanese state. Following an Imperial rescript by Empress Genmei the move of the capital to Heijō-kyō, present-day Nara, took place in 710. The city was modelled on the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, Chang'an (now Xi'an).
During the Nara Period, political development was quite limited, since members of the imperial family struggled for power with the Buddhist clergy as well as the regents, the Fujiwara clan. Japan did enjoy friendly relations with Silla as well as formal relationships with Tang China. In 784, the capital was moved again to Nagaoka to escape the Buddhist priests and then in 794 to Heian-kyo, present-day Kyoto.
Historical writing in Japan culminated in the early 8th century with the massive chronicles, the Kojiki (The Record of Ancient Matters, 712) and the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720). These chronicles give a legendary account of Japan's beginnings, today known as the Japanese mythology. According to the myths contained in these 2 chronicles, Japan was founded in 660 BC by the ancestral Emperor Jimmu, a direct descendant of the Shinto deity Amaterasu, or the Sun Goddess. The myths recorded that Jimmu started a line of emperors that remains to this day. Historians assume the myths partly describe historical facts but the first emperor who actually existed was Emperor Ōjin, though the date of his reign is uncertain. After the Nara period, actual political power has not been in the hands of the emperor, but in the hands of the court nobility, the shoguns, the military and, more recently, the prime minister.

The Heian period (平安時代; "平安" - lit. "peace, tranquility", Heian period?), lasting from 794 to 1185, is the final period of classical Japanese history. It is considered the peak of the Japanese imperial court and noted for its art, especially in poetry and literature. In the early 11th century, Lady Murasaki wrote the world's oldest surviving novel called The Tale of Genji. The Man'yōshū and Kokin Wakashū, the oldest existing collections of Japanese poetry, were compiled in the period.
Strong differences from mainland Asian cultures emerged (such as an indigenous writing system, the kana). Chinese influence had reached its peak, and then effectively ended with the last Imperial-sanctioned mission to Tang China in 838, due to the decline of the Tang Dynasty, although trade expeditions and Buddhist pilgrimages to China continued.23
Political power in the Imperial court was in the hands of powerful aristocratic families, especially the Fujiwara clan, who ruled under the titles Sessho and Kampaku (regents).
The end of the period saw the rise of various military clans. The four most powerful clans were the Minamoto clan, the Taira clan, the Fujiwara clan, and the Tachibana clan. Towards the end of the 12th century, conflicts between these clans turned into civil war, such as the Hōgen and Heiji Rebellions, followed by the Genpei war, from which emerged a society led by samurai clans, under the political rule of the shogun.



--Thanks, Wikipedia. xD