Ancient Japan

Japanese Civilization - TimeMaps. Contents Geographical and historical background Government and state Society and economy Religion and thought Culture This article deals with Japan’s civilization – its religion, literature, art and so on.

Geographical and historical background Japan consists of the four large islands off the east coast of Asia, and a hist of smaller islands. The islands of Japan lie across the sea from Korea, and, further west, China. The climate on the islands is temperate, ranging from subtropical in the south to cool in the north. Prehistoric Japan Farming came comparatively late to Japan. Nevertheless, paddy-field wet rice cultivation reached Japan from Korea around the middle of the first millennium BCE. The mountains and valleys of Japan made communications difficult, and meant that in most places society tended to be based on localised, self-sufficient clans. The Classic Age In the second half of the first millennium and the first half of the second millennium, contacts with Korea remained strong.

Ancient Japan. Ancient Japan has made unique contributions to world culture which include the Shinto religion and its architecture, distinctive art objects such as haniwa figurines, the oldest pottery vessels in the world, the largest wooden buildings anywhere at their time of construction, and many literary classics including the world’s first novel.

Although Japan was significantly influenced by China and Korea, the islands were never subject to foreign political control and so were free to select those ideas which appealed to them, adapt them how they wished, and to continue with their indigenous cultural practices to create a unique approach to government, religion, and the arts. Japan in Mythology In Shinto mythology, the Japanese islands were created by the gods Izanami and Izanagi when they dipped a jewelled spear into the primordial sea.

The Jomon Period The first signs of agriculture appear c. 5000 BCE & the earliest known settlement at Sannai-Maruyama dates to c. 3500 BCE. Early History and Culture [ushistory.org] One of the most recognizable remnants of Japan's so-called "Tomb period" is the tomb of Emperor Nintoku, who is said to have reigned during the 4th century.

With all the technological innovations coming from modern Japan, it's easy to forget that even they had a Stone Age. From around the middle of the 11th century B.C.E. to 300 B.C.E., Japan was populated by a Neolithic civilization called the Jômon (rope pattern) culture. This group of hunters and gatherers decorated their pottery by twisting rope around the wet clay, to produce a distinctive pattern. Remnants of their pit-dwellings and enormous mounds of discarded shells mark the locations of their settlements, which were scattered throughout the islands.

But it wasn't until the Yayoi period (300 B.C.E. to 250 C.E.) that Japan became a rice-loving culture. The entrance gate to a Shinto shrine is called a torii. The Tomb period (250 C.E.-552 C.E.) gets its name from the massive tombs that dot the landscape to this day. Daily Life in Medieval Japan. Daily life in medieval Japan (1185-1606 CE) was, for most people, the age-old struggle to put food on the table, build a family, stay healthy, and try to enjoy the finer things in life whenever possible.

The upper classes had better and more colourful clothes, used expensive foreign porcelain, were entertained by Noh theatre and could afford to travel to other parts of Japan while the lower classes had to make do with plain cotton, ate rice and fish, and were mostly preoccupied with surviving the occasional famine, outbreaks of disease, and the civil wars that blighted the country. Still, many of the cultural pursuits of medieval Japan continue to thrive today, from drinking green tea to playing the go board game, from owning a fine pair of chopsticks to remembering ancestors every July/August in the Obon festival.

Society Japanese medieval society was divided into classes based on their economic function. Marriage The Family Education Shopping Meals. Introduction to the Samurai. Classical Japan during the Heian Period.