Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronin4hire
Um.. History is irrelevant with regard to the Jomon and Yayoi mostly.
Nihonshoki/Kojiki is not a historical document. Not to mention that Chinese records mentioning Japan didn't appear untill well after the Yayoi had been established.
So I don't really believe that you are as accomplished as you say you are.
Furthermore, archaeology is the discipline in which the most information on the era is relevant.
And as I said before.. there is no evidence of major hostilities between the Yayoi and Jomon.
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Nihon shoki and Kojiki are part historical part mythological. Much of it was compiled in an effort to put together their history the best they could with what knowledge they had...which was not much. It was all passed down orally as stories and legends which or course makes it very hard to understand what really happened. I am not claiming that this is 100% correct nobody could, but that merely this is what Acadamia at the university level generally sees as the likey past. With no way to prove it they can only make claims on the fragmented and tampered evidence (Japan stole tons of treasure, artifacts, historical documents etc from Korea in both Hideyoshis incursion and in WWII). WWII was more heavy on the history erasing aspect, at the time Nippon was in a Nationalistic frenzy. They claimed Koreans were their subjects from ancient times (referring to the time of Empress Jingu as a excuse to subjugating them again. None of the stuff was returned or surfaced, it could have been destroyed or is still somewhere erasing a ton of history.
Anyway what I am referring to is entrenched in archeology, genetics and these mythical tales in the Japanese texts. Remember these Japanese stories have been distorted and changed over the centuries but in essense they had a grain of truth, the trouble is figuring out who the mythic charachters real life counter part was, or more likey is that significant people in the past were glorified as gods....this is what the yayoi did, they deitized their ancestors making them gods in these mytholoigcal tales (for oral transmission). each Uji had their own unique gods and tales based on their past, over time they just got jumbled up (as they conquered each other, incorperating their subjects gods) into a huge random ball of stories and tales of gods conquering an enemy, slaying 8 headed dragon monsters (Orochi), invading enemy territory etc.
What archeology says is that the Yayoi likey originated in Kyushu and spread out to the outlying islands. It doesn't matter if the Yayoi took the territory by war or by cultural imperialism - either way it became Yayoi and thats a fact we both agree on. Without getting into pages and pages or comparisions and details between whats writtin in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, Book of Sui, Korean texts and actual archeologiical and genetic evidence, we know genetically that Japan is broken down in a way that we know without a doubt which peoples occupied which region and in the order they lived (carbon dating of artifacts and remains). Northern Kyushu is a heavy mix of Yayoi, Jomon, a little Kumaso and what is believed to be the Korean DNA from the Kofun immigration. its beleived that DNA is Korean because is denser in the areas where it is confirmed the Torajin, Baekje refugees after the battle of Baekjang and other outsiders arrived in Japan.
Souther Kyushu has much more Kumaso genes than the north, some yayoi, and jomon. From western Honshu to the Kanto plain the DNA breakdown is Jomon, Yayoi, and lots of that Korean genes. The further north you go from the Kanto plain you have more Jomon, less Yayoi and less of the Korean gene.
Tie all that in with archeloigcal evidence that Yayoi indeed spread out from Kyushu (or at least it was the biggest port for Yayoi culture determined by how old and how numerous evidence is), what the stories in the Nihon Shoki/Kojiki say and you get a vauge idea from where the Yayoi arrived, spread out and mingled with the Jomon, then to be overtaken by the Kofun culture when Baekje invaded.
Again as more is discovered the picture gets clearer, but for the moment we have a bunch of fragments in the forms of genetics, archeology, whats in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki and tie them together to try to get the best picture possible.