Featured
History and prehistory of Japan is divided in five distinct historical periods. The first human habitation in the Japanese archipelago has been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi people in the first millennium BC when new inventions were introduced from Asia. During this period, the first known written reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century AD. Around the 4th century BC, the Yayoi people from the Korean Peninsula immigrated to the Japanese archipelago and introduced iron technology and agricultural civilization. Over the six following centuries comes the era of Classical (Asuka, Nara, Heian periods) and Feudal Japan (Kamakura, Muromachi, Portuguese and Azuchi-Momoyama periods) until the Early Modern Edo period (1600-1868) and Modern Japan periods.