Japan. From Hunter-Gatherers to the Heian Period. - 36,000 to the year 1000.
Belin| N° d'inventaire | 29831 |
| Format | 24 X 19 |
| Détails | 608 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2023 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782410015690 |
Nearly 40,000 years ago, Japan was not yet the archipelago we know today: connected to the continent, these lands with hostile relief and capricious climatic and geological conditions - around thirty volcanoes are active - welcomed the first humans, ten thousand at most, from Korea, territories further south or even Siberia. Its longitudinal immensity had consequences on the development of societies and, during ancient times, several cultural spheres coexisted.
In the east and northeast, hunter-gatherers settled down and were among the first in the world to develop sophisticated pottery, which made the reputation of the Jomon culture, but never engaged in the "Neolithic revolution." Conversely, the Yayoi culture in northwest Kyushu introduced agriculture and flooded rice cultivation. Then the first traces of a state appeared in the Yamato, which was long eluded by peripheral local societies, before Japan as a centralized state headed by an emperor, the tennô, suddenly emerged in the last third of the 7th century. The State of Codes which was then established represents a major moment in Japanese history: the institutions created at the turn of the 7th and 8th centuries will continue, in multiple forms, until the 1870s.
Using the results of Japanese archaeology, one of the most dynamic in the world, little-known iconography and unpublished maps, the authors retrace an unconventional history of ancient Japan, from the origins of humanity in the archipelago to around the year 1000.
Nearly 40,000 years ago, Japan was not yet the archipelago we know today: connected to the continent, these lands with hostile relief and capricious climatic and geological conditions - around thirty volcanoes are active - welcomed the first humans, ten thousand at most, from Korea, territories further south or even Siberia. Its longitudinal immensity had consequences on the development of societies and, during ancient times, several cultural spheres coexisted.
In the east and northeast, hunter-gatherers settled down and were among the first in the world to develop sophisticated pottery, which made the reputation of the Jomon culture, but never engaged in the "Neolithic revolution." Conversely, the Yayoi culture in northwest Kyushu introduced agriculture and flooded rice cultivation. Then the first traces of a state appeared in the Yamato, which was long eluded by peripheral local societies, before Japan as a centralized state headed by an emperor, the tennô, suddenly emerged in the last third of the 7th century. The State of Codes which was then established represents a major moment in Japanese history: the institutions created at the turn of the 7th and 8th centuries will continue, in multiple forms, until the 1870s.
Using the results of Japanese archaeology, one of the most dynamic in the world, little-known iconography and unpublished maps, the authors retrace an unconventional history of ancient Japan, from the origins of humanity in the archipelago to around the year 1000.