Because Japan is an island, it was isolated from the advances on mainland Asia. So whereas the culture on Asian neighbors China and Korea were getting more and more modern, the culture in Japan stayed in a stone age for a much longer time. The isolation, as we shall see, was good for protecting Japan and its people but would often cause Japan to fall behind the rest of the world technologically. This first section of Japanese history is about Japan's first settlements and earliest civilizations. Within several hundred years, these earliest of Japanese looked and spoke much like the Japanese of today.

Ancient Japan (c.50,000-10,000BC)

An ancient legend tells of the formation of Japan. One day, from their vantage point in the heavens, Izanagi and Izanami spotted little Earth. They were curious as to what it was like there so they descended the Floating Bridge from Heaven. Then Izanagi tested the waters with his bejeweled spear and when he shook it out afterwards, a drop of brine fell and became Onogoro, Japan's first island. Then Izanagi and Izanami had children; each became a Japanese island.

What we definitely know is true during the time of the beginning of settlement in Japan was that the islands of Japan were originally linked to mainland Asia by land bridges. There were originally two main land bridges- one connected to Siberia and the other to the Korean Peninsula. All the islands of Japan were also connected to each other. The bridges later became covered with the water as the oceans became deeper. The original inhabitants of Japan crossed these bridges from Korea and northern Asia.

They were a hunter/gatherer civilization that used stone tools. They had, to the best of our knowledge, little to no artistic aspirations. They did no weaving or pottery.

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