In this episode we look at one of the other large innovations of the Yayoi period:  Bronze and Iron.  We'll explore just when bronze and iron came to the archipelago, and its role as a prestige good in the growing stratification of society.  We'll talk about how it connects the islands to the continent, but also how it connects the various settlements to one another.

For more go to: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-8

Rough Transcript

(Auto-transcript courtesy of listener, Zach)

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is episode 8, Iron and Bronze. A group is stalking through the forest. They are quiet, looking for sign of deer or boar. Their wooden and stone-tipped arrows and spears held at the ready, they are hardly aware that they themselves might be under threat. As the group of hunters crosses a small clearing, they hear a noise as arrows whistle through the air, coming out of the forest. Surprised and ambushed, the hunters are nonetheless anything but cowards. They have seen their share of violence and they quickly rally to face their foes. They charge towards the tree line, spears ready, and the two groups enter a brutal melee, skirmishing amongst the trees. The lead hunter fights his way to the most impressive of his attackers. He thrusts forward with his spear, but it is turned aside. He pulls back, swings the spear in an arc, hoping to catch his opponent off guard, but his stone head hits something, and a strange sound rings out throughout the forest. The hunter looks on in disbelief as his stone spearhead chips and breaks as it, itself, is struck by a strange, shining blade. Smoother than the smoothest stone and thin as the most finely worked obsidian, this blade is stronger than either. This is iron, and it would change the history of the islands. Japan has entered the Iron Age. Alright so last episode we talked about the arrival of rice, and agriculture in general, to the archipelago. We discussed how that led to the formation of the Yayoi culture, which remained distinct from the Jomon people still covering most of the islands. Today we are going to talk about the other big imports. Bronze and iron. You see, unlike most places in Africa and Eurasia, Japan never really went through what you would call a Bronze Age. Now this gets back to our previous discussion of the Jomon and whether or not they were "neolithic". Most of these "ages" are bound up in a Eurocentric view of historical progress, based on how things unfolded for European and Mediterranean cultures. However we have already seen that those assumptions often don't hold up. One may have ceramics without agriculture, and likewise one did not have to have a Bronze Age or even a Copper Age to necessarily bring about iron. And even where one follows the other, it means little more than the presence of the physical material, and we should be careful about too many inferences of what sociological changes it might thereby imply without direct archaeological evidence. In the case of Japan, by the time bronze reached its shores, iron came along with it, or at least it was only shortly behind. There is no evidence that bronze was produced locally until much later, leaving them dependent on the continent for much of their supply of raw materials. This means that bronze was rarely used for actual practical purposes and was almost immediately relegated to a ritual role in society, being used for ceremonial and prestige items. In fact, some scholars suggest that there was no impetus to bring bronze over until there were elites who desired it. They had ceramics and shell bracelets, but that was it. Iron on the other hand, which kept an edge better than bronze, was used more often for tools and weapons. It had a much more practical use by all levels of society. Now the story of iron and bronze and their arrival on the archipelago is still muddled. We have evidence of iron and bronze in the archaeological record, but there are plenty of questions. First off, just when did metal arrive on the archipelago, and how did it get here? But why did we say that bronze and iron came together? Well, this is all tied up in a few things. First off, the oldest examples of metal in Japan are from the Imagawa and Magarita settlement sites. At Magarita, which was classified as an initial Yayoi site, we found the remnants of a flat iron axe. At Imagawa, an early Yayoi site, an iron arrowhead was found, alongside a bronze chisel and a bronze arrowhead. So that seems to indicate that iron came over with the earliest Yayoi settlements. This narrative made perfect sense when we thought that the first people came over from the Korean peninsula between the 3rd and 5th centuries BCE. But now that we have pushed the introduction of rice back another 400 years or so earlier, we are left with something of a dilemma. You see, while there is iron on the East Asian mainland, and even up in Liaoning, we haven't found any evidence of iron as early as 900 BCE on the Korean peninsula itself. So if iron arrives in Japan by that time, then somehow Japan is getting iron before even the Korean peninsula. But let's take a look at this. Now rice had come to the islands by 900 to 800 BCE, quickly spreading through North Kyushu and the Western archipelago. Early archaeologists have found iron and bronze tools at Yayoi settlements, and believing that rice had arrived between 500 and 300 BCE, had assumed that iron and bronze had come over with the earliest rice-going culture. In fact, it was thought that iron tools were essential to the wet rice paddy agriculture. Investigations over the past decade, however, have shown that this is highly unlikely. Rice came over much earlier, but there is no evidence of a similar change in the dates on when bronze and iron made their way down the peninsula. Which means that the earliest periods of the Yayoi, the initial and Yayoi periods, which Gina Barnes dates to between 1000 and 400 BCE or so, were still technically in the stone age. Now by about 720 BCE, near to the period when we were talking about temperate japonica coming over to the islands, the proto-Songguk-ri culture was appearing on the Korean peninsula. That developed more fully into what we truly call the Songguk-ri culture, and started to spread on the peninsula around 450 BCE, about two and a half centuries later. This is one of the cultures that we mentioned last episode as being a large contributor to the Yayoi culture. Only a century or so later, the Chinese sphere was caught up in the warring states period, and the Yan state started pushing into the Liaodong area at the head of the Korean peninsula, facing off against the Gojoseon. In fact, around 400 BCE there was a downturn in the climate, which may have been some of the impetus behind things like the warring states period over in China. During the early 3rd century BCE, Yan asserted its independence, and General Qin Kai of the Yan state invaded the Liaodong peninsula, home of the Gojoseon. Gojoseon and Yan escalated a border conflict between the two states. That conflict likely spilled over into the areas further south on the peninsula, and may have spurred further emigration over to the archipelago. War and conflict often inspire movements of people, fleeing the chaos and destruction war brings. It appears that this conflict pushed people down the peninsula and across the straits, and they brought with them an understanding of metal tools, first bronze and then iron. But now we are already into the Middle Yayoi period, and didn't we say that the Magarita and Imagawa sites were classified as initial or early Yayoi? Well you see, while we have evidence of rice as early as 900-800 BCE through carbon-14 AMS dating, our traditional chronological tool for the longest time was not carbon dating, but rather pottery types, as well as other material goods found in the archaeological record. And well, we tend to make some assumptions. So for instance, if Yayoi is associated with rice, and we find a pottery sherd with carbonized rice, then we assume that pottery sherd must be from a Yayoi pottery assemblage. Likewise if we find an axe head from China around the 4th century BCE at a Yayoi site, and we believe the Yayoi started around that time, you can see how someone might date that to one of the earliest periods of the Yayoi. Now that we have more information, we can revise those concepts. So where does this leave us? Well, with everything we have discussed, we now see the story something like this. Early contact in the first millennium BCE leads to rice being brought over to the archipelago, and the beginnings of a new culture. A blend of peninsular and indigenous culture. It is followed in the 7th and 6th centuries with temperate japonica as contact with the mainland continues, as well as trade up and down the islands. That rice-based culture seems to have led to a stratification of society. Before bronze or iron goods arrive, this manifests in a few different ways. First in burial patterns, which we touched on somewhat previously. From relatively egalitarian cemeteries to burial groupings, and eventually even small tomb mounds. Where we really know that position is hereditary more than simply based on an individual's practical worth to the community, is when we start to see children buried in some of these prestige graves. Now remember that back in the Jomon period, children were often buried apart from the adults, and with no differentiation that we can see in the archaeological record, one child to the next. To see children in prestige graves with prestige goods may not seem like much to us, but think about it. Children in their minority are typically too young to be extremely productive members of society. No offense to any kids out there. So why would some children be separated from others and buried as elites? The easy answer is that they were buried with their family. Not an unreasonable assumption, what family doesn't love their children and want to be next to them, but this indicates that elite status is no longer simply attached to the individual. It is also being passed down to the children, so it becomes an inherited status, not just built on one's own works, but the works of their family as well. This is an indication that we now have not just elite individuals, but elite family groups. Now elite status wasn't just a matter of where bodies were buried, there is also what they were buried with, the prestige goods. Since we now can see that rice had come well before bronze and iron arrived on the scene, what were the prestige goods of the early Yayoi elite? One of the prestige goods we find are shell bracelets. Specifically bracelets made from shells out of the UQ islands, which were popular since about 800 BCE or so. These were trade goods, likely expensive and rare enough that only a few could afford them, and yet some people had more than a single set of them. This was certainly the case by 400 BCE when the Yayoi culture finally left the confines of North Kyushu and made its way over to Eastern Honshu, heading up towards Tohoku, as we have talked about previously. A century or so later, by about 300 BCE, as bronze comes down the peninsula, the elites start importing it as a prestige good as well. Early on we see bronze and iron coming to the archipelago via what is known as the "slender dagger" culture of the Korean peninsula. This is a bronze and iron age culture that is known for its "slender dagger" shape, as opposed to the previous daggers up in the area thought to be Gojoseon, which typically had much broader and flatter blades. Gina Barnes points out that if this dating is correct, this corresponds approximately to when the Yan state was pushing its way into Liaodong. This likely created further pressures that put people across the streets, as we mentioned previously. Now early bronze was likely just that. It is hard to imagine importing enough initially to outfit warriors with enough new weapons to create a significant military advantage, and there was only a brief period if any between bronze and iron arriving. While bronze weapons may be better than stone, iron tends to be even better. Now early on there are no examples of smelting facilities in the archipelago, so it is unlikely that Japan was making its own iron or bronze. Since they didn't have their own source of material, they required a connection to the people on the mainland, and those who could import iron or bronze tools and weapons, well they had a material advantage against those further down the trade route. They did figure out how to make their own mold so they could melt down metal ingots or even objects obtained from the mainland and make new items. In some cases these new items were copies of continental designs. In other instances these were designs original to the archipelago. Remember the shell bracelets we talked about earlier? They were still a prestige marker. We have an example of one individual buried with fourteen of them on one arm, along with various bronze goods. Well with the ability to cast new bronze items, we see some people actually casting these shell bracelets in bronze. These bracelets still held a similar meaning, but now they were cast in bronze instead of being made from shells. Eventually the shell bracelet trade died out, taken over completely by bronze as a symbol of elite status. But what was the big deal? I mean, people had been living comfortably without metal for years. So why is it such a big thing now? Well you see, iron and bronze, and metal in general, are really cool substances. Now much like clay, you can form it into the shape you need, but that is really where the similarities end. With iron and bronze, you can melt it down to a liquid and then cast it into a shape, often using that earlier ceramic technology for the molds. However, more than just casting it into a shape, you can also work it into shape. You can heat it up just enough to make it pliable, and then, well, basically hit it into the shape you want. And that's not all. Particularly with iron, you can work it hot or cold, and depending on what you do, it will actually change the properties of the metal itself. It can become more pliable, or it can become more brittle, i.e. harder. You can also change its properties by adding other materials. The most common of these is adding carbon to iron, which makes something we call steel. Though when exactly iron becomes steel is a bit of a philosophical debate. For now, just realize we are only going to be talking about iron, but we'll definitely discuss steel at some point. After all, Nihonto, Japanese swords, are renowned for how smiths worked the iron into steel with various properties in the same blade. But that is still centuries off, so let's just focus on iron for now. Now of course another difference between metal and ceramics? Pottery is fragile, especially the terracotta style like they were using in most Jomon style pottery. Metal tools are hard and don't easily break. Especially with iron tools, they can be sharpened to a fine edge, similar to obsidian glass, but they can hold the edge much longer compared to that same glass. It can even be stronger than most stone, at least any stone that a person would be able to effectively work into a weapon or tool. Now speaking of tools, while wood will wear out over time, you can cover the edge of the wood with just a small layer of iron to greatly increase its lifespan. Which, by the way, is exactly what we see happening. An example of this is the simple spade, kind of like a flat shovel, known in Japanese as a kuwa. Now if you have a modern spade or shovel for working in the garden or out in the yard, you probably have a completely metal spade head. When iron was much more rare, however, they wanted to use it sparingly, so they only used it for the very edge of the spade. It would wrap around the edge and be held in place with a couple of simple rivets or nails. This would be the basic form for most spades for the next couple of millennia. In fact, it would be so iconic that we will later see the term "kuwagata" or "spade shaped" applied to the maidate or helmet crest of later samurai helmets. It looks like a couple of flat horns sweeping off of the helmet. We'll talk about that more when we talk about the rise of the samurai, but if you're looking through photos on the podcast blog page, SengokuDaimyo.com/podcast, and run across something that looks like one of these helmet crests, well, now you know what it is. Getting back to iron, it had one other key benefit over the existing materials. You see, when pottery, wood, or stone break, you may as well throw it away. I mean, you might be able to make a smaller item, or heck, you could probably use the wood to stoke a fire, but the materials cannot really be easily recycled into new versions of the same thing. With iron, or bronze for that matter, if it breaks, you can just melt it back down and reform it with minimal loss of material. This means that as iron and bronze came across to the islands, even without indigenous smelting facilities to process raw ore, the amount of iron and bronze increased, spreading across Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu. Bronze is similar to iron, but softer, and requires a proper mixture of several metals, while iron is a base element and easier to work. Iron can also keep an edge with a greater strength to weight ratio, though bronze can still keep a surprisingly sharp edge if it is made correctly. Still, this probably explains why iron was more often used for tools and weapons. Similar to iron, the color of bronze varies. Unlike iron, which usually goes from a black to silver in color, think of your cast iron frying pan to a sharp knife. New polished bronze is typically between a copper, gold, or silver in color, depending on the percentages of copper, tin, and possibly other materials in the metal. This means that it can gleam like gold, but it is much sturdier, and generally more plentiful, meaning it is cheaper, and it weighs a lot less. It can also be more silver in color, and polished to a highly reflective surface. This is what we see in bronze mirrors, which we'll talk about somewhat later. Of course, over time, both iron and bronze will oxidize if they aren't taken care of, tarnishing and eventually rusting. Iron turns to a brittle red iron oxide that will flake away and disintegrate. Bronze on the other hand turns green because of the copper. Think of the Statue of Liberty in New York City. This is just something to remember when we are looking at old items, since they would have looked quite different when they were brand new. Since iron was preferred over bronze for most practical uses, bronze tended to be used for ceremonial purposes instead. Those who could gain access to iron could also gain access to bronze, and so it would be a symbol of status, another level of differentiation between the elites and the common people. I'm sure that the golden gleam of bronze didn't hurt any either. So here we have the Yayoi settlements. They have rice, giving them the ability to greatly expand their population, and therefore a need to bring more land under cultivation. And they have iron and bronze, useful and shiny, new technologies. With all of this, it is little wonder that the culture spreads throughout the archipelago, and while armed conflict no doubt happened, it appears that for the most part the culture was adopted willingly, bringing as it did many practical advantages to the people. We can see evidence of this in the burial remains. You see, while many of the skeletons in the western part of Japan, at least those of the elites, show features more common to an immigrant group of people from the Korean peninsula, the people of the Yayoi settlements in the east more closely resemble the indigenous Jomon people. Overall, it seems evidence of adoption and absorption into the Yayoi culture rather than a replacement of the Jomon people. Though I should point out, we haven't yet found any examples of a Jomon settlement evolving into a Yayoi settlement in Honshu that I am aware of. Rather new Yayoi sites might be found near Jomon settlements, and I find this perfectly understandable as the Yayoi sites would want to be near a source of water for their fields. For all of their material differences, Jomon and Yayoi settlements did coexist, at least for some period of time. By the 2nd century BCE, Yayoi material culture had made it all the way up to Aomori, where they have found rice paddies with Yayoi era pottery. But then for whatever reason, the culture retreated south to about halfway up Tohoku. It's possible that, for all the work to adapt rice to northern climates, it just wasn't quite adapted quite that far north yet. I can't help but think that there may have also been other weaknesses in supporting the culture so far from its source. Without easy access to iron and bronze, those symbols would not have been as easily acquired. There is also the possibility that there were pressures from the remaining Jomon culture in northern Tohoku and Hokkaido. So far from their main base of support, it may have been more trouble than it was worth to maintain settlements out that way. Regardless of why, this would become the northern boundary of the Yayoi and the early polities that would come after them. So now we have the Yayoi spread across the archipelago, and as they did, the Yayoi culture was evolving. I can't stress enough that this wasn't some giant change all happening at once. Even if it was fast in terms of cultural adoption, these were changes that came over hundreds of years. That change necessitated trade with the mainland, which would allow elite groups access to much needed resources and prestige goods. Early on we start to see networks set up to help facilitate and communicate trade throughout the archipelago, with key ports, passes, and other such crossroads and choke points becoming the key areas for development. Early Yayoi imported objects include swords, spearheads, halberds, mirrors, and small bells, all made on the Korean peninsula and in either Shandong or peninsular styles. Then in the islands, bronze replicas of these weapons began to be made, often in forms much larger than their continental counterparts. These were all buried as brave goods and sometimes buried with no clear purpose in mind on the outskirts of a settlement. Some have suggested these may have been ritual goods buried to propitiate the spirits and help protect or mark some kind of border. Others have suggested that the seemingly random location of some caches may mean they were merely stored there, underground, until needed. This is not unheard of across the world. In Britain people used to bury treasure in the ground to keep it from being robbed. Nowadays these caches are occasionally discovered where the original owner either died or otherwise prevented from unearthing their treasure. Well it's possible that between rituals it was common to bury the items used for a similar purpose, though we can't say for certain, and eventually either they were forgotten about or the ceremony simply was no longer continued. Throughout the Middle Yayoi, the various bronze cultures appear to have been centered around two areas in the western and eastern Seto Inland Sea area. This is the area around Shikoku and Kyushu up to the Kinai. Western Seto seems to have largely followed in the tradition of northern Kyushu, which not only focused on the acquisition and production of weapons, daggers, dagger axes, and spearheads, but it also had a focus on bronze mirrors. Toward the end of the Middle Yayoi period, Han Dynasty bronze mirrors were highly prized. Many of these may have come from contact with the Han court or their functionaries on the Korean peninsula. In the Kinai region of eastern Seto, however, the culture was more focused on bells. Early bells were typically recast from bronze from the peninsula, while later bells show a tin content more common to the mainland. Known as dōtaku, the earliest bells were full-on musical instruments. Think of a round choir or cowbell, except with a rounded loop at the top to hang from a rafter or elsewhere. These bells often had a clapper inside, so that when they were moved they would ring. Later bells, which were often much larger than the original bells we see, didn't have a clapper inside, and it appears that they were more about form than function. It is possible that they were struck from the outside, but many of the bells we find buried together show no serious signs of use, and so it is assumed that we are seeing something more for ceremonial purpose. That the eastern Seto culture would melt down the early Han bronze mirrors that northern Kyushu appreciated so much and recast them into bells may just give us a hint of the different social values held in various parts of the archipelago. The previous Jomon culture was hardly monolithic, and it appears that there are still large cultural differences between the various regions, despite their similarities in other respects. At the same time, as we move into the latter half of the middle and beginning of the late Yayoi, we do see more and more bronze mirrors in the Honshu region, possibly indicating yet another cultural shift. Of course, I still wonder why weapons held such pride of place in many of these early ceremonial assemblages in the western Seto region, when it isn't until later that warfare seems to have become a real issue on the islands, and it is likely this was imported from the peninsula. Speaking now of warfare, as early as 700 BCE on the Korean peninsula, there is evidence of violence, with defensive works around settlements, as well as evidence of settlements that were burned to the ground across the peninsula. War had long been a theme that people lived with, and when they initially came over to Japan they no doubt brought their defenses with them, even though we see that they let many of those initial defensive structures die out. So it is possible that the use of bronze ceremonial weapons was simply a holdover from continental cultures. It is quite possible that it represented the power of an elite in any given community, while also serving as a reminder of those elites' own importance in the crucial trade networks. That said, it may also be an indication of the kind of social control employed in northern Kyushu and the western Seto, as opposed to the bronze bell culture in the east. It is also interesting that in northern Kyushu and related culture areas, bronze weapons are often found buried with individuals, as well as in caches, while bronze bells are almost always found in non-burial contexts. That could mean that the weapons and mirrors of the western culture were more personal in nature, while the bronze bells were something that belonged to the community, possibly reflecting a more communal leadership style based on ceremonies and traditions, rather than who controls the means of state-sanctioned violence. In the areas that the two spheres of the eastern and western Seto cultures' influence overlapped, we often find a mixture of both, with bells and weapons sometimes buried together. Now I should probably note here that where they are found as burial goods, bronze weapons were not only found in the graves of men. Men and women alike were buried with weapons, and with mirrors and with other prestige goods. Whether they were weapons they carried themselves, or simply symbols of their prestige and power is unclear, but it is clear that weapons were not seen as somehow masculine and male only. In fact, in later burials we see women buried with weapons who also show evidence of having been victims of warfare-style violence, indicating they may just have been war chiefs and leaders in their own rights. We'll see more of this as we look at the early Chinese and Japanese historical accounts, but we would do well not to assume a patriarchal society without evidence. In fact, this is part of a larger trend in various areas around the world. In Europe they have been re-examining many graves that were assumed to be male because of the assumption that men went out fighting and women were domestic, despite tales of shield maidens and other warrior women, which were taken largely as fantastical or extraordinary. DNA testing, however, is revealing more and more that women were also buried with weapons, and likely weapons that they themselves would have used. So why not in Japan as well? Just something to keep in mind, and to make sure we examine our internal assumptions and biases as we look at the evidence. Now during this time, okay so we're about 400 BCE to 50 CE, we may not see much division by gender, but we do see social stratification. Not only do we see social stratification at the village level, with elites taking a role and material goods indicating their status, but we also see larger polities start to form. As villagers outgrow a given area, satellite communities bud off from the main settlement. These appear to have their own set of local elites, but the central settlements maintain their primacy. In examining the burials of this time, it appears as though certain local elites in the satellite communities would be taken to these central settlements for a more elite burial, emphasizing the connection between these various settlements. Together these settlements start to form communities, and these communities then start to form states. Or well, at least a form of city-state. These super-communities likely were formed through several other factors, including one of mutual defense. As the population within the islands grew, more and more land would be needed to grow the necessary food. Eventually those communities would find themselves in conflict with others over available land and water, which may have then led to armed conflict. There may also have been conflict over access to trade and prestige goods. Although evidence of community-level conflict is rarely found in the Jomon and initial Yayoi periods, by the end of the early Yayoi period we start to see evidence of mass violence in the skeletal remains at various sites. There are plenty of stone weapons that often mimic their bronze counterparts, weapons such as the dagger axe, which was little more than a dagger mounted crosswise to a long pole, as well as swords and daggers. We also see something else that's new. Armor. Now I need to stop for a moment because I don't want this next part to be taken the wrong way. At SengokuDaimyo.com we talk a lot about Japanese armor. There's an entire manual by our founder Tony Bryant based on his years of study in Japan, and one of the common misconceptions about Japanese armor is that it is made with bamboo or wood. And please don't go around telling people that. Of course, Japanese armor, ōyoroi, dōmaru, haramaki, or some form of tōseigusoku, was not made of either bamboo or wood. It was leather and metal and lacquer. And so understand my reluctance to mention this, but the early Yayoi armor is made of, you guessed it, wood. Well lacquered wood, but still. By the way, I want to stress that we have examples of wood armor, not bamboo. And it really does make sense. Remember, metal was still a limited commodity at this time, and wood has been commonly used for armor across the world, even up until the modern era. We only have a few examples though, so we can't say for certain these were the only forms used throughout the archipelago, and it includes not a small bit of conjecture. For all we know, there were hide armors and many other substances used, but this is what we have to deal with for the time being. Now one example appears to be a large, elaborately carved armor that covered the front and back, with even stylized wings coming off the back, almost like a backpack made into the armor. It was red and black, and largely made of single pieces to protect the chest and back. Another example is simpler, with just lacquered wooden plates, strung together with some kind of cord. The reconstruction brings to mind some of the armor seen in Han Dynasty figurines, or even on the Terracotta Warriors, though even less complex. See the blog post for this episode for photos of this early 3rd century BCE armor, including the wooden shields we find from this time. And yes, yes, there were handheld shields in Japan from at least the Yayoi period, but that is really a topic for another time. So new weapons, armor, and shields. At the same time, settlements begin to once again employ moats, walls, and other defensive features. They also start situating settlements on more easily defended hilltops. All of these factors speak to an increasing use of group violence, aka warfare. And that is a factor that many people will point to when we talk about this period, and which we see even in the later histories. Whereas the initial story of the Yayoi was one of adoption and assimilation, the later story includes much more conflict, stratification, and dominance. Different regions develop their own cultures with their own set of elites. These then compete for resources, for land, water, and access to the crucial trade networks. Our earliest historical mention of Japan comes from the history of the earlier Han, compiled by Ban Gu in 82 CE. It doesn't say much, simply stating that "The people of Wa are in the Sea of Lelang. They are divided into more than 100 countries. It is said that periodically they come and offer tributes." Now, regardless of the brevity of the description, later entries from the third century onwards will have a lot more detail. We still can make out something about this time. These chronicles refer to a people called the "Wa", a term still used by the Japanese today. They mention that in "times of old" there were more than 100 states or countries, individual political units, and that some of them at least made contact with China during the Han dynasty, likely in pursuit of prestige goods. And this seems to match what we've been seeing so far. Multiple groups starting to come together under a system of elites across the archipelago. That we know there were "more than 100" simply tells us they were numerous. It's possible that there weren't that many, but simply that the scribes were recording that there were a lot of them. On the other hand, it is quite possible they did know, or at least that they knew there were more than 100, and it just wasn't considered important enough of the time to record much more than that. For reference, today Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, including the prefectures of Hokkaido and Okinawa. If we consider that the land of Akita, Iwate, and Aomori were largely outside the sphere of Yayoi culture as well, then we could have over 100 different states where we have about 42 prefectures today. Now that doesn't take into account the Korean peninsula, which is also recorded as having Wa settlements. So some of those 100 may have been actually on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, or on islands at least off the coast. Now as we've discussed, the mainland was in turmoil with the Yan and Gojoseon states in tension, if not outright war. As the Qin and then the Han dynasty took control of most of China in the 3rd century BCE, they brought some stability to the center, but also caused their own destabilization on the periphery. In 108 BCE the Han dynasty finally defeated Gojoseon and set up the Lalang commandery, one of four such commanderies along with Xuan Tu, Lin Tu, and Zhen Fan. These were set up at the head of the Korean peninsula, encompassing much of what is now considered North Korea. Now the Han dynasty court maintained relations with those on the periphery through a complex arrangement of "trade as tribute." Often states from outside of Han territories would send an embassy to the court with various gifts that the Chinese labeled as "tribute." The Han court, in turn, often showered these embassies with gifts. This grew the prestige of the court while providing a very lucrative deal for those who were bringing the so-called tribute. This meant that those who successfully sent such embassies would be able to, in turn, provide such gifts to others. At the same time, it provided a modicum of prestige upon the state that sent the embassy as well, both through the direct acquisition of material wealth, but also it often carried with it some recognition of status from an outside power and from the Han court, so when you're dealing with the Han sphere, it just might come in useful. As the various states on the archipelago jostled for position, this was no doubt an important factor. One of the more popular trade goods provided by the Han dynasty were bronze mirrors. Bronze mirrors would seem to hold little practical benefit, and yet they were highly prized. They weren't tools for farming, nor were they weapons that could be used to protect, defend, or attack, and yet many of the more elaborate mirrors required a good deal of bronze. However, they were a key feature used to demonstrate power and status within the hierarchy, at least in northern Kyushu and related regions, and they are often used by archaeologists, when found as grave goods, to help put the various elites in context with one another. This is corroborated with the earliest stories from Japan, where mirrors play a key role in the early myths, and even today the mirror is one of the three sacred objects signifying imperial rule, those being the mirror, the sword, and the jewel. Mirrors were often obtained from China, usually through the Chinese presence on the Korean peninsula, or else from the mainland. Of course, bronze and iron weren't the only technological innovations to make their way to the archipelago, but they did have some of the most obvious impact. In addition, archaeologists are getting a lot of data from these items, whether it is the material content helping to describe the trade routes based on where the raw materials came from, or if it's the shape, linking networks of bronze items made from the same molds and the same foundries, or possibly the same cache of items brought back from a visit to the mainland. This all helps us better understand the interconnectedness of the islands and ties it to the rest of East Asia. Finally, these bronze mirrors and other items really help us understand the class structure and provide a means of evaluating the wealth of an area by their prestige goods. In a time before large mounded tombs, the status of individuals, and therefore the status of their local polity, are often based on the extant goods that we find. So to recap quickly, despite what we used to think, early Yayoi culture arrived without metalworking technology, which seems to have arrived closer to the time that we used to date the start of the Yayoi, about the 4th to 5th century BCE. Bronze likely arrived first, but was followed so closely by iron that we really can't speak of a "bronze aid." For most of the Yayoi, neither bronze nor iron were produced locally, but relied instead on trade with the continent, meaning that control of this trade, along with the management of the rice fields, would have been a key component in maintaining the elite status in society. Speaking of which, of the two metals, bronze was more closely associated with the elites and as a prestige good, while iron was much more utilitarian in nature. Bronze was not created equal throughout the archipelago. In northern Kyushu, we see the bronze weapons and mirrors dominate, while bells, or dōtaku, are more prevalent in the east. Eventually, bronze mirrors are adopted by the east as well, possibly indicating a shift in the culture, as the east was previously melting down the mirrors they did have in favor of the bells. Bronze and iron trade necessitated contact with the mainland, and these trade links would be crucial to all of the various settlements. Finally, though initial expansion was peaceful, we know that the latter part of the Yayoi saw its share of warfare, likely as the various communities came into conflict over various resources. It is no doubt that the metal tools provided an advantage, making them a necessity for any who could afford them. Well, that's all for this episode. Next episode, we'll take a look at one last thing that the Yayoi brought with them. Language. It is at this point that we believe the Japonic language family arrived, including the ancestor to modern Japanese. We'll talk about the importance of language and historical linguistic research in looking at this period. From there, we'll start to dig into the various Chinese chronicles and what they say about the various states developing in the islands, including the seemingly elusive state of Yamatai. Until then, thank you for all of your support. We've noticed more and more people coming to listen, and we are glad that people appreciate this podcast. If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you feel the need to do more, we have information about our Ko-Fi site over at our main website where you can donate, and at SengokuDaimyo.com/podcast we'll also have some photos of various artifacts that we've discussed, as well as references and other material for this episode. Questions? Comments? Feel free to tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page. That's all for now. Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.