Background of Yamato Society and Culture
A millennium earlier, the Japanese Archipelago had been inhabited by the Jōmon people. In centuries prior to the beginning of the Yamato period, elements of the Northeast Asian, Chinese civilizations had been introduced to the Japanese Archipelago in waves of migration. According to Kojiki, the oldest record of Japan, a Korean immigrant named Amenohiboko, prince of Silla came to Japan to serve the Japanese Emperor, and he lived in Tajima Province. And his descendant is Tajima mori. Archaeological evidence indicates contacts between China, Korea, and Japan since prehistory of the Neolithic period, and its continuation also at least in the Kofun period.
The rice-growing, politically fragmented Yayoi culture either evolved into the culture characterized by the more centralized, patriarchal, militaristic Kofun period, or came to be dominated and eventually overrun by Yamato society.
By this time proto-Japonic languages had also spread to Ryukyuan islands such as Okinawa. The Ryukyuan languages and Japanese most likely diverged during this period.
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