EAELY JAPAN BISHOP 557 



fact, be said that a true Bronze Age ever existed there at all.^^ The 

 records of the Later Han dynasty describe the people of Wo, early in 

 the Christian era, as still in the Neolithic stage of culture. This 

 statement regarding their ignorance of metal at that time is strik- 

 ingly confirmed by the discovery in various parts of western Japan, 

 in association with stone implements, of Chinese coins of the first 

 century of our era.-'- The histories of the Wei and Chin dynasties, 

 on the other hand, referring to the third and fourth centuries, men- 

 tion iron as known to the Wo. It would appear, therefore, that the 

 very brief and wholly exotic bronze culture which archeological 

 research has disclosed to us in Japan must have fallen somewhere 

 about the second century or so of our era. 



Bronze remains in Japan are few and far betweeen, and such as 

 there are occur only in the western portion of the country. They are 

 quite unknown anywhere to the east of the Lake Biwa area, that 

 isthmian region of central Japan where the Ainu held back their 

 Mongoloid foes through so many centuries. Aside from ceremonial 

 objects, the known remains consist mainly of swords, daggers, and 

 arrowheads — all closely resembling well-known Chinese Bronze Age 

 types. The discovery of molds indicates that some casting was done 

 in Japan ; but the raw material and a great proportion of the finished 

 articles seem to have been imported, either from Korea or even direct 

 from China, as is also suggested by the name, Karakane^ which may 

 mean either Korean or Chinese metal. Introduced only after its 

 use in China had alread}^ been largely superseded by that of iron, 

 it was but a short time before bronze was overtaken and displaced 

 by the later metal in Japan also. And so effectively was it eclipsed, 

 save of course for ornamental and ritual objects, that neither the 

 Kojiki nor the Nihongi,^^ the two earliest Japanese historical works 

 that have come down to us, betray the slightest recollection of a 

 former Bronze Age; the use of copper arrowheads upon one occa- 

 sion being mentioned solely as something unusual. 



But, if the influence of bronze upon the cultural development of 

 Japan was thus slight, with iron the case was far otherwise. His- 

 torical notices are wanting; but good grounds exist for thinking 

 that iron reached Japan merely as one element of an entirely dif- 



21 The British Museum's " Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age," 1904, is hardly 

 exact in stating that the Japanese were already in the Late Bronze Age when they entered 

 the islands ; they had long been in Japan when the knowledge of bronze was brought to 

 them. It was a case of a cultural, not a racial, migration. 



— Dr. K. Hamada, of the Kyoto Imperial University, in personal letters of July 10, 

 1917, and Dee. 20, 1920. 



2* The Kojiki dates from 712 A. D., the Nihongi from 720. Chamberlain's translation 

 of the former and that of the latter by Aston have already been cited. There is also 

 another of the later work, by Dr. Karl Florenz : Nihongi, " Zeitalter der Gotter," 

 Tokyo, 1901. 



