Monumenta Nipponica

The nature of the relationship between the early states on the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago has been an ongoing academic debate for more than a century. Archaeology and History of Toraijin: Human, Technological, and Cultural Flow from the Korean Peninsula to the Japanese Archipelago c. 800 BC–AD 600 draws upon a vast scholarship, chiefly in Japanese and Korean, to demonstrate convincingly that the dominant stimulus directing technological and cultural development on the Japanese islands was a "push-pull" (p. 7) relationship with peoples of the peninsula. This dynamic existed from the middle Mumun period (ca. 900–400 BCE) to the mid- to late Kofun period (ca. 350–600 CE) of Japanese history. This book by senior scholars and emeritus professors Song-nai Rhee, C. Melvin Aikens, and Gina L. Barnes is a veritable treasure trove, connecting scholars of early Korea and early Japan to the most important and influential scholarship on the competing theories dealing with the cultural development of early Japan.

The book consists of a short introduction, five detailed chapters, a short section titled "Collaboration Not Conquest," and a brief conclusion. In addition, the authors have provided 47 figures and 11 maps to support their argument. The bibliography comprises 30 pages of entries listed by institutional author (using abbreviations) and by author last name. The introduction focuses on the concept or subject of the toraijin ("people who have crossed over"), the importance of the importation of iron culture, and the kinds of sources used for research—archaeological data and historical materials (pp. 1–11). Because the concept of toraijin is central to the book's argument, it is treated throughout as a proper noun, rendered consistently as "Toraijin." The introduction also presents the seven questions that this book answers: Where did the Toraijin come from? What was their historical and sociocultural background? Why did they leave their homeland, risking their lives on the turbulent and notoriously dangerous waters of the Tsushima Strait? Where did they [End Page 315] live in the Japanese archipelago? What did they do in the archipelago? How did the archipelago people treat the Toraijin? And what contributions did the Toraijin make to ancient Japanese society?

Chapter 1, "Rice-Bearing Toraijin," demonstrates how peoples living on the southern and western coasts of the Korean peninsula transmitted wet rice cultivation and other technologies to the Japanese islands. By means of archaeological evidence, it shows how wet rice cultivation first appeared in the Hakata Bay and Karatsu Bay regions of northern Kyushu, which are closest to southern Korea, and demonstrates furthermore that it was only the short-grain Oryza sativa japonica rice, which had been adapted to and grown in the temperate climate of Korea's Mumun period, that first appeared in northern Kyushu. In addition, it shows how the farming implements and earthenware used in southern Korean settlement culture, such as grooved adzes, triangular reaping knives, polished stone daggers, willow leaf–shaped arrows, and pottery vessels, as well as the settlement patterns and mortuary practices of these peoples, are also found among early Yayoi farming communities. Although some scholars have advanced the theory that wet rice culture was transmitted to Japan from the Yangtze River basin, the absence of long-grain Oryza sativa indica and the kinds of farming implements, earthenware, and settlement culture found in that region discredits that theory. The evidence shows, rather, that the whole wet rice agricultural system seen in Yayoi Japan is identifiable with Mumun Korea.

Chapter 2, "Bronze-Bearing Toraijin of the Middle Yayoi (ca. 350 BC–AD 50)," addresses the transmission of metalworking technologies from China. It shows how the push-pull dynamics in migration caused the bronze...