Japan's prehistory was marked by the gradual transmission of techniques and artifacts from the continental civilizations of Asia, especially China and Korea. Imported technology – the cultivation of rice in paddy fields, and bronze and iron metallurgy – enabled the Japanese to create a settled and stratified society, and diplomatic contact with foreign governments contributed to the formation of the Japanese state. Thus continental influence in prehistoric times prepared the way for the conscious adoption of sophisticated Chinese political and cultural patterns in the sixth and seventh centuries. This chapter will use archaeological findings and Chinese records to examine relations between Japan and the continent, beginning with Japan's transition to an agrarian society and ending with the dawn of the historical age.

Long before any other East Asian people, the Chinese developed the building blocks of advanced civilization: agriculture, metal technology, and a writing system. Archaeological findings in China suggest that settled farming communities (such as the Yang-shao in the Yellow River basin and the Ta-p'en-k'eng of the southeastern coast) can be dated as early as the fifth millennium b.c. The Shang state, which rose in the Yellow River valley around 1750 b.c., was based on a writing system and advanced bronze technology. About a thousand years later, the Chinese began to make tools out of iron. Their iron-tipped plows enhanced agricultural productivity, and iron weapons contributed to victory in war, most notably in the case of the Ch'in, the state that formed China's first empire in 221 b.c.