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History Proficiency Test (Rekiken) study materials
History Proficiency Test (Rekiken) study resources

History Proficiency Test (Rekiken): Ancient Japan: from Jōmon pottery to the Nara ritsuryō state

History Proficiency Test (Rekiken) · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

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Ancient Japan: from Jōmon pottery to the Nara ritsuryō state

The Rekiken treats ancient Japan as a test of two skills: fixing material culture onto a chronology, and reading the earliest written sources against the archaeological record. Expect Jōmon/Yayoi/Kofun culture names, the ritsuryō institutional vocabulary, and the Nara-period chronicles.

Material chronology

  • Jōmon: cord-marked pottery, pit dwellings, shell mounds. AMS radiocarbon dating of food residues pushed the start of Yayoi wet rice toward the 10th–9th century BCE, while pottery typology still anchors many textbook dates.
  • Yayoi: paddy rice, bronze dōtaku, iron tools, visible social ranking. Yoshinogari (Saga) is the standard reference site.
  • Kofun: zenpō-kōen fun (keyhole tombs), haniwa, iron armour; the shift of tomb concentration to the Kinai is tied to the Yamato polity.

The written record

  • The Wei zhi (c. 297) first describes Himiko, queen of Yamatai, her 239 embassy to Wei and the bronze mirrors she received. The Kyushu-versus-Kinai location dispute is a perennial question.
  • The Liu-Song shu preserves the 478 memorial of King Bu (conventionally Yūryaku) claiming control over Wa.

Ritsuryō institutions

The 645 Taika edict attacked private holdings (shisei) and reached toward the handen-shūju allotment system, but the working code is Taihō (701), revised as Yōrō (718). Provinces (koku) were divided into kōri and sato; the census underpinned allotment, and registered commoners owed sō (grain), chō (cloth) and yō (corvée).

Worked example

Question: which source first describes a female ruler of Wa? Reasoning: Han-era texts record Wa envoys (the 57 CE gold seal in the Hou Han shu), but the queen, her name and her succession appear only in the Wei zhi. Answer: the Wei zhi, not the Kojiki.

Traps

Swapping Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720); calling Heijō (710) the first Chinese-style capital when Fujiwara-kyō (694) precedes it; assuming the codes were enforced as written, although the 723 sanze-isshin law already conceded hereditary private ownership of reclaimed land.