Asuka

  General Description   The last segment of the Kofun period is often designated by historians as Asuka period on the basis of the intoduction of the Buddhism religion in 538 CE. ^{[1] [2]} As a consequence the historical period "Asuka" overlaps with the archaeological period "Kofun" until 710 CE.The Asuka period can be divided into two main phases. The first phase covers the period (572-645 CE) when four successive heads of the Soga clan were leading figures at court: Saga no Iname, Saga no Umako, Siga no Emishi, and Soga no Ir. The second period is the phase after the violent overthrow of the Soga which was dominated by Tenchi Tenno, his brother Temmu Tenno, and Temmu’s widow Jito Tenno from 645 to 692. It ends with the abdication of Jito Tenno in favor of her son Mommu and the move of the capital to the Heijō Palace of Nara. ^[3]
Population and political organization
In this period there is the establishment of a central administrative control with the introduction of the Ritsuryo law system based on Chinese style law codes. ^{[1] [4]} The introduction of Buddhism in Japan was favoured by the Soga clan, a Japanese court family, which acquired political prominence with the ascension of the emperor Kimmei in 531. ^[5] The Soga clan intoduced Chinese model-based fiscal policies, etsablished the first national treasury and promoted trade links with the Korean peninsula. ^[6] With the Taika reform the size of large burial tumuli (kofun) was strongly decreased by imperial decree. ^[7] The disappearance of large tumuli coincided with the emergence of a marked pyramidal hierarchy indicated by the difference in the burial assemblage. ^[8] In the seventh century a deceased person was buried in individual, very small round tumuli, which were much smaller than the preceding monumental mounded tombs. However, burial tumuli disapperead at the end of the seventh century. ^{[8] [9]} During this period elites began devoting resources to the building of Buddhist temples, which explains the reduction in size of tombs ^{[10] [11]}
We have estimated the population of Kansai to be between 1.5 million and 2 million people in 600 CE, and between 2 million and 3 million by 700 CE. ^{[12] [13]}

[1]: G. Barnes, 2007. State formation in Japan: Emergence of a 4th-century ruling elite. Routledge, 15.

[2]: Brooks, T, 2013. "Early Japanese Urbanism: A Study of the Urbanism of Proto-historic Japan and Continuities from the Yayoi to the Asuka Periods."Unpublished thesis, Sydney University, 11.

[3]: Brown, D., 1993.The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 2.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 164-190.

[4]: Farris, WW 1998, Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures: Issues in Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu.

[5]: McCallum, D. F., 2009. The Four Great Temples: Buddhist Archaeology, Architecture, and Icons of Seventh-Century Japan. Honolulu: University of Haway Press, 19-21.

[6]: Brown, D., 1993.The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 2.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 163-164.

[7]: K. Mizoguchi, 2013 The Archaeology of Japan. From the Earliest Rice Farming Villages to the Rise of the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 319.

[8]: K. Mizoguchi, 2013. The Archaeology of Japan. From the Earliest Rice Farming Villages to the Rise of the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 320.

[9]: Barnes, GL 1993, China, Korea and Japan: The Rise of Civilization in East Asia, Thames and Hudson, London, 251-255.

[10]: Brooks, T, 2013. "Early Japanese Urbanism: A Study of the Urbanism of Proto-historic Japan and Continuities from the Yayoi to the Asuka Periods."Unpublished thesis, Sydney University, 43.

[11]: K. Mizoguchi, 2013. The Archaeology of Japan. From the Earliest Rice Farming Villages to the Rise of the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 322-323.

[12]: Kidder, J. E., 2007. Himiko and Japan’s elusive chiefdom of Yamatai: archaeology, history, and mythology. University of Hawaii Press, 60.

[13]: Koyama, S., 1978. Jomon Subsistence and Population. Senri Ethnological Studies 2. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology