Archaeologists have found evidence for two waves of migrants, a hunter-gatherer people who created the Jomon culture and rice farmers who left remains known as the Yayoi culture. The hunter-gatherers arrived in Japan before the end of the last ice age around 20,000 years ago, via land bridges that joined Japan to Asia's mainland. They remained isolated until about 2,400 years ago when wet rice agriculture developed in southern China and was adapted to Korea's colder climate. Read more