there are no distinct traces of palaeolithic
culture; the neolithic alone can be said to be represented. Its
relics are numerous--axes, knives, arrow-heads, arrow-necks,
bow-tips, spear-heads, batons, swords, maces, sling-stones, needles,
drill-bows, drill and spindle weights, mortars and pestles, paddles,
boats, sinkers, fishing-hooks, gaffs, harpoons, mallets, chisels,
scrapers, hoes, sickles, whetstones, hammers, and drills.

It must be premised that though so many kinds of implements are here
enumerated, the nomenclature cannot be accepted as universally
accurate. The so-called "hoe," for example, is an object of disputed
identity, especially as agriculture has not been proved to have been
practised among the primitive people of Japan, nor have any traces of
grain been found in the neolithic sites. On the other hand, the
modern Ainu, who are believed to represent the ancient population,
include in their religious observances the worship of the first cakes
made from the season's millet, and unless that rite be supposed to
have been borrowed from the Yamato, it goes to indicate agricultural
pursuits.

There is, indeed, one great obstacle to any confident differentiation
of the customs and creeds prevalent in Japan. That obstacle consists
in the great length of the period covered by the annals. It may
reasonably be assumed that the neolithic aborigines were in more or
less intimate contact with the invading Yamato for something like
twenty-five centuries, an interval quite sufficient to have produced
many interactions and to have given birth to many new traditions. An
illustration is furnished by the mental attitude of the uneducated
classes in Japan towards the neolithic implements. So completely has
all memory of the human uses of these implements faded, that they are
regarded as relics of supernatural beings and called by such names as
raifu (thunder-axe), raitsui (thunder-club), kitsune no kuwa
(fox-hoe), raiko (thunder-pestle), and tengu no meshigai (rice-spoon
of the goblins). Many of the neolithic relics show that the people
who used them had reached a tolerably high level of civilization.

This is specially seen in the matter of ceramics. It is true that the
wheel was not employed, and that the firing was imperfect, but the
variety of vessels was considerable,* and the shapes and decorations
were often very praiseworthy. Thus, among the braziers are found
shapes obviously the originals of the Japanese choji