Before the Tokugawa Shogunate, before the feudal era, before the classical Heian period where Japanese culture blossomed, before Buddhism was known in Japan, there was an ancient Japan, a time when true Japanese-ness came into being. An agricultural people from mainland Asia, the Yamato, settled in Japan and began rapidly conquering the island from its aborigines. The mix of new and old cultures would become the ur-Japanese. This image depicts some of the first recognizably Japanese people.