lived in a fortified palace of some architectural pretensions, and their laws and customs are described as strict. The earlier notices speak of their having arrow-heads of bone, but two centuries later iron arrow-heads are mentioned. It is uncertain whether the Japanese brought with them from their continental home the art of working in iron and other metals. It is possible that all the metallurgical knowledge of which we find them possessed at a later period was really derived from China, and in that case there must have been an interval during which they used stone implements; but of this we have no certain knowledge. There is little or no evidence of a bronze age in Japan.
The archaeological remains of the ancient Japanese may be taken to date from a few centuries before the Christian era. The most remarkable of these are sepulchral monuments of their sovereigns and grandees, great numbers of which still exist every where except in the more northern part of the Main Island. They are most numerous in the Gokinai, i.e., the five provinces near the ancient capitals of Nara and Kyōto. The plain of Kawachi, in particular, is one vast cemetery dotted over with huge tumuli.
These mounds vary in shape and character. The largest are those known as misasagi, the Japanese word for the tombs of emperors, empresses, and princes of the blood. In the most ancient times, say the Japanese antiquarians, the tombs of the Mikados were simple mounds. At some unknown period, however—perhaps a few centuries before the Christian era—a highly specialised form of tumulus came into use for this purpose, and continued for several hundreds of years without much change. It consists of two mounds one conical, and the other of a triangular shape—merging into each other in this form 
, the whole being surrounded by a moat, and sometimes by two concentric moats with a narrow strip of land between. The interment took place in the conical part, the other probably serving as a platform on which were performed the rites in honour of the deceased. Seen from the side, the appearance is that of a saddle-hill, the conical part being slightly higher than the other. There are sometimes two
