The Kofun period occurred in Japan around 250-538 CE and was very influencial to the formation of modern Japan. Koji Mizocuhi describes the hierarchy that developed in Japan at the beginning of the Kofun period. Koji Mizocuhi is a professor at the graduate school of Social and Cultural Studies at the University of Kyushu. He has written eighteen papers regarding the formation of Japan. The article, which is published in Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, discusses what impact locations and nodes or cultures had on the centralized hierarchy that developed. With the article being published in Journal of Anthropological Archaeology as a reader you automatically know that the paper is legitimate and is very well respected in its field.…show more content… If the region was suitable for agriculture and was big enough for agriculture than who ever dominated that region would have great influence on the governments or tribes or the tribes of that time. Professor Mizocuhi uses the topography of Japan to show that relationships between groups of people and their social networks had a greater impact on the hierarchies and the government than the individuals impact on hierarchies which ends up being the strongest point the professor makes. Another point that the professor touches upon is the impact of nodes on the hierarchies and government. Nodes in this paper means what the region was know for and what they did for livings. The nodes helped lead to the creation of a single hierarchy in Japan. He also touches upon the impact that the trade of these nodes had on the cultures of Japan. So in turn Professor Mizocuhi argues throughout his paper that there were many factors that led to creation of a centralized hierarchy in Japan and each specific factor had a great influence on the formation of a centralized hierarchy. The article adds a new perspective to an old argument about how Japan’s centralized hierarchy was developed. In the paper he seems to never discredit
