Changes

Agriculture is not believed to have begun in the islands until around 800 CE, with islanders previously subsisting in hunter-gatherer communities. [[Iron]]working, meanwhile, is believed to have been introduced to the Amami Islands around 500 CE, and to have spread to the other Ryukyus from there.<ref>Pearson, 148.</ref>

Agriculture is not believed to have begun in the islands until around 800 CE, with islanders previously subsisting in hunter-gatherer communities. [[Iron]]working, meanwhile, is believed to have been introduced to the Amami Islands around 500 CE, and to have spread to the other Ryukyus from there.<ref>Pearson, 148.</ref>

The overall chain of islands continues relatively regularly from Kyushu to Taiwan, with one island, or small group of islands, after another, such that one can travel from one island to another without ever being out of sight of land (provided it's a clear day); however, there is a significant gap, 270 km wide, between Okinawa and the islands to the south, known as the Kerama Gap.<ref>Pearson, 4.</ref> As a result, while the people of Okinawa and the various islands north of it engaged in considerable trade with one another and with "mainland" Japan, the islanders of Sakishima remained disconnected from those interactions until around the 11th century CE.<ref name=pear1>Pearson, 1.</ref>

The overall chain of islands continues relatively regularly from Kyushu to Taiwan, with one island, or small group of islands, after another, such that one can travel from one island to another without ever being out of sight of land (provided it's a clear day); however, there is a significant gap, 270 km wide, between Okinawa and the islands to the south, known as the Kerama Gap.<ref>Pearson, 4.</ref> As a result, while the people of Okinawa and the various islands north of it engaged in considerable trade with one another and with "mainland" Japan, the islanders of Sakishima remained disconnected from those interactions until around the 11th century CE.<ref name=pear1>Pearson, 1.</ref> While the Amami and Okinawa Island groups show cultural similarities and connections with [[Jomon period|Jômon]] and [[Yayoi period]] Japan, in the style of their pottery, stone tools, etc., Sakishima shows no such cultural elements; similarities or connections are seen, instead, with the ancient cultures of Taiwan, Indonesia, and other parts of maritime Southeast Asia.<ref name=akamine3>Akamine Mamoru, Lina Terrell (trans.), Robert Huey (ed.), ''The Ryukyu Kingdom: Cornerstone of East Asia'', University of Hawaii Press (2017), 3.</ref>  

Likely the earliest textual reference to "Ryûkyû" (C: ''Liúqiú'') is in the ''[[Sui shi]]'', the official history of the [[Sui Dynasty]] ([[589]]-[[607]]).<ref>Kreiner, Josef. "Ryukyuan History in Comparative Perspective." in Kreiner (ed.) ''Ryukyu in World History''. Bonn: Biersche Verlagsanstalt, 2001. p3.</ref> The text relates that [[Emperor Yang of Sui]] dispatched ships to search for the "Land of Happy Immortals." What they found instead was ''Liuqiu'', which might refer either to the Ryukyu Islands, or to [[Taiwan]], as is the case for the term throughout much pre-modern Chinese texts. According to the ''Sui shi'', the Chinese then demanded [[tribute]] from the islanders, and met resistance; the battle ended in a thousand islanders being taken forcibly to China.<ref name=chan89>Chan Yingkit. “A Bridge between Myriad Lands: The Ryukyu Kingdom and Ming China (1372-1526),” MA Thesis, National University of Singapore, 2010, 8-9.</ref>

Likely the earliest textual reference to "Ryûkyû" (C: ''Liúqiú'') is in the ''[[Sui shi]]'' ([[636]]), the official history of the [[Sui Dynasty]] ([[589]]-[[607]]).<ref>Kreiner, Josef. "Ryukyuan History in Comparative Perspective." in Kreiner (ed.) ''Ryukyu in World History''. Bonn: Biersche Verlagsanstalt, 2001. p3.</ref> The text relates that [[Emperor Yang of Sui]] dispatched ships to search for the "Land of Happy Immortals." What they found instead was ''Liuqiu'', which might refer either to the Ryukyu Islands, or to [[Taiwan]], as is the case for the term throughout much pre-modern Chinese texts. According to the ''Sui shi'', the Chinese then demanded [[tribute]] from the islanders, and met resistance; the battle ended in a thousand islanders being taken forcibly to China.<ref name=chan89>Chan Yingkit. “A Bridge between Myriad Lands: The Ryukyu Kingdom and Ming China (1372-1526),” MA Thesis, National University of Singapore, 2010, 8-9.</ref> A mission from China traveled to "Liuqiu" again the following year, but only to return armor worn by the Ryukyuan captives.<ref>Akamine, 4.</ref> Still, there were connections and interactions between the islanders and China; [[Warring States Period]] coins, known in Japanese as ''[[meitosen|meitôsen]]'' have been found in the Ryukyus, as well as coins from the [[Han Dynasty|Han]] and [[Tang Dynasty|Tang Dynasties]], and personal ornaments with ''[[taotie]]'' designs. Meanwhile, texts such as the ''[[Nihon shoki]]'' and ''[[Shoku Nihongi]]'' similarly show that the peoples of some of these islands paid "tribute" to Japanese courts or polities as early as the 7th century.<ref>Akamine, 3-4.</ref>

Excavations have uncovered [[Tang Dynasty|Tang]] and [[Northern Song Dynasty]] coins, as well as Song and [[Yuan Dynasty]] Chinese trade ceramics in considerable numbers in Ryûkyû, indicating considerable commercal contact from a relatively early time. [[Richard Pearson]] argues that these trade ceramics were so plentiful as to not be luxury items in Ryûkyû, but rather that they were used by common people alongside indigenously-made [[Ryukyuan pottery]]. The import of coins seems to have reached a peak in the Northern Song ([[960]]-[[1127]]), and then to have declined considerably in the 13th century.<ref>Geoffrey Gunn, ''History Without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000-1800'', Hong Kong University Press (2011), 218-219.</ref>

Excavations have also uncovered [[Tang Dynasty|Tang]] and [[Northern Song Dynasty]] coins, as well as Song and [[Yuan Dynasty]] Chinese trade ceramics in considerable numbers in Ryûkyû, indicating considerable commercal contact from a relatively early time. [[Richard Pearson]] argues that these trade ceramics were so plentiful as to not be luxury items in Ryûkyû, but rather that they were used by common people alongside indigenously-made [[Ryukyuan pottery]]. The import of coins seems to have reached a peak in the Northern Song ([[960]]-[[1127]]), and then to have declined considerably in the 13th century.<ref>Geoffrey Gunn, ''History Without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000-1800'', Hong Kong University Press (2011), 218-219.</ref>

The 10th-11th centuries saw considerable technological and commercial developments in [[Song Dynasty]] China ([[960]]-[[1279]]), along with various concurrent developments in [[Heian period]] Japan. Interactions between China, Japan, and the Ryukyus increased, and migrants between the three regions introduced the cultivation of rice, wheat, barley, and other crops, and the raising of livestock into the Ryukyus.<ref name=pear1/> Though the original inhabitants of the islands may have been more purely of an ethnic stock similar to that of the [[Ainu]] or the [[Jomon period|Jômon people]], from at least the late first millennium CE, if not earlier, Okinawans began to more closely resemble mainland Japanese ([[Yamato people]]), an indication of considerable exchange and interaction between Japan and the Ryukyus and, perhaps, a significant number of migrants from Japan settling in the Ryukyus.<ref name=pearson149>Pearson, 149.</ref>

The 10th-11th centuries saw considerable technological and commercial developments in [[Song Dynasty]] China ([[960]]-[[1279]]), along with various concurrent developments in [[Heian period]] Japan. Interactions between China, Japan, and the Ryukyus increased, and migrants between the three regions introduced the cultivation of rice, wheat, barley, and other crops, and the raising of livestock into the Ryukyus.<ref name=pear1/> Though the original inhabitants of the islands may have been more purely of an ethnic stock similar to that of the [[Ainu]] or the [[Jomon period|Jômon people]], from at least the late first millennium CE, if not earlier, Okinawans began to more closely resemble mainland Japanese ([[Yamato people]]), an indication of considerable exchange and interaction between Japan and the Ryukyus and, perhaps, a significant number of migrants from Japan settling in the Ryukyus.<ref name=pearson149>Pearson, 149.</ref>