Yasuo Yanagida, a visiting professor of archaeology at Kokugakuin University, argues in his latest paper that more than 150 stone artifacts dating from the Yayoi Pottery Culture Period (1000 B.C.-A.D. 250) and the Kofun Period (third to seventh century) he examined could, in fact, be writing tools... In 2016, an ink slab from the latter half of the Yayoi Period (first to second century) was unearthed at the Mikumo-Iwara archaeological site in Itoshima, Fukuoka Prefecture. That site is said to have been the capital of Itokoku, a community written about in the ancient Chinese historical document "Gishiwajinden," which recorded encounters...