Yamato period

 This article is part of the 

 Jomon

 Yayoi

 Yamato period

 Nara period

 Heian Period

 Kamakura period

 Muromachi period

 Azuchi-Momoyama period

 Edo period

 Meiji Era

 Taisho period

 Japanese expansionism

 Occupied Japan

 Post-Occupation Japan

 Heisei

While conventionally assigned to the period circa 250 - 710 A.D., the actual start of Yamato rule is disputed. The court's supremacy was challenged throughout the period from Bizen and Bitchū provinces in what is now known as Okayama prefecture, and it was only into the 6th century A.D. that the Yamato clans could be said to have any major advantage over their neighbouring clans.

Hence, Japanese archaeologists (and textbooks) tend to prefer the less deterministic term Kofun period, which reflects the diagnostic archaeological feature, the large, often keyhole shaped burial mounds (kofun) found across mainland Japan.

The Yamato Period can be divided into two parts based upon the arrival of Buddhism:

• The Kofun period ( ca. 250 A.D - 538 )
• The Asuka period ( 538 - 710 )