History vs Prehistory etc  Hi as it stands the first paragraph begins with    The history of Japan probably started around  BCE  Id like to point out that perhaps its not useful or accurate to start a history article with a date  BCE like this  The reason why in general is that the study of history is typically restricted to the era of written records as the Wikipedia article on History will even state  There can be probably some fudging because written records can date slightly earlier events or have relation to slightly earlier events  In short history and prehistory will be divided by written records  Please take a look at the wikipedia article on History of England in that the upperright table indicates prehistory is before  BC and history in the years after  This date of  BC is generally due to Roman era records  And again somewhere geographicaly closer to Japan in the article History of China the article begins by saying that The history of China is detailed by historical records dating back to  BC   I think its a bit problematic and misleading to state that history began  years ago because if by history you mean purely archaeological evidence then why stop there  History will blend right into prehistory and then into archaeology without any meaningful demarcation    There is the more casual usage of the word history of course  That is history is just the sequence of all events from beginning to end  In which case the history of Japan goes back to the Big Bang and all time afterward  But as an informative and scholarly Wikipedia entry I think this article should be amended with something more accurate more specific referring to what is canonically defined as history  I propose something like   The earliest records of Japan date back to  BCE according to the Chinese source commonly known as the  Gishiwajinden or the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms  In the text the country of Yamataikoku is mentioned which was said to be ruled by the Queen Himiko  I think this adds to the quality of the article in its specificity and in exposing the reader to the Himiko story  Even here there is lots of controversy as to whether Yamataikoku even existed because of lack of archaeological evidence  The idea that we have any idea of the specific events of  BCE as the word history demands is somewhat unreasonable  Any comments