Re: the original thread, I was just using "the start of recorded history" as a convenient yardstick for measuring "ancientness" of civilizations. Of course the

Re: the original thread, I was just using "the start of recorded history" as a convenient yardstick for measuring "ancientness" of civilizations. Of course the people and culture existed before that, but without any record it kinds of blends into prehistory. I'm not suggesting having short history makes Japan inferior or anything like that. It's just a predictable consequence of living on islands across the sea from the culture center. (My own country's history is not much longer, after all.)