Suppose I asked you something like "what was china like in AD 300?" and then asked you "what was japan was like in AD 300?". For which place would you have most (reliable) Primary sources to base your answer on?

by grapp

EDIT: just to be clear by "you" I basically mean historians in general, not "you personally". I don't want anyone to reply and tell me that for them it's Japan because they happen to own more books on Japanese history

lukeweiss

Absolutely and unequivocally: China. We have histories of the period, poetry, a mountain of primary sources dealing with civic society, religion, philosophy, you name it... For Japan at the time we have the wei zhi - a 3rd century history...of the Chinese Wei kingdom, that happens to include a description of a diplomatic visit to what was most likely (but not definitely) the two main islands of Japan. Kyushu and honshu. There is just no comparison.