The first Shinto religious shrines begin to be built in Japan around 478.

The great bells and drums, Kofun burial mounds, and the founding of the imperial family are important to this period, in which developed the Japanese feudal state, and the Yamato and Izumo cultures.

Both of these dominant cultures have a large and central shrine which still exists today, Ise Shrine in the southwest and Izumo Taisha in the northeast.

This time period is defined by the increase of central power in Naniwa, now Osaka, of the feudal lord system.

Also there is an increasing influence of Chinese culture, which profoundly changes the practices of government structure, social structure, burial practices, and warfare.

The Japanese also hold close alliance and trade with the Gaya confederacy in the south of the Korean peninsula.

The Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, has political alliances with Yamato, and in the fifth century has seen the importation of the Chinese writing system to record Japanese names and events for trade and political records.