section_path: History/Pre-Tokugawa period
section_name: Pre-Tokugawa period
paragraph_text: Pre-Tokugawa period
  
  The site of Tokyo has been inhabited since ancient times. There have been multiple Paleolithic period (around 40,000–16,000BC.) sites found in present-day Tokyo. During the subsequent Jomon period, the Holocene glacial retreat caused sea levels in Tokyo Bay to rise by 120 cm, with the coastline running along the edge of what is now the Imperial Palace. Middens such as the Omori Shell Mounds still mark where the coastline ran in those days. The Yayoi period, during which agriculture spread across the country, is named after the Yayoi 2-chōme Site in Bunkyo, where the first example of Yayoi pottery was excavated in 1884 by Shozo Arisaka.
  
  In 534, a large-scale conflict was recorded in the area, as a result of which Kasahara no Omi, the victor, was appointed Kuni no Miyatsuko (provincial governor) by Emperor Ankan. Senso-ji in Asakusa was founded in 645. Under the Ritsuryō system established during the Asuka period, most of present-day Tokyo was part of Musashi Province. Following the fall of the Kingdom of Baekje after the Battle of Baekgang in the 660s, thousands of refugees were resettled in Musashi.
  
  During the Heian period, Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan in the late twelfth century. In 1457, Ōta Dōkan built Edo Castle to defend the region from the Chiba clan. After Dōkan was assassinated in 1486, the Ohgigayatsu branch of the Uesugi clan possessed the castle and the area. The Later Hōjō clan replaced them after the Battle of Takanawahara in 1524. The Later Hōjō clan was defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the Siege of Odawara in 1590.