The Yayoi period is the Iron Age era of Japan from 1000 BC to 300 AD. Japan transitioned to a settled agricultural society. There was a big influx of farmers from the Asian continent to Japan. The Yayoi culture flourished from southern Kyūshū to northern Honshū. The rapid increase of roughly four million people in Japan between the Jōmon and Yayoi periods are partially due to migration and due to a shift from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural diet with the introduction of rice cultivation.