Earhart commented that Shinto ultimately "emerged from the beliefs and practices of prehistoric Japan", although Kitagawa noted that it was questionable whether prehistoric Japanese religions could be accurately termed "early Shinto". The historian Helen Hardacre observed that it was the Yayoi period of Japanese prehistory which was the "first to leave artifacts that can reasonably be linked to the later development of Shinto". Kami were worshipped at various landscape features during this period; at this point, their worship consisted largely of beseeching and placating them, with little evidence that they were viewed as compassionate entities. Archaeological evidence suggests that "dotaku" bronze bells, bronze weapons, and metal mirrors played an important role in kami-based ritual during the Yayoi period.