The Yayoi people were an ancient ethnicity that immigrated to the Japanese archipelago during the Yayoi period and are characterized through Yayoi material culture. Some argue for an earlier start of the Yayoi period, between 1000 and 800 BC, but this date is controversial. The people of the Yayoi culture are regarded as the spreaders of agriculture and the Japonic languages throughout the whole archipelago, and were characterized by both local Jōmon hunter-gatherer and mainland Asian migrant ancestry.

The Yayoi period started in the late Neolithic period in Japan, continued through the Bronze Age, and towards its end crossed into the Iron Age.