Jomon Period

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The Jomon is the period in Japanese prehistory between the Paleolithic and the Yayoi. Recent radiocarbon dates place the beginning of the Jomon period as early as 14,500 BCE; the period ends in the fourth century BCE except in Hokkaido, where the Epi-Jomon continued until the middle of the first millennium CE. "Jomon" in Japanese means "cord marked," and although not all Jomon pottery has this type of decoration, the beginning of the Jomon period is usually defined as coinciding with the appearance of ceramics in the islands of Japan. The economy of the Jomon period was primarily hunting, gathering, and fishing, and thus the presence of pottery but the absence of agriculture makes it difficult to fit the Jomon into the evolutionary schemes commonly used in Europe and North America. Similar foraging cultures with pottery are, however, known from mainland Northeast Asia, where they are sometimes termed Forest Neolithic.

The Jomon is usually divided into six subphases termed Incipient, Initial, Early, Middle, Late, and Final (with a seventh, the Epi-Jomon, being found only in Hokkaido). Considering the very long duration of the Jomon period and the ecological diversity of the Japanese archipelago, it is not surprising that there isgreat cultural variation within the Jomon tradition. Rather than a single Jomon culture, it is more appropriate to speak of multiple Jomon cultures. These cultures were found as far north as Hokkaido but do not seem to have spread into Sakhalin until the Epi-Jomon phase. The Early Shellmound culture of the central Ryukyus probably originated in the Jomon tradition of Kyushu, but it is the most divergent of all Jomon cultures. The Sakishima islands of the southern Ryukyus were occupied by quite different cultures that appear to have their roots somewhere in Southeast Asia. The highest population densities in the Jomon period were found in central and eastern Honshu; western Japan was, in contrast, more sparsely populated. This difference is usually explained by the lower productivity of the broadleaf evergreen forests of western Japan.

Calibrated radiocarbon dates place the earliest pottery in Japan at about 14,500 BCE. Those dates make Jomon pottery the oldest in the world, but similar final Pleistocene dates have been reported from China and the Russian Far East, and it is not yet clear if Jomon ceramics developed in isolation or as part of a wider East Asian ceramic technology. Jomon pottery is not only very old but was produced in large quantities, especially in the latter half of the period. A deep cooking pot is the most common form; other vessels, such as shallow bowls and spouted "teapots," are much rarer.

The diet of the Jomon peoples included a broad range of plant, animal, and marine foods. Remains of salmon bones from the Maeda Kochi site in Tokyo show that this fish was exploited from as early as the Incipient phase (14,500–8000 BCE). Shell middens are known from the Initial phase (8000–5000), and more than three thousand Jomon shell middens have been identified. These middens have produced a variety of shellfish as well as the remains of sea mammals and inshore and offshore fish. Deer and wild boar were the main terrestrial animal species exploited.

Hunting was conducted using bows and arrows as well as pit traps. The domesticated dog is present from the Initial phase and was probably also used in hunting. Nuts, roots, and berries are thought to have been the main plant foods exploited by the Jomon peoples. There is also increasing evidence that a number of plants were cultivated. These plants include hemp, Perilla ( Japanese shiso and egoma), burdock, bottle gourd, barnyard millet (Echinochloa utilis), azuki and mung beans (Vigna angularis and V. radiatus), and the lacquer tree (Rhus vernicifera). Rice, barley, broomcorn, and foxtail millet also appear to have been cultivated by the end of the Jomon period.

The semisubterranean pit house seems to have been the basic dwelling of the Jomon period, but ethnographic parallels suggest these buildings would have only been used in the winter months. A raised-floor structure is also commonly found at Jomon sites; these are usually interpreted as storehouses. Most Jomon sites are small clusters of a few pit buildings but many very large sites are also known, especially from the Early and Middle phases. Sannai Maruyama in Aomori Prefecture, the largest Jomon site discovered so far, has produced over six hundred pit buildings, but it is not clear how many of these were occupied simultaneously.

A great variety of ritual artifacts are known from the Jomon period. These artifacts include clay figurines and masks, phallic stone rods, and highly ornate lacquer and ceramic vessels. Stone and wooden circles are also known. The two stone circles at Oyu in Akita Prefecture have diameters of 45 and 40 meters. Jomon burials are mostly simple inhumations with few grave goods. The skeletons excavated from these burials are of a so-called "Paleo-Mongoloid" type that was broadly distributed across East Asia. The strong resemblance between Jomon and Ainu skeletal morphology suggests that the latter are descended from an earlier Jomon population in northern Japan. In cultural terms, however, Ainu society as known ethnohistorically appears to have been very different from its Jomon predecessor.

The Jomon period saw long-distance exchange in obsidian, jade, amber, asphalt, pottery, and probably also in shellfish meat. Most of these exchange networks were within the Japanese archipelago, but Jomon Japan was by no means isolated from the Asian mainland. The Siberian blade-arrowhead culture reached Hokkaido in the early part of the Jomon. Other influences arrived from the Korean Peninsula and across the Japan Sea; there was probably small-scale but steady gene-flow from the continent through the Jomon period. The discovery of over a hundred dugout canoes from Jomon sites suggests that these vessels were the main method of water transportation. That the Jomon people were not confined to rivers and coasts, however, is shown by several finds, including Early Jomon remains from Hachijo Island, some 200 kilometers from Honshu.

The Jomon is perhaps the most materially affluent hunter-gatherer culture known through archaeology. It is presently unclear, however, whether that material affluence was matched by the type of complex social organization known ethnographically from the northwest coast of North America and elsewhere.

Akazawa, Takeru, and C. Melvin Aikens, eds. (1986) Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers in Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.

Imamura, Keiji. (1996) Prehistoric Japan: New Perspectives on Insular East Asia. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

Kaner, Simon. (1990) "The Western-language Jomon: A Review." In Hoabinhian, Jomon, Yayoi, Early Korean States: Bibliographic Reviews of Far Eastern Archaeology 1990, edited by Gina Barnes. Oxford: Oxbow, 31–62.

Kenrick, Douglas M. (1995) Jomon of Japan: The World's Oldest Pottery. London: Kegan Paul International.

Naumann, Nelly. (2000) Japanese Prehistory: The Material and Spiritual Culture of the Jomon Period. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag.

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