Mesolithic Japan - Jomon Period (9500 BP to c. 2250 BP)

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Declan Murphy

Mesolithic - Jomon Period (9500 BP to c. 2250 BP)

During this period, the people living in the Japanese archipelago continued to be hunter-gatherers, but they led an increasingly sedentary life with decreasing foraging ranges. The name of the period "Jomon" - comes from the pottery found at numerous archaelogical sites. Jomon pottery was discovered by a 19th-century American zoologist named Edward S. Morse. He named the pottery jomon, meaning "cord marks" to describe the patterns pressed into the clay.

Jomon pottery

The Jomon pottery appears to have been used from about 10,000 years ago until about 400-500 years BP. The Jomon period is unusual by world standards; there is ample evidence of pottery manufacture and of the beginnings of agriculture and animal husbandry. However unlike other cultures that progressed from chipped tools to polished tools during the Neolithic, there is no evidence of weaving technology or monument building. These didn't appear in Japan until the Yayoi period - which is certainly Neolithic, whereas the Jomon is still more or less Mesolithic. For example weaving technology was non-existent, and the Jomon peoples wore clothes largely made of bark or animal skins. Tombs were simple pits, there were no burial mounds as such. However there is evidence of a belief system, as many of the dead were buried with a stone resting on their chest, or with their knees raised. Small clay figures in the shape of a woman and also commonly found in the graves.

As mentioned in the chapter concerning the paleolithic/mesolithic, pottery was required to provide a method of storing surplus food for leaner times, and for boiling/cooking both animals and plant matter. It appears that the people of what is now Kyushu were the first to develop Jomon pottery, and that they did so independently of mainland Asian developments (ie this culture was an indigenous development, unlike the later Yayoi period where technology was definitely transferred to Japan from mainland Asia.)

The pottery fragments discovered in Kyushu are much older than those so far discovered in China. Also, although pottery was manufactured for a very practical purpose, it was highly developed and decorated. Paleo-Historians customarily divide the Jomon Jidai into 6 sub-periods:

1) incipient: Simple pottery. 2) very early: Deep vessels shaped like urns, with tapered bases. 3) early: Flat based roughly cylindrical vessels, with vegetable matter in the clay.

- the 4th to 6th periods are fairly similar

4) middle: From the middle sub-period, pottery techniques progressed enormously 5) late: with complex patterns, handles and raised lines. The central mountains of 6) very late: Honshu produced the best artifacts.

Division of the era into the above sub-periods is usually made by classifying the chronological changes in pottery types. However as the Jomon culture spread throughout Japan it also began to develop regional differences, so the research into Jomon pottery is now highly complex and involves a complicated matrix of time and location.

By the middle period, Jomon pottery and the culture it was associated with was distributed widely through the Archipelago. The settlements appear to have primarily around coastal areas, rivers and lakes, indicating some knowledge of watercraft. There was also an increasingly wide range of types of pottery. Some of the fragments recovered are of very high quality and would have used sophisticated (and therefore time consuming) production methods, this would tend to indicate some sort of social class structure and the existance of demand for higher quality or "luxury" goods. At the same time there is an increasing number of very simple pottery that appears to have been developed for purely practical purposes of food storage, cooking etc. By the very late era, the simple pots are increasingly abundant and widely distributed. By this stage, the manufacturers of Jomon pottery were ready to make the technological jump to the higher temperature kilns and pottery wheel that are associated with the Yayoi Period.

Jomon people

Archaelogical evidence indicates that the inhabitants of Japan during this period were primarily hunter-gathers. The use of the bow and arrow had improved to the point where hunting birds was common, fishing techniques had also improved. Gathering of plants such as edible roots, nuts and seeds appears to have been gradually supplemented with some form of primitive agriculture. The reason we can assume this is that many stone tools of this period are digging implements (ie while some are sharp for cutting meat, wood etc, many tools such as chipped stone axes are bluntly shaped). The increased calorie intake appears to have enabled a larger population to be supported, and may be the reason for the development of the social classes that the high quality pottery ("luxury" items) seems to indicate. The crop cultivated in this period was not rice, but simple tubers such as yams and taro - another indicator of the link the proto-Japanese had with the aboriginal tribes of the Malayo-Polynesian language group.

Jomon pit dwellings

Although at the beginning of the Jomon period a large proportion of the people continued to live in caves, in time the majority built dwellings closer to food sources. Population pressures would have been a contributing reason.

There are 2 types of man made dwellings, and the remains are found in many parts of Japan today.

1) Pit-type dwelling - this consists of a shallow pit with an earthen floor covered by a thatched roof
2) Circular dwelling - a round floor was made from dried clay or stones, and covered with a roof.

Usually the dwellings are found in groups no smaller than 5 or so, with the larger settlements numbering 2 or 3 dozen. The reason appears to be food sources. Wherever fishing techniques were advanced, or flat fertile land plentiful, a social group could remain in one location longer than would otherwise be the case. The primitive agriculture of this time would have required some recourse to slash/burn - as animal husbandry did not yet exist to provide fertilizer.

The average settlement is oval shaped, with the dwellings located in a circle of semi-circle. This may have been for defence purposes, or to create communal space for group tasks such as stone tool or pottery manufacture. We know next to nothing about the people. As these proto-Japanese have different bone structures, it appears that they were of a different ethnicity to the Ainu tribes and may have displaced them from the more fertile and food abundant areas. From archaelogical digs, we know that they made bracelets from seashells, and jewellery using clay, stones, born and horn. Towards the end of the Jomon Period, an initiation ritual involving extraction/pointing of some teeth began. As children do not appear to have been affected, it might have been a "coming-of-age" ceremony. We know nothing of their language, though it was probably an ancestral Malayo-Polynesian language.

Previous: Paleolithic/Mesolithic culture - "Pre-Ceramic" | Next: Neolithic - Yayoi period (c. 250 BC-c. AD 250)

Contributed by: Declan Murphy

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