1. The Jomon Period
The first historical period of Japan is the Jomon Period which covers c. 14,500 to c. 300
BCE (although both the start and end dates for this period are disputed). The period's
name derives from the distinctive pottery produced at that time, the oldest vessels in
the world, which has simple rope-like decoration or jomon. It is the appearance of this
pottery that marks the end of the previous period, the Palaeolithic Age (30,000 years
ago) when people crossed now lost land bridges from mainland Asia to the northern
and southern Japanese islands. They then spread to the four main islands of Hokkaido,
Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, and eventually to the several hundred smaller islands
that make up Japan. The production of pottery does not necessarily signify
communities lived in fixed settlements, and for the majority of this time period, people
would have continued to live a hunter-gatherer existence using wood and stone tools.
The first signs of agriculture appear c. 5000 BCE and the earliest known settlement at Sannai-
Maruyama dates to c. 3500 BCE and lasts until c. 2000 BCE. Populations seem to have
concentrated in coastal areas and numbered somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 across the
islands. There is evidence of rice c. 1250 BCE, but its cultivation was likely not until c. 800
BCE. The first evidence of growing rice in wet fields dates to c. 600 BCE. Skeletons from the
period indicate people of muscular build with wide square faces and an average height of 1.52 m
(5 ft) for females and 1.60 m (5 ft 3 inches) for males. Genetic and cranial studies suggest that
Jomon people are the ancestors of the present-day minority group, the Ainu.
The most common burial type of the period is in pits, sometimes lined with stone slabs, which
contain one or more individuals. Other types of burial include single individuals in jars and large
pits containing up to 100 skeletons. Artefacts discovered relating to the Jomon Period include
clay and stone human-shaped figurines, clay masks, stone rods, and clay, stone, and jade
jewellery (beads and earrings). Archaeology has also revealed the Jomon built ritual structures
of stone circles, lines of stones forming arrow shapes, and single tall standing stones surrounded
by a cluster of smaller stones.
