Jomons
By: Aron Johnson

Jomons The Jomon people were located in Japan. The Jomon period was from about 1,500 BC to 300 BC. They were mostly known for their hunting, while the women focused on their pottery. The first pottery phase for the Jomons were made by using cords and were all made by hand, without the invention of the wheel. The word Jomon means “cord-marking” in Japanese. They used many tools and also enjoyed jewelry and figurines. They had little development with agriculture and didn’t use any kind of metal. The mostly used stone for knives, axes, etc. The Jomons lived in pit dwellings surrounded by open areas, but because of the climate changing, they had to move around a lot. Since the Jomon Period lasted so long, they were divided into different phases. Those phases were Incipient, Initial, Early, Middle, Late, and Final. The Incipient Jomons were in the middle of the transition from the Paleolithic ways of life to the Neolithic. The Initial Jomons dealt with the climate warming up, which increased food supplies for them. The Early Jomons had large amounts of shell mounds, which showed that the Jomon people’s diets continued to come from the ocean. The middle Jomons marked the high point for the Jomon culture. They increased their population and production of hand crafts. The warming climate also reached its high point which caused a lot of movement in the mountain regions. The Late Jomons had to deal with the climate cooling down, which caused the people to move out of the mountains to settle in places closer to the coast, especially around Honshu’s shores. They are also responsible for new fishing technologies. The Final Jomons had a great deal of problems. The climate began to get very cold, which caused food to be less abundant and a large decline in the population. This was also the time when the transition period to the Yayoi culture began and domesticated rice was introduced into Japan.

The Incipient Jomons are the first of the six Jomon periods. The Incipient Jomons were from 11,000 to 7,500 B.C. They were in the Paleolithic culture, which means they mostly just used stone for tools, weapons, and more. The Jomons were never an advanced group of people when it came to technology. They were actually very simple and did not depend a lot on agriculture. They also kept to themselves and didn’t start conflicts with other groups of people a lot because their wasn’t very many of them. The Incipient Jomons were in the middle of the transition from the Paleolithic ways of life to the Neolithic ways, which was when the climate started getting a lot hotter. The “Incipient” phase began while Japan was connected to continental Asia as a peninsula. The climate kept getting hotter after the ice age and the sea levels started rising. This benefitted the Jomons because it helped increase their food supply. They were very skilled hunters. The men did all the hunting and most of the fishing, while the women did some of the food gathering. The women also focused a lot on the pottery. The pottery they created was actually how they got their name. The word Jomon means “cord-making,” which describes the surface patterns of the pottery that was made with a twisted cord. This was named by the American archaeologist named Edward S. Morse. Their pottery was, of course, made by hand because the invention of the wheel wasn’t created in this time period yet. Pottery was always very important in Asia. The first Jomon art found was found in 1877 near present day Tokyo. They mostly used their pots for boiling food and eating.
After the Incipient Jomons, came the Initial Jomons from around 7,000 to 5,000 B.C. There are only few differences between the Incipient and Initial Jomons. The Initial Jomons dealt more with after the ice age. It was easy for them to adapt because they were able to start getting more food. Fishing became easier with the sea level rising and the warmer climate brought more animals. Towards the end of the Incipient period, the Jomon population started getting bigger. They were getting stronger and had more men and women to do their daily jobs so they could do more hunting, gathering, pottery, and more. But, the Jomons did not live in fancy homes. They did not have a luxury lifestyle. They struggled with diseases a lot and did not have a lot of ways to medically treat them. Although it does help to have a big population, this did not help because it gave the diseases chances to spread.
The Early Jomon period came next. This period started about 5,000 to 3,000 B.C. This was a very important mark in the Jomon history. They had increased stabilization of communities, the formation of small settlements, and the growing use of abundant natural resources. Population started to rapidly get bigger. People started to focus a little more on fishing rather than hunting. Hunting was still very important to the Jomon people, but they started to feel like fishing needed to be just as important. Pottery never lost its importance. It was always something the people would focus on. By this period, it seems that the Jomons got more decorative with their pottery. They started to love using jewelry. The pottery for the Early Jomon period was characterized as flat based, while the Initial period had round, pointed based forms. They still lived in their square-shaped pithouses, but they started to become villages.
The Middle Jomon period was very interesting. It dated from about 3,000 to 2,000 B.C. It is considered to be the pinnacle of the Jomon culture. This was the time when they had the largest amount of Jomon settlements. While their population was still increasing, their production of hand crafts increased much more as well. The climate reached it high point and the Jomons felt that it was just too hot. So, there was a lot of movement into the mountain regions. How the Jomon people flourished so well during this period is something that is uncertain. The temperature was much hotter back then than what it is today. The Jomons were smarter than what a lot of people think. This period is known to be the Jomon response to the climatic challenges. The population became very high compared to what it was. When it comes to settlement, there are more than 11,000 settlements that have been found dating back to the Middle jomon period. Regions called Chubu and Kanto contained nearly 60% of those sites. People believe that there is many more settlements that will not be found because of cities, or places, developing, but there have been a lot of places that had more than fifty pit houses.
There were a lot of Issues in the Late Jomon period. The Late Jomon Period was from about 2,000 to 1,000 B.C. The climate started getting very cold, which cause the people to move closer to the coast, especially around the shores of Honshu. Therefore, all of the settlements started to decline. Being around the coast more often helped them develop new fishing technologies, such as the toggle harpoon and deep sea fishing techniques. The communities were also in closer contact with each other more often. By this time, rituals were very important. Ceremonies using assembled stones and a lot of figurines and artifacts. Thousands of Jomons were at these ceremonies at a time. There was a lot more burials, which started the tradition of building small stone circles above them. There have been many ritual artifacts found like stone rods, stone phalli, and also figurines. The Jomons seemed to fade away from the cord marking with the pottery, but returned to using them more often in the Late Jomon period. They also came up with the ability to erase the cord markings, meaning the cord markings would be applied to the pottery, but then portions of them are erased so that they could have more of a smooth surface. They also came up with firing the pottery.
The last Jomon period was called the Final Jomon period, which dated from about 1,000 to 300 B.C. They continued their lifestyle with a few changes. They used things like chestnuts, and other kinds of nuts, more often. Their pottery also continued to upgrade. At this time, their pottery style had both carved designs and surikeshi jomon cord marking, which included lacquer. They were wooden objects with black and red lacquer decorations. However, the final Jomon period brought more problems than ever. With the climate continuing to get colder, which caused food to be less abundant and a large amount of the population ended up dieing. The people were assembled in smaller groups more often and regional differences became more pronounced. This was also the time when the Yayoi culture began and domesticated rice was introduced.
Still today, there are many questions regarding how the Jomons lived. It’s pretty remarkable how they dealt with the climate based off what they had. They also did not use metal, which could have made many things much easier, such as hunting, fishing, protection, and more. Its also interesting how important pottery was to them. They kept finding new ways on how to make and decorate their pottery.

Citations: 1. "Final Jomon Sub." Final Jomon Sub. N.p., 07 Oct. 2007. Web. 01 Mar. 2013.

2. Hirst, Kris K. "Jomon." About.com Archaeology. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2013. <http://archaeology.about.com/od/jterms/qt/jomon.htm>.
3. "Middle Jomon." Middle Jomon. N.p., 07 Oct. 2007. Web. 01 Mar. 2013. <http://www.nbz.or.jp/eng/middlejomon.htm>.
4. Department of Asian Art. "Jomon Culture (ca. 10,500–ca. 300 B.C.)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jomo/hd_jomo.htm (October 2002)
5. "Compared to the Preceding Middle Jomon Period." Compared to the Preceding Middle Jomon Period. N.p., 07 Oct. 2007. Web. 01 Mar. 2013. <http://www.nbz.or.jp/eng/latejomon.htm>.

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[ 1 ]. Hirst, Kris K. "Jomon." About.com Archaeology. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2013. .
[ 2 ]. "Middle Jomon." Middle Jomon. N.p., 07 Oct. 2007. Web. 01 Mar. 2013. .
[ 4 ]. 3. Department of Asian Art. "Jomon Culture (ca. 10,500–ca. 300 B.C.)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jomo/hd_jomo.htm (October 2002)
[ 5 ]. "Compared to the Preceding Middle Jomon Period." Compared to the Preceding Middle Jomon Period. N.p., 07 Oct. 2007. Web. 01 Mar. 2013. .