Jōmon period

Quick Facts: Who was Jōmon period?

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Jōmon period

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Prehistoric Japanese culture defined by hunter-gatherer life and unique pottery traditions.

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2Day Chrono-Wiki & Primary Historical Archives

Origins & Early Life

In Japanese history, the Jōmon period (Japanese: 縄文 時代, Hepburn: Jōmon jidai) is the time between c. 14,000 and 300 BC, during which Japan was inhabited by the Jōmon people, a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united by a common culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity. Their ancestors migrated from Northeast Asia, the Korean Peninsula, China, and Southeast Asia. Their civilization is divided into six distinct phases. They eventually admixed with the Japonic-speaking Yayoi people. The Jōmon period was rich in tools and jewelry made from bone, stone, shell and antler; pottery figurines and vessels; and lacquerware.

Career & Major Achievements

Jōmon pottery is noted for being decorated by having cords pressed into the wet outside of the pottery. Similar cultures developed in pre-Columbian cultures of the North American Pacific Northwest and especially the Valdivia culture in Ecuador because in these settings cultural complexity developed within a primarily hunting-gathering context with limited use of horticulture. The approximately 14,000-year Jōmon period is conventionally divided into several phases, progressively shorter: Incipient (13,750–8,500 BC), Initial (8,500–5,000 BC), Early (5,000–3,520 BC), Middle (3,520–2,470 BC), Late (2,470–1,250 BC), and Final (1,250–500 BC). The fact that this entire period is given the same name by archaeologists should not be taken to mean that there was not considerable regional and temporal diversity. The time between the earliest Jōmon pottery and that of the more well-known Middle Jōmon period is about twice as long as the span separating the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza from the 21st century.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

Dating of the Jōmon sub-phases is based primarily upon ceramic typology, and to a lesser extent radiocarbon dating. Recent findings have refined the final phase of the Jōmon period to 300 BC. The Yayoi period started between 500 and 300 BC according to radio-carbon evidence, while Yayoi styled pottery was found in a Jōmon site in northern Kyushu in 800 BC. The Japanese archipelago can be divided into 3 regions for which the chronology of the Jōmon period or its subsequent period are applied differently: Honshu and Kyushu, Okinawa and the Ryukyu Isles, and Hokkaido and Northern Tohōku. In Okinawa and the Ryukyu Isles, the Jōmon period does not apply as the Jōmon people were mostly absent from these places.

Historical Fact-Check Quiz: Jōmon period

True or False: “The Jōmon people were exclusively reliant on horticulture for their sustenance throughout the entire period.”

Answer (FALSE ❌): While they developed cultural complexity, the Jōmon lifestyle was primarily characterized as a hunter-gatherer existence with limited use of horticulture.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Jōmon period