The Jomon Period

The Jomon Period is the earliest named period of Japanese prehistory, generally dated from roughly 14,000 to 300 BCE and named for the cord-marked ("jomon") pottery its people produced, among the oldest pottery traditions known anywhere in the world. Jomon communities were hunter-gatherers who nonetheless lived in relatively settled coastal and inland villages supported by rich fishing, shellfish gathering and forest foraging, without ever adopting large-scale agriculture, an unusual combination that distinguishes the period from most other Neolithic-era societies worldwide. Archaeological sites such as Sannai-Maruyama in northern Honshu reveal large permanent settlements, elaborate clay figurines called dogu, and evidence of long-distance trade in obsidian and jade. The period gradually gave way to the Yayoi Period from around 300 BCE as wet-rice agriculture and metalworking, introduced from the Asian mainland, spread across the Japanese archipelago.