[Jomon Period in Aomori ①] Aomori Prefecture, where the oldest pottery in Japan was found... Did the Jomon period begin here?

The Jomon period refers to the era that lasted for over 10,000 years , from when the Japanese people began using pottery about 15,000 years ago until the Yayoi period, when full-scale rice cultivation began .

*While there are several theories regarding the beginning of the Jomon period, this article follows the "Aomori Prefecture History" and places it approximately 15,000 years ago

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In Aomori, the use of pottery began approximately 16,500 years ago

The first pottery used in Japan wasthe Ohirayamamoto I site(as of June 2026, when this article was written, it is the oldest pottery in Japan), and it does not have any patterns (called "mon'yo" in archaeology).

Subsequently, starting around 15,000 years ago,pottery with raised lines(ryūki senmondoki), which has thin clay cords attached to the surface of the pottery, andpottery with claw-shaped(tsumegata mondoki), which has patterns made with fingernails or seashells, have been unearthed from all over Japan.

The oldest example is a finely raised-line patterned pottery vessel (a valuable cultural property of Aomori Prefecture ) that was unearthed from the Omotedate site (Rokkasho Village, but the site has since disappeared) and is believed to date back approximately 15,700 to 13,200 years .

The appearance of "Jomon" pottery, or pottery decorated with rope patterns, dates back approximately 11,000 years. The multi-Jomon pottery found at the Kushibiki site ( Hachinohe City) is called deep bowl-shaped pottery due to its shape

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The period came to be called the Jomon period because, by chance, Jomon patterns were found on the pottery that was excavated

The reason why pottery came to be called Jomon pottery during the Jomon period is due to the investigation of the Omori Shell Mound (Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo) conducted during the Meiji era

Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925), an American zoologist who studied shells, discovered a layer of shells embedded in a cliff near Omori while traveling from Yokohama to Tokyo during a research trip to Japan in 1877 (Meiji 10)

This led to the first academic investigation of an archaeological site in Japan

In 1877, archaeological excavations began, led by Dr. Morse, and in 1879 (Meiji 12), Japan's first archaeological excavation report, "Shell Mounds of Omori," was published

The Omori Shell Mound is a site of human habitation dating back approximately 4,400 to 2,300 years ago, and many pieces of pottery have been unearthed there. Many of these pieces of pottery have cord-marked patterns, which Dr. Morse described as "cord-marked pottery " in his research report

Cord-marked pottery literally translates to "pottery with cord marks," and was initially translated as "sakumon-doki" or "jomon-doki." However, in the 1930s, the term "Jomon-style pottery," proposed by Dr. Sugao Yamanouchi, who is considered the father of Japanese archaeology , became academically established, and after World War II, it came to be called "Jomon pottery."

Furthermore, the practice of collectively referring to the period from when pottery began to be used until the transition to the Yayoi period as the "Jomon period," regardless of the characteristics of the pottery, only began after World War II.

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The major climate changes that occurred over 10,000 years during the Jomon period have greatly altered the global environment

The Jomon period lasted for approximately 10,000 years, but it experienced significant climate change. It is said that there was a temperature difference of nearly 10 degrees Celsius between 16,500 years ago, the end of the Ice Age when pottery was discovered, and around 6,000 years ago, the warmest period of the Jomon era. Furthermore, the Jomon period was a transitional period in which people were moving from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settled, communal living, and the characteristics of the pottery used also changed during this time

Around 5,000 years ago, temperatures began to drop again, and by the end of the Jomon period, it is thought that temperatures had fallen by about 4°C from their highest point and were about 2°C lower than they are today

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The Jomon period, which lasted for 10,000 years, can be broadly divided into six phases, and further subdivided

The long Jomon period can be broadly divided based on the characteristics of its pottery, spanning 10,000 years

• Earlyperiod
• early
• Early period
• middle period
• Late period
• Late stage

The basic approach is to divide it into these six stages. Furthermore, except for the initial period, it is common to subdivide each stage into [early stage], [middle stage], and [late stage]

Initial period: Approximately 15,000 to 11,000 years ago / This was the time when people began using pottery and were still living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Pottery has been unearthed with various patterns, from plain to raised-line patterns and claw-shaped patterns, but pottery with rope patterns has not yet appeared.

Early Jomon period: Approximately 11,000 to 7,000 years ago / Settlement began, and Jomon pottery started to be used. The multi-Jomon style pottery (deep bowl-shaped pottery) excavated from the Kushibiki site (designated as a nationally important cultural property as "Artifacts excavated from the Kushibiki site in Aomori Prefecture") is representative of this period.

Early Jomon period: Approximately 7,000 to 5,000 years ago / This was the warmest period of the Jomon era, when ice in cold regions melted and sea levels rose (marine transgression).

Sea levels were 130 meters higher than at their lowest point during the Ice Age, and about 3 meters higher than they are today. Typical pottery includes flat-bottomed, cylindrical vessels , which have also been found at the Sannai-Maruyama site ( Aomori City ) .

Middle Jomon Period: Approximately 5,000 to 4,000 years ago / This was the peak of the Jomon culture. The Sannai-Maruyama site, which dates back to the Middle Jomon period, was a large village where more than 500 people lived. This is significant because settlements up to that point had typically housed around 30 people.

The area surrounding the settlement was covered with forests of deciduous broad-leaved trees such as beech, and chestnut cultivation forests stretched out before it. While cylindrical pottery is common, there are also many elaborate pieces of pottery in various shapes

Late period: Approximately 3000 to 2400 years ago / This was a transitional period to the Yayoi period, when rice cultivation began to be introduced. There was a significant drop in temperature, and life became difficult due to food shortages.

On the other hand, pottery-making techniques improved to an artistic degree, resulting in extremely thin pottery that was colored red or black with lacquer. A representative example of this potterythe Kamegaoka-style pottery,the Kamegaoka Stone Age site(Tsugaru City).

A human-shaped clay figurine called a Shakoki Dogu (goggle-eyed clay figurine ) was unearthed from the Kamegaoka Stone Age site . Despite being missing its left foot, it has been designated a National Important Cultural Property due to its high level of craftsmanship and beauty.

At the Korekawa Stone Age site, pottery and wooden artifacts with vividly colored lacquer coatings, which are hard to believe are 3,000 years old, have been unearthed.

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Jomon Period Division and Details

Jomon period		(The number of years is approximate)
Early period		16,000 to 12,000 years ago
early		12,000 to 7,000 years ago
	early anterior lobe	12,000 to 9,500 years ago
	early middle lobe	9,500 to 8,000 years ago
	Early posterior lobe	8,000 to 7,000 years ago
Early period		7,000 to 5,000 years ago
	prophase anterior lobe	7,000 to 6,300 years ago
	early middle lobe	6,300 to 5,800 years ago
	Early posterior leaves	5,800 to 5,000 years ago
middle period		5,000 to 4,000 years ago
	middle anterior lobe	5,000 to 4,700 years ago
	middle middle lobe	4,700 to 4,300 years ago
	Mid-late stage	4,300 to 4,000 years ago
Late period		4,000 to 3,000 years ago
	late anterior lobe	4,000 to 3,700 years ago
	late middle lobe	3,700 to 3,300 years ago
	late posterior lobe	3,300 to 3,000 years ago
Late stage		3,000 to 2,400 years ago
	Late stage, early lobe	3,000 to 2,900 years ago
	Late to mid-season	2,900 to 2,600 years ago
	Late stage	2,600 to 2,400 years ago

(Created based on information from the official website of the World Heritage Site "Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Hokkaido and Tohoku"; various theories exist.)

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The period when pottery began to be used in Aomori coincided with the height of the Paleolithic era in Europe and the Middle East

Let's look at the Jomon period within the context of world history. It is currently known that pottery began to be used in Japan, during the Jomon period, around 16,500 years ago. Outside of East Asia, including Japan (pottery dating back about 20,000 years has been discovered in China), it is said that agricultural life began earliest in the Middle East around 10,000 years ago, and in Europe around 8,000 years ago

When pottery was first made in Japan and used for cooking and food preservation, and when settled life began, the Middle East and Europe were in the Paleolithic period, a transitional stone-tool era leading to the Neolithic period, during which people lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in small groups. Therefore, there is no other period outside of Japan that is used in the same sense as the Jomon period. The Jomon period is used as a historical period unique to Japan

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The Jomon period began in northern Tohoku and gradually spread southward, encompassing all of Japan

Based on the pottery excavations, the Jomon period is believed to have begun in northern Tohoku and spread throughout Japan. It developed over a long period of 10,000 years, with the Tohoku region being the first to flourish during this development

Even during the Ice Age, the entire northern Tohoku region wasn't covered in ice. Except for the mountainous areas, the landmasses consisted of subarctic coniferous forests of fir, spruce, and larch, or grasslands

However, due to the formation of glaciers up to 3,000 meters thick in North America and other regions, sea levels decreased, and river levels were more than 120 meters lower than they are today. It is also said that rivers were frozen over. As a result, eastern Siberia, including northern Tohoku, and Alaska were dry

Aomori Prefecture, especially the area along the Sea of ​​Japan, is a snowy region with heavy snowfall, but at that time, there was no water in the sea, so there was no moisture to create snow, and it didn't snow. Large animals that were resistant to the cold lived there, and people lived by chasing and hunting these animals as they moved around

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It has been about 8,000 years since snow began to fall in Aomori Prefecture

As the Ice Age drew to a close, the Earth gradually began to warm. It is said that the temperature during the early Jomon period was about 5°C higher than during the peak of the last glacial period

As global warming causes glaciers and frozen seawater to melt, sea levels rise. Warm currents flow northward along Japan's Pacific coast (the Kuroshio Current) and the Sea of ​​Japan coast (the Tsushima Current). However, because the sea level is lower, the Tsushima Current was blocked by an underwater mountain range around the Tsushima Strait and did not flow into the Sea of ​​Japan

As sea levels rose, the mountain ranges became submerged, causing the Tsushima Current to flow into the Sea of ​​Japan, and then as far as the vicinity of Aomori

The seawater, warmer than the surrounding air temperature, evaporates and is carried by the westerlies, hitting the mountains of Japan. It was around this time that snow began to fall on the Sea of ​​Japan side of the country

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Humans began to settle near water, and a sedentary lifestyle began

In Aomori Prefecture, too, global warming has led to snowfall, making it difficult to secure food during the winter, and causing large animals that could not adapt to global warming to go extinct

Humans, too, found that the animals they had previously hunted were decreasing in number, and they had to find new food sources to survive. Fortunately, Aomori Prefecture has the sea and rivers, where there is an abundance of fish, marine mammals, and shellfish, and small animals roam the mountains and fields

Initially, they caught fish and small animals for food, but eventually they began to cook their meals, and pottery became an increasingly important tool

In "Jomon Period in Aomori ②," we will introduce several types of pottery with various patterns that appeared from the very beginning of the Jomon period

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