Jomon Culture and the Archaeological Sites in Hokkaido and Northern Tohoku

The Jomon culture developed approximately 15,000 years ago characterized by the use of pottery across the Japanese Archipelago, including Hokkaido. A lot of Jomon archaeological sites have been found in Hokkaido, and we can learn about the life and society of the Jomon people through these sites. Hokkaido and the northern Tohoku region have been seeking to obtain world heritage listing for the Jomon archaeological sites in Hokkaido and northern Tohoku. What is the Jomon culture?

Jomon culture coexisting with the nature

What is the Jomon culture?
The Jomon people used various kinds of tools besides pottery. Many tools, such as chipped stone axes, bows and arrows, fish hooks and harpoons, were developed, and hunting and fishing techniques improved. The Jomon people built pit dwellings by digging holes in the ground and settles down instead of the nomadic lifestyle they used to follow before the Paleolithic culture. Villages were formed where residents lived in communities, and people also started to keep dogs.

The Japanese Archipelago’s warm and rainy climate is suited to the growth of woods, and the woods supply people with many blessings, such as animals and nuts. Water running through the woods formed rivers that were frequented by fish, such as salmon and trout, and where shells washed up from the sea. Forests and grasslands also developed around the villages, and deer and small animals living there became food for people. The lives of residents were close to nature around the villages.

The Jomon culture has been highly evaluated in the world as a peculiar culture involving mainly hunting, fishing and gathering that continued for over 15,000 years.

After the Ice Age, the Neolithic era featuring agriculture and settlements started around the world, and “civilization” developed. Civilization brought improved productivity through agriculture, and led to the formation of social positions, such as kings, social stratums, and the birth of nations and wars.

As for the Jomon culture, authentic agriculture was not conducted and the people settled down in one place while hunting, fishing and gathering as well as conserving the nature. There are no traces of battles, such as moats and shields surrounding the communities of the villages, and it was known that the people took care of elderly people and children, creating a stable society. The Jomon culture had continued approximately 10,000 years, the only culture to have continued as long in the world.

The Jomon culture that spread across the Japanese Archipelago was not a “delayed” culture with no agriculture, but a “mature” culture including the development of hunting, fishing and gathering habits in coexistence with nature.

Learn the life of the Jomon people

The life of the Jomon people can be learned from the remains located in many places around the nation.

In Hokkaido, approximately 12,000 remains from the Paleolithic culture and the Ainu culture have been found, and roughly 7,000 of them are remains from the Jomon period. A large number of remains of dwellings and villages as well as tools, such as pottery and stone tools, were discovered at Jomon culture sites. Graves, watering places and vestiges of hunting have also been found.

Many shell middens have also been unearthed in Hokkaido. From Kitakogane Shell Midden in Date City, not only shells like clams, oysters and scallops, bones of tuna, flatfish and sea animals, such as fur seals and whales, and graves of the Jomon people and the traces of ceremonies conducted by lining up the skulls of deer, were discovered. At the Higashikushiro Shell Midden in Kushiro City, shells, fish bones and skulls of dolphins that had been lined up radially were also excavated.

The Jomon people believed that the spirits dwell within every single being and phenomenon, and shell middens were considered to be the places where offerings were made to the world from where people were brought blessings.

Earthwork mounds discovered in Ofune and Kakinoshima sites in Hakodate were also considered to be places for rites and ceremonies. The places where offerings were made to gods were believed to be precious spaces to pass on the religious beliefs of the Jomon people, and some of their ideas about offerings were the same as those of the Ainu culture.

It is said that all remains of the Jomon culture in Hokkaido have their own distinctive regional features.

Unique arrowheads known as blade arrowheads were introduced in northeastern Hokkaido around 7,000 years ago under influences of Siberia and other Asian continental areas.

Southwest Hokkaido and the northern Tohoku region on both sides of the Tsugaru Strait also had a relationship through common cultural areas. The fact was proved by the use of similar cylindrical pottery in the early and middle Jomon periods. A total of 18 Jomon archaeological sites around the Tsugaru Strait are now seeking to obtain world heritage listing. In Hokkaido, a total of six sites, including Kitakogane Shell Midden, Irie-Takasago Shell Midden, Washinoki Site, Ofune Site, Kiusu Earthwork Burial Circles and Kakinoshima Site are included in these 18 Jomon archaeological sites.