Jomon Research Articles

Human activities, early farming and natural environment in the north-western Kanto Plain (Central Japan) during the Final Jomon–Early Kofun period (990 cal BCE–330 cal CE) inferred from palynological and archaeobotanical records

The emergence, spread and intensification of agriculture, the impact of early agriculture on the natural environment and the possible role of climate on subsistence economies and population dynamics are important research questions in Japanese geoarchaeology. New directly dated archaeobotanical records of the Middle Yayoi (390–200 cal BCE, 1σ error) and Early Kofun (210–330 cal CE) periods from the Ikegami archaeological site and a 1300-year palynological record from the nearby Morinji Marsh help address these questions in the Kanto Plain of Central Japan. The pollen record suggests that management of chestnut and horse-chestnut by Final Jomon people in the study region declined around 750 cal BCE. The microcharcoal record indicates that human-induced fire activity decreased after 990 cal BCE and reached a minimum 500 years later, which coincides with the hemispheric-scale Iron Age Cold Epoch and late Bond event 2. Increasing use of fire from ca. 500 cal BCE is contemporaneous with the earliest evidence of millet-rice cultivation from south-western Kanto and the Central Highlands. This and pollen-based indicators of crop cultivation around Morinji Marsh ca. 200 cal BCE are consistent with the 14C-dated arrival of the first full-scale rice farmers at Ikegami. Their food economy still had a noticeable wild plant component (e.g. beans, walnut, horse-chestnut and acorn), however, the archaeobotanical assemblages from the Early Kofun period show a higher focus on rice cultivation and no evidence of a wild plant component. Variations in the charcoal concentrations and archaeobotanical data from the study region help postulate three phases of farming intensification related to cultural diffusion and/or migration. These phases, dated to ca. 500–300, 300–100 cal BCE and 100 cal BCE–250 cal CE, correspond to the pottery typologically defined late Early–early Middle Yayoi, middle–late Middle Yayoi and Late Yayoi periods, respectively.

How Foreign Religious Influences Contributed to Discriminatory Practices Against Women in Japan

This paper aims to argue how the intermingling between Japanese culture and cultures of other nations resulted in the lesser evaluation of women in Japanese religious circles. By analyzing religious texts and figures from the Jomon period (14,000 BCE–300CE) through to the twentieth century it can be observed that contact with foreign religions diminished the status of women in Japanese society. This highlights the links between the imported values from Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity and the decrease in the veneration of women in Japanese religious contexts, increase in misogynistic understandings of women and slandering of once respected female rulers. These foreign influences continue to define the manner women in Japan are treated to this day.

Metagenomic analyses of 7000 to 5500 years old coprolites excavated from the Torihama shell-mound site in the Japanese archipelago.

Coprolites contain various kinds of ancient DNAs derived from gut micro-organisms, viruses, and foods, which can help to determine the gut environment of ancient peoples. Their genomic information should be helpful in elucidating the interaction between hosts and microbes for thousands of years, as well as characterizing the dietary behaviors of ancient people. We performed shotgun metagenomic sequencing on four coprolites excavated from the Torihama shell-mound site in the Japanese archipelago. The coprolites were found in the layers of the Early Jomon period, corresponding stratigraphically to 7000 to 5500 years ago. After shotgun sequencing, we found that a significant number of reads showed homology with known gut microbe, viruses, and food genomes typically found in the feces of modern humans. We detected reads derived from several types of phages and their host bacteria simultaneously, suggesting the coexistence of viruses and their hosts. The food genomes provide biological evidence for the dietary behavior of the Jomon people, consistent with previous archaeological findings. These results indicate that ancient genomic analysis of coprolites is useful for understanding the gut environment and lifestyle of ancient peoples.

Археологические коллекции эпохи дзёмон в фондах Музея антропологии и этнографии (Кунсткамера) им. Петра Великого РАН

Статья посвящена анализу и дополнительному освещению археологического материала эпохи дзёмон из коллекции А.В. Григорьева (№ 1294), которая хранится в архиве Отдела археологии Музея антропологии и этнографии (Кунсткамера) им. Петра Великого РАН (г. Санкт-Петербург). Акцент в работе сделан на описании декоративных сюжетов и определении стилистической принадлежности отобранных образцов керамики. За основу анализа взяты опубликованные данные по раковинной куче Оомори (г. Токио, о-в Хонсю), которую в 1878 г. посетил А.В. Григорьев в рамках научной экспедиции Императорского Русского географического общества. Рассмотрены вопросы по раннему этапу формирования археологии как науки в Японии в контексте раскопок раковинной кучи Оомори. Пристальное внимание уделено описанию археологического материала с акцентом на особенностях орнаментации керамики эпохи дзёмон. Точная географическая привязка сборов к памятнику Оомори дала возможность отнести отобранные образцы к стилям Касори Б и Хориноути. В основу работы положена стилистическая интерпретация материала, а не технико-типологическое описание, характерное для отечественной археологии. Комбинации из крупных элементов зонированного орнамента прямоугольной формы и спиралевидного мотива являются отличительной чертой керамики стиля Касори Б. Наличие подобных декоративных элементов на ряде фрагментов позволяет отнести их к этому стилю. На серии других образцов выявлены вертикальный и горизонтальный узоры из прочерченных дугообразных и прямых линий — особенность декоративной композиции стиля Хориноути.

An ancient genome perspective on the dynamic history of the prehistoric Jomon people in and around the Japanese archipelago

The Jomon people were prehistoric residents of the Japanese archipelago who occupied the region from ca. 16,500 to 2,300 years before present (BP). While recent accumulation of ancient genomes and genome-wide data of the Jomons has substantially enhanced our understanding of their genetic profiles and contribution to present-day populations, their genetic history in the Jomon-period archipelago, spanning over 14,000 years in time and 2,000 km in distance, remains scarcely investigated. Here we report multiple findings illuminating the Jomon genetic history based on the analysis of the genetic relationship between published ancient genome-wide data of 23 Jomon and Jomon-like individuals. First, the Initial Jomon individual from Shikoku, dated to ca. 9,000 BP, forms a common outgroup to the remaining later Jomon individuals, suggesting a population turnover in western Japan. Second, genetically Jomon-like individuals outside the Jomon archaeological context, found in the Miyako Island in Ryukyu and the Yokjido island in the southern coast of Korea, show the closest genetic affinity with the Late Jomon individual from Shikoku, narrowing down their sources in space and time. This study highlights a dynamic history of the Jomon people in and out of the Japanese archipelago and calls for a large-scale investigation of the ancient Jomon genomes.

Exploring the genetic diversity of the Japanese population: Insights from a large-scale whole genome sequencing analysis.

The Japanese archipelago is a terminal location for human migration, and the contemporary Japanese people represent a unique population whose genomic diversity has been shaped by multiple migrations from Eurasia. We analyzed the genomic characteristics that define the genetic makeup of the modern Japanese population from a population genetics perspective from the genomic data of 9,287 samples obtained by high-coverage whole-genome sequencing (WGS) by the National Center Biobank Network. The dataset comprised populations from the Ryukyu Islands and other parts of the Japanese archipelago (Hondo). The Hondo population underwent two episodes of population decline during the Jomon period, corresponding to the Late Neolithic, and the Edo period, corresponding to the Early Modern era, while the Ryukyu population experienced a population decline during the shell midden period of the Late Neolithic in this region. Haplotype analysis suggested increased allele frequencies for genes related to alcohol and fatty acid metabolism, which were reported as loci that had experienced positive natural selection. Two genes related to alcohol metabolism were found to be 12,500 years out of phase with the time when they began to increase in the allele frequency; this finding indicates that the genomic diversity of Japanese people has been shaped by events closely related to agriculture and food production.

Eruption Status and Congenital Absence of Mandibular Third Molars from the Past to the Present in the Japanese Population

The eruption status and congenital absence of mandibular third molars were studied over time from the Jomon era to the present. The data were radiographs of buried human skeletons and modern populations. Eruption status was classified as upright, inclined, horizontal and congenital absence. The relationship with the M2-retromolar space was also examined. The eruption style of the mandibular third molars depends on the size of the M2-retromolar space, and as the M2-retromolar gap becomes narrower, the eruption goes from upright to inclined and then to horizontal. In congenital absence, most of the M2-retromolar space is less than 1/2 the mesiodistal diameter of the second molar. Congenital absence of mandibular third molars has been strongly influenced by heredity from prehistoric times to the Edo era. However, from the 1930s to the present, it has been more influenced by the environment, particularly food habits, with congenital absence of mandibular third molars declining as dietary habits becomes more favorable.

Demographic history of Ryukyu islanders at the southern part of the Japanese Archipelago inferred from whole-genome resequencing data

The Ryukyu Islands are located in the southernmost part of the Japanese Archipelago and consist of several island groups. Each island group has its own history and culture, which differ from those of mainland Japan. People of the Ryukyu Islands are genetically subdivided; however, their detailed demographic history remains unclear. We report the results of a whole-genome sequencing analysis of a total of 50 Ryukyu islanders, focusing on genetic differentiation between Miyako and Okinawa islanders. We confirmed that Miyako and Okinawa islanders cluster differently in principal component analysis and ADMIXTURE analysis and that there is a population structure among Miyako islanders. The present study supports the hypothesis that population differentiation is primarily caused by genetic drift rather than by differences in the rate of migration from surrounding regions, such as the Japanese main islands or Taiwan. In addition, the genetic cline observed among Miyako and Okinawa islanders can be explained by recurrent migration beyond the bounds of these islands. Our analysis also suggested that the presence of multiple subpopulations during the Neolithic Ryukyu Jomon period is not crucial to explain the modern Ryukyu populations. However, the assumption of multiple subpopulations during the time of admixture with mainland Japanese is necessary to explain the modern Ryukyu populations. Our findings add insights that could help clarify the complex history of populations in the Ryukyu Islands.

Classification of unexposed potsherd cavities by using deep learning

The aim of the Deep Research for Akkon project is to use machine-learning techniques, specifically convolutional neural networks (CNNs), to analyze the large corpus of archaeological pottery fragments belonging to the Late Jomon period (ca. 4000 to 3200 aBP) in a non-invasive and non-destructive manner. In Japan, recent research conducted by using the ”impression method” revealed that ceramic vessels belonging to that era contain impressions of plant seeds. Studying these impressions allows archaeologists to better understand the cultural practices of the Jomon people and the path of rice diffusion in Japan. Most of the analysis was conducted by visually inspecting X-ray images. However, results based on using only X-rays are often inconclusive, leading researchers to use other invasive techniques that damage the potsherds. In this paper, we present a method that classifies X-ray images of potsherds by using deep learning. A dataset composed of 1036 images with seven classes was used to evaluate our approach. We generated different models using different CNN architectures and parameters and analyzed them separately. Then, we applied techniques such as ensemble and test-time augmentation to evaluate how such techniques impact our model. The best result was obtained by combining EfficientNetB7 trained with different parameters, achieving a classification rate of 90%.

Fibular diaphyseal curvature of the Jomon population.

This study investigated differences in the fibular diaphyseal curvature between prehistoric Jomon hunter-gatherers and modern Japanese people. A total of 115 skeletal remains of 40 individuals from the Late/Final Jomon period (approximately 4300-2500years BP) and 75 modern Japanese individuals were included in the analysis. The degree of anteroposterior and mediolateral diaphyseal curvature was measured based on digital photographs taken from the frontal and sagittal planes at every 5% diaphyseal region between the range of 20-80% of the fibular length. Fibular diaphyseal curvature was compared between both populations and sexes, and the correlation between fibular diaphyseal curvature with diaphyseal cross-sectional morphology and body size variables were confirmed. The results showed significant differences in the anteroposterior diaphyseal curvature between the Jomon and modern Japanese populations, and a significantly curved anterior direction was noted for Jomon males and females, compared with modern Japanese males and females. On the contrary, little populational difference was noted in terms of mediolateral diaphyseal curvature. The curvature of the fibular diaphysis showed less correlation with body size variables. Moreover, anteroposterior diaphyseal curvatures were correlated with diaphyseal robustness and had low correlation with diaphyseal shape. A relationship between anteroposterior curvature and diaphyseal cross-sectional morphology, an indicator of habitual activity, was confirmed. This suggests that the fibular curvature is possibly influenced by mechanical loading from daily activities as well.

Circular Economy for Sustainable Communities and Lifestyles: The Wisdom of the Jomon People across 10,000 Years of Time and Space

In this paper, the value of Japan's ancient 10,000-year-long Jomon culture is re-explored. They lived a cooperative lifestyle rather than depriving the other side of resources in inter-tribal conflicts. They also did not oppress nature, but received the minimum resources necessary for the people of the village to survive from nature, which changed from season to season. Previous studies have dismissed the lack of organised agriculture as pre-civilisational, and it has been assumed that they made their living by hunting animals and gathering nuts. However, the use of storage warehouses showed that they had established a balance between planned food gathering and consumption. The lack of organised agriculture was rather an excellent system that did not create classes in the social structure. It is astonishing that the Jomon people were already implementing the ideas that form the basis of the modern SDGs. Across time and space, modern people should humbly learn from the Jomon people.

일본 공립박물관의 에코뮤지엄 수용

Located in between Kyoto and Nara, the Joyo City is an important transportation hub, containing historical sites from the Jomon period and called City of Tumuli with over 200 ancient tombs. This city has the Joyo City Museum of History and Folklore as a local authority museum. Established and operated by local governments, local authority museums are subject to the support and interest from the local community. The main theme of the Museum of History and Folklore is ancient tomb rites, and the museum preserves and exhibits the long history and folk resources of the area. In 2016, the basic policy for the ecomuseum was established and the Joyo Ecomuseum began since then. Based on the Ohara's concept of the ecomuseum, the Joyo Ecomuseum is studied from the perspective of three important criteria: museum activities (M), on-site preservation of local natural and cultural heritage (H), and voluntary participation of local residents (P). The Joyo Ecomuseum has been developing museum activities (M) by employing the core museum, the Museum of History and Folklore, and information facilities located throughout the city. Also, local heritage is preserved (H) through various activities to discover historical, natural, industrial, and facility resources of the area that network each other as satellite museums. In addition, the participation of the locals (P) is drawn in all these activities. The way how the Museum of History and Folklore, Joyo, Japan accommodates and promotes an ecomuseum in order to encourage participation from the local community and contribute to the active life of residents has lessons to local authority museums in Korea. The case of the Joyo Ecomuseum seems to suggest the directions where the museum should head for to become a cultural center of the local community, not a museum isolated from the community.

Tipping points of ancient Japanese Jomon trade networks from social network analyses of obsidian artifacts

The Jomon period of ancient Japan, characterized by hunting and gathering, lasted from 16,000 to 2,400 years cal BP. In this ∼13,000-year period, the geographical range of trade is known to have been extensive but may not have always been constant. We conducted obsidian social network analyses on a large dataset to explore the dynamics of trade networks and their tipping points during the Jomon period. This study clustered sites by geographical location and summarized obsidian artifacts in aggregate values by region to increase regional representativeness. This improved the readability and interpretability of the analysis results and decreased the distortion of results owing to a small sample of sites. The results showed that, for sites adjacent to one another, it is reasonable to group the total values by region and assess the regional representativeness of the findings. Framing the provenance and consumption areas as a bipartite graph and using network analyses among consumption areas revealed that the obsidian trade network expanded throughout the Kanto region in the middle Jomon period (5,500–4,500 years cal BP) but regionalized in the late Jomon period (4,500–3,200 years cal BP). These periods were extracted as tipping points in the Jomon trade network. The timing of these tipping points possibly occurred during a period of major climate change. Therefore, these tipping points of obsidian trade networks may have resulted from population decline and migration caused by shifting coastlines and living infrastructure owing to climate change.

Diversity in matrilineages among the Jomon individuals of Japan

Background The Jomon period of Japan is characterised by a unique combination of sedentary and hunting/gathering lifestyles, spanning for more than 10,000 years from the final Pleistocene to the Holocene. The transition from the preceding Palaeolithic period to the Jomon period is known to have begun with the appearance of pottery usage. However, knowledge of the genetic background of the Jomon people is still limited. Aim We aimed to determine the population-scale complete mitogenome sequences of the Initial Jomon human remains and compare the occurrence of mitochondrial haplogroups in the Jomon period from temporal and regional perspectives. Subjects and methods For human remains dated to 8200–8600 cal BP, we determined their complete mitogenome sequences using target enrichment-coupled next-generation sequencing. Results We successfully obtained the complete mitogenome sequences with high depth of coverage and high concordance on consensus sequences. These sequences differed by more than three bases each, except for two individuals having completely identical sequences. Co-existence of individuals with haplogroups N9b and M7a was first observed at the same archaeological site from the Initial Jomon period. Conclusion The genetic diversity within the population was not found to be low even in the Initial Jomon period.

Taphonomic observation of Jomon human skeletal remains from a collective burial of the Gongenbara shell-mound, Chiba Prefecture, Japan

To evaluate burial customs in the Jomon period of Japan, we observed the taphonomic sig‍natures of human bones from a secondary collective burial and compared them with those from in‍dividual burials. We compared the compositions of identified bone parts, degree of weathering, and damage of the bone surfaces based on two neighboring shell-mound sites, Gongenbara and Horinouchi in Chiba Prefecture; a famous secondary collective burial had previously been discovered at the Gongenbara shell-mound. The degree of weathering differed between the collective and individual burials, and also differed depending on the horizontal and vertical location within the collective buri‍al. ‍These differences imply that a variable degree of weathering plausibly occurred at or after the secondary burial, but not at the primary burial. Regarding bone surface damage, specific types of dam‍age were more frequently observed on the limb bones in the collective burial than in the individual burials, although different types of damage were observed in the skull assemblage. These findings sug‍gest that different burial processes could cause the secondarily reburied bones to be exposed to the air for a longer duration of time or more easily be accessed by insects or other small animals, which might have produced variable taphonomic signatures.

Domestication of azuki bean and soybean in Japan: From the insight of archeological and molecular evidence.

Domestication of azuki bean and soybean has enabled them to acquire non-dormant seeds, non-shattering pods, and larger seed size. Seed remains of the Jomon period recently discovered at archeological sites in the Central Highlands of Japan (6,000-4,000 BP) suggest that the use of azuki bean and soybean and their increase in seed size began earlier in Japan than in China and Korea; molecular phylogenetic studies indicate that azuki bean and soybean originated in Japan. Recent identification of domestication genes indicate that the domestication traits of azuki bean and soybean were established by different mechanisms. Analyses of domestication related genes using DNA extracted from the seed remains would reveal further details about their domestication processes.

Climatic change around the 4.2 ka event in coastal areas of the East China Sea and its potential influence on prehistoric Japanese people

Climate change during the Holocene is thought to have had a significant impact on human migration and development. In Japan, the earliest prehistoric culture based on hunting and gathering began about 16,000 years ago (the Jomon era). At least 3000 years ago, people with paddy rice cultivation skills started to migrate from mainland China, causing an explosion of population growth, lifestyle changes, and changes to the level of civilisation (Yayoi era). To clarify the climatic changes that potentially led to the movement of the Yayoi people to Japan, we analysed the palaeotemperature changes recorded in coastal marine sediment cores obtained from the Zhejiang coast in China, where the first paddy rice cultivation occurred, and northern Kyushu Island, where it was introduced to Japan. The reconstructed temperature fluctuations over the past 7000 years from both sites were similar on the scale of hundreds to thousands of years. The cold periods that occurred approximately 300 and 4200 years ago, which are related to the Little Ice Age and 4.2 ka events, respectively, may have been caused by modulations of the East Asian summer monsoon. Our study suggests that enhanced coastal upwelling may have amplified the cold climate of the 4.2 ka event on the Zhejiang coast. Our results support the recently proposed hypothesis that climate change prompted the collapse of the Yangtze civilisation and the migration of paddy rice farmers to other parts of Asia, including Japan. In contrast, the Jomon people, who still survived mainly based on hunting and gathering at that time, might have avoided a major population collapse.

The Jomon people cohabitated with cockroaches—The prehistoric pottery impressions reveal the existence of sanitary pests

It is unclear when cockroaches, a worldwide representative sanitary pest, began to cohabit with humans. Some cockroach oothecae were incorporated into pottery material during the Jomon period in Japan, and archaeologists have successfully identified them using a new investigation method. Identification of cockroach ootheca impressions in Jomon pottery in this study suggests the possibility that the Smokybrown cockroach, Periplaneta fuliginosa, which is currently recognised as an exotic species, is a synanthropic species native to Japan. In addition, it reveals that the modern geographical distribution of the two major native cockroach species was already established during the Jomon period. This study presents new evidence for the establishment of domiciliary cockroaches and demonstrates that the pottery impression method is highly effective for detecting insects (house pests) that are difficult to find in archaeological soil owing to their physical weakness and ecological niches.

Processing it all: Starch residues on Jomon Period ground stone from southern Hokkaido, Japan

For the Jomon Period, ground stone technology related to processing activities, such as handstones and querns, are commonly associated with plant foods. In many cases, these tools are considered to be an indicator for the consumption of tree nuts. In this study, ground stone artifacts from 15 sites across southern Hokkaido were analyzed for starchy residues to examine the relationship between grinding tools and economic plant taxa in Jomon daily practices. Overall, 24 of the 76 artifacts examined here had observable starch grains, meaning a large percentage of tools did not appear to have been in contact with starchy plants. The starch types commonly found in underground storage organs (USOs) were the most prominent component of the observed grains, indicating the use of yams, lilies, and other roots or tubers. The evidence for Poaceae grasses, legumes, and nuts is less clear, but present alongside the USO starch granules. These results suggest that grinding implements were not limited to processing plant foods, and would not have been restricted to specific resources, such as nuts.

죠몬시대 후기 북부큐슈의 묘제와 한반도의 관계

This paper provides an overview of the burials of the late Jomon period in Kyushu, and examines the influence of the Korean Peninsula. But, even on Tsushima Island(対馬島), which had the most contact with the Korean Peninsula, the clear relationship couldn't pointed out. In the Jomon period, there were few exchanges related to spiritual sphere between Korea and Japan, so it is thought that the influence on the burials was small. However, it is necessary to continue to review the problem of stone covered burials(覆石葬) and shell bracelets. The Kogawashima (小川島) Shell midden Tomb No. 4 appears to have the pottery of the latest phase of Korean Neolithic, but it is assumed to be related to Tsushima Island. It is also possible to point out the possibility that pottery of the Korean Peninsula may have had a symbolic meaning to those traveling to and from the Islands around the Genkainada(玄界灘).