− Yastami Nishida −
The beginning of pottery productionWhen the post-glacial age was about to begin, in East Asia,microlithic cultures prevailed in its northern part, while in the south, pebble and flake tool cultures spread. Japan was in the microlithic culture. Two distinctive techniques to produce small blades smaller than 1cm in width had already been appeared in Hokkaido in the north and in Kyushu in the south, with their variations in the middle districts, showing that the microlithic tradition did not have a single trait. The pottery production seems to have begun in this period and meanwhile stone tool assemblages had shown great changes. In the northeastern area of Japan, there was a period when microblades disappeared and large stone tools such as axes and spearheads were the majority. We find pottery fragments in this period. And also stone tools that can be recognized as arrowheads from their shapes and size came into use. But in Kyushu, microliths were used even pottery vessels were common. The large stone tool tradition resembles to that of Osipovka culture in Primorye region of eastern Siberia and said to be northern tradition. However, sites belonging to the incipient phase of Jomon are not yet found in Hokkaido where those traditions should have passed. On the other hand, as the early pottery sites are not found in Korean Peninsula, the connections between Kyushu and the continent are still uncertain. In southern China, there are sites that yield pottery more than 10,000 years old. Still, we do not have reports on sites that show sequence from aceramic to ceramic period. We should say that the earliest pottery sites are just beginning to be discovered in those areas.
At the moment we cannot consider yet, if the first pottery culture in the Japanese archipelago was brought from outside or it developed independently. Also, we do not have any proof of Jomon pottery production diffused to the continent.
The answer to the reason of emergence of pottery in East Asia prior to Near East should be plural. It is probable that those first appeared as cooking vessels and not as containers. Certainly foods processed in pots differed from region to region. At least we can say that early in that period the societies were ready to accept the system of pottery making which demands a lot of necessities such as settled life, learning system and fuel. Probably the production of pottery compensated enough the efforts and labours from clay digging to firewood collecting.
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Foreign finds discovered from Jomon sitesThere are a few finds that resemble to those found in the continent, but their actual provenances are seldom known. For example, a bronze knife resembling to that of Yin dynasty of ancient China was found inYamagata prefecture. The site yielded late to final phase Jomon artifacts but no other bronze objects or foreign finds were discovered.
During the early half of the Far East flat-based pottery period which is explained in the next section, cultures with blade-arrowheads were distributed widely in northeast Asia. A culture with the same type of arrowheads appeared in the early phase Jomon restricted to east Hokkaido. Its characteristics are that only hunting tools are seen andit lacked plant processing tools which were common in other contemporary sites. It is distinctive enough to assume an arrival of an alien group. Until the end of the Jomon period, when foreign techniques and tools such as wet rice cultivation and polished stone daggers were brought from the continent to the northern Kyushu, this was the only instance that a culture not indigenous to Japan appeared in the Archipelago.
Recently certain kinds of stone accessaries, one of which is also found from a blade-arrowhead period site, are noticed, as similar shaped ones are widely distributed from China to Japan. China has a very long tradition of jade from the neolithic to modern times. Also, in Jomon period Japan, jadeite ornaments should have been highly estimated. Provenance studies show that the raw material was provided from one area in the Japan sea coast and it spread far even to Hokkaido and to western Japan. Also, sometimes jadeite ornaments are concentrated in particular tombs. Apart from this phenomenon, there was a distinct ear ornament called Ketsu in this period. Similar ornaments are also found in China and Primorye region. The fact tha tnot only those ear ornaments show similarities but also the ornament assemblage is common to these areas, makes it probable that those areas had some contacts. But as other cultural objects do not show similarities, it is difficult to interpret how only the idea of accessaries could diffuse.
Prehistory of northeast Asia and Japan
The early neolithic period in the regions of northern China, northern Korea, the Amur river basin and the Primorye region is recently defined as the Far East flat-based pottery period. People knew pottery and mostly depended on hunting and gathering rather than oncultivation. Also shell midden sites are found on the sea coasts which characteristics also remind of Jomon period Japan. As the researches are not yet enough, the whole sequence of culture change from the beginning of pottery is not yet revealed. With the results now available we can estimate that by the 6th millennium B.C., stable settlement s appeared in the regions, and by the 4th millennium B.C. the cultures changed to the latter stage, and lasted till the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C. One of such cultures is Xinglongwa culture spread in north China in which a site with vastarea of 20,000 square metres was found. Many researchers are concerned about how such a large settlement could be maintained in that period. Japanese archaeologists are also concerned as we also have the problem of the emergence of a huge settlement of Sannai Maruyama in Aomori prefecture.
In Jomon chronology, the early phase began in the 4th millennium B.C. when stable settlements diffused in the climatic optimum, and the late phase when not only the pottery styles changed but the settlement system also had a change partly affected by climatic deterioration began from the 2nd millennium B.C. after the enormous expansion of the middle phase. In broader view, changes seem to have occurred simultaneously in East Asia. However, the end of the Far Eastflat-base pottery period is not unrelated with the formation of a huge society in the middle China which can be called a state.
East Asian Prehistory and the Jomon period
Before considering the place of the Jomon period in the East Asian prehistory, we have to recognize that the word culture' is differently used in Japan and in other countries.
Roughly speaking, in four main islands of the Japanese archipelago, in the period from the beginning of pottery production to the appearance of wet rice cultivation, there was a cultural sequence distinguishable from other areas and Okinawa islands also saw the sequence that can beconsidered to be its variation. The Jomon culture is a general term for the cultural sequence in that period, and it is the result of widening the idea. Usually in other regions cultures are defined by typical sites and artefacts so that the terms are used in much smaller units. The equivalents in the Jomon period should be such as Kamegaoka culture or Black-burnished pottery culture. The expression that the Jomon period lasted more than 10,000 years is almost the same assaying that the neolithic period lasted for 10,000 years. If we try to compare Jomon culture, for instance, with Liangzhu culture or Hongshan culture we should be aware that those have different dimensions. In this sense, it is quite natural that the Jomon culture is said to havea wide variety. As the idea of Jomon culture is made up by compiling archaeological finds from the sites throughout the archipelagobelonging to a very long period, a type site that has all the elements of Jomon culture does not exist. Reestimation of the Jomon is now spoken even in the mass-media, but it is not only the matter of the estimation of elements.
