Jomon period: content
The Beginnings of Jomon (up to Incipient Jomon) - in progress
The Developments of Pottery - in progress
Occupation of space by the Jomon people - in progress
Subsistence strategies during Jomon - in progress
Everyday life of the Jomon people - in progress
The spiritual landscape and culture of the Jomon - in progress
The last stages of Jomon and the Yayoi transition - in construction
The last stages of Jomon and the Yayoi transition
Text in progress
As already discussed before, the densely populated areas of the Kanto and Chubu districts saw a sudden decline during the transition from Middle to Late Jomon which would continue well until the end of the Jomon period, an event for which we fail to have a satisfactory explanation so far. Also, the period leading to the middle of the Late Jomon saw the establishement of roughly two pottery style zones dividing the archipelago instead of the regular five, the northern one with its cultural heart shifiting from the Chubu/Kanto region to the Tohoku, further north, and the southern area under the infuence of the central Kyushu. This division between southwest and northeast Japan had almost continuously existed at least from the Initial Jomon in terms of development, but it is the first time it is also illustrated by the pottery types, a greatly intricate and detailed type in the north while the south adopted a style that ept on simplifying decoration until it became devoid of any pattern, but presented instead a particular black burnishing surface finish. In the north, hunting was again playing a greater role in the susbistence system and, as we've seen, hunting is inversely proportional to the properity of any given phase of Jomon; it should come as no surprise then that it is in Tohoku where the diet remained more focused on nuts and sea products. In fact, the latter was so important that we have discovered, in Aomori prefectures, examples of "nutshell middens" in swamped areas, often accompagnied by wooden artefacts. On the other hand, plants food's importance kept increasing from Nagano to the Kyushu. A specific feature which had, in fact, been in existence since the Early Jomon, an which will suprisingly continue until the Kofun period, are the so-called "acorn pits" which were deliberately located in wet, swampy soils, where nuts were discovered sometimes in remarkable condition. It was believed that it was in order to get rid of the acidic tanins but the presence of both sweet chestnuts that readily eadible and horse chesnuts that require much more difficult procedures tend to give weight to Imamura's theory that these pits were meant for the stocking of food stuff over very long periods of time [1]
We have already seen the fate of clay figurines in the last stages of the Jomon period before the incoming threat of the Yayoi lifestyle. Generally, the Late and Final Jomon see an increase in specialization of production by site, as well as in the production of rituals objects, be they small and probably meant for individual use, or large constructions which were particularly in the increase during that time, particularly in the northeast. On the other hand, one of the great particularities of the southwest was the evidence of exchanges between fishers of Japan and Korea. Some samples of Jomon pottery found near Pusan, a Korean-type of fish-hook found in Japan and similarities in fishing gear all hint in that direction, which is probably also the way followed by agriculture at the end of the Final Jomon; traces of cereals are also found earlier but it seems that it wasn't the right time as this early importation of agriculture did not provoke any change in the Jomon way of life at that time. But it couldn't last and when the Yayoi vague secured a footing in Japan, it brought not only with it farming but also the use of metal, in particular bronze and iron which were, until then, unknown: it comes therefore as no surprise that this culture spread quickly northward. One can imagine that all the changes that it brought with it, not only materially but also socially, must have been a massive shock to the populations of the archipelago which, for the most part, had never been in contact with foreign cultures, in particular when one considers how long the Jomon culture had endured. However, change was well unerway around the middle of the first millenium BC and, although the Yayoi period lasted only until 300 AD circa, it will have a deep impact on Japan, and in particular on the evolution towards a japanese state and unified identity through most of the japanese islands
[1] Imamura Keiji, "Prehistoric Japan"