Jomon Pottery
Fire hardened Jomon Pottery containers that don’t leak unless cracked, and more often than not, last a very long time. The evolution of diet and cooking could be speculated upon by the discovery of when pottery was first available. New ideas of food preservation and storage, cooking baking, boiling, and brewing made way for a large diversity in food preparation. Pottery evolved nit only in a practical use but also in an artistic medium, upon which either daily records or sacred symbols could be recorded. Also fire hardened vessels would bring the clan closer to village life because pottery objects are fragile and cannot easily integrate in large numbers with a nomadic hunter-gatherer type life style.
Jomon Pottery – Earliest Culture and Lifestyles
The invention of pottery first occurred here in Japan, in an ancient culture known as the Jomon. The Jomon Period occupies a long span of Japanese history from 14,000 B.C. to 400 B.C. Land bridges were present with the Asian mainland until c.12,.000 B.C. Jomon ancestors walked slowly to Japan from East Asia, hunting and fishing every day as their nomadic culture had done for thousands of years.
‘Jomon’ means ‘cord patterned’, or ‘cord impressed’. Jomon potters decorated their clay vessels by marking/pressing into clay with sticks wrapped with cords. The Jomon culture was hunter gatherers. Their tribal/clan culture is as expected for their location and time in Japan. However, with a closer look we find extraordinary inventiveness. Jomon artistic talent was also exceptional and later Jomon potters produced magnificent vessels with a sophisticated refined design such as the beautiful vase that is the lead image for this post.
The Jomon Pottery was made with chipped and ground stone tools, traps, bows and arrows, and were skilled coastal and offshore fishermen. Axes with polished stone edges, stone drills, arrow heads and arrow shaft smoothers can be identified. The axes were not weapons; they were used to dig up edible tubers and roots from the forest floor.
Hunting was a primary activity, with Shika deer taken in winter and wild boar hunted throughout the year. Widely deployed pit traps and, later, hunting dogs were used to hunt a great diversity of animals. Earliest Jomon often lived in caves and were semi-nomadic. The earliest shelters that the Jomon constructed were small pit houses which appear in their second period – Early Jomon, 8000- 5,000 B.C. They are no more than 5’ in diameter with a thatched roof supported by wooden posts.
There are over 80 Jomon archeological sites in Japan and most of the Jomon pottery comes from later Jomon periods. Earliest Jomon cultural phases are unremarkable except for this one extraordinary development. The first Jomon were typical early Mesolithic hunter gatherers, efficiently exploiting the many resources in their local environment – a fine illustration of sustainability. Early in their history, they invented fire hardened pottery and the world would never be the same afterward as the technology spread across the planet. When the Jomon archeological record finally disappears, a new culture has arrived from East Asia, bringing with it a new agriculture and innovative technologies. The Jomon people, of course remained.
This is a fascinating subject for me and I became interested in the Jomon culture upon first setting eyes on the modern day spaceman figure made from Jomon pottery. What had they seen to inspire a figure such as that. It leaves us with many unanswered questions.
Axes with polished stone edges, stone drills, arrow heads and arrow shaft smoothers can be identified. The axes were not weapons; they were used to dig up edible tubers and roots from the forest floor.
Really Jomon Pottery containers are having very good features. Someone can use these ideas for food preservation and storage, cooking baking and boiling. Great post buddy.
The majority of J?mon pottery has rounded bottoms and the vessels are typically small. This shows how it would be used to boil food, perhaps fitting into a bonfire. Later J?mon pottery pieces are more elaborate, especially during the Middle J?mon period, where the rims of pots became much more complex and decorated.
Good read
I stumbled upon your blog recently, and it’s good to see that not everybody is exclusively into micro-blogging and Twitter 
There is no doubt that Jomon Pottery features are like anything. Jomon people were semi-sedentary, living mostly in pit dwellings arranged around central open spaces, and obtained their food by gathering, fishing, and hunting.
Wow very old stone ages. .
No doubt, the jomon pottery has a very interesting history. Thanks for sharing this. I am surprised when i read about Jomon pottery containers. They are truly amazing.
Good to know about Jomon and the history of pottery. I was under impression that the pottery was first invented in China. As people call is “fine bone china ware” sometimes. But from this post it can understood that the first pottery technic came up in Japan instead.
Thanks for this post.
We know that pottery has rounded bottoms and the vessels are typically small and this shows how it would be used to boil food, perhaps fitting into a bonfire, later J?mon pottery pieces are more elaborate, especially during Middle.
I came to know about Jomon Pottery on discovery channel few a days ago. Its really a very simple and nice.
It lookin gvery atrractive and impressive. The designs are also very attractive.
I looked up Lucchesi, very cool! i think i’ll go with Yi-Xing Pottery though, specifically the Artist Robert NotKin.. Thanks for the ideas though!!
There are other figurines at Dolní Vestonice that are much more common: bears, lions, mammoths, horses, foxes, rhino and owls, and also more than 2,000 balls of burnt clay. The making of small figurines was important to this culture, but depicting the human form was almost never done. The clay was fired at low temperature and there is no evidence that this Gravettian culture made pottery.
What a nice pottery and design are also very impressive. There are seems much creativeness in very piece.
It such a great post about the history of pottery. It such a knowledgeable post. Your description is very nice and easy to understand.
I practiced Aikido for 8 years when I was a teenager and I spent a lot of time since then studying Asian culture. The pottery artifacts always interested me because of the age old debate… did Chinese culture come from Japan or did Japanese culture originate in China. My guess is that someday there will be a smoking gun found in pottery pieces… whether this will be in China or in Japan is anyone’s guess.
Jomon people were able to develop an unusually sophisticated hunting-gathering culture in part because they were protected from large-scale invasions by their island setting and also because of their abundant food supply… Its people lived in small communities, in the early Jomon period there were seldom more than ten or twelve dwellings together.
Jomon Pottery seems interesting, it’s the first time I’ve heard of it in your blog
The one at the picture seems to look like a samurai for me, with that serious face and a body that looks like an armour.
Hi Tai,
To be precise Jomon Pottery was invented in Japan. However there are many other types of pottery which were invented in different parts of the world.
Thanks.
very nice post What a nice pottery and design are also very impressive. There are seems much creativeness in very piece.
According to archaeological evidence, the Jomon people created amongst the first known pottery vessels in the world, known as Jomon Pottery
Archaeological evidence suggests that the Jomon people may have created the first known pottery vessels in the world, dated to the eleventh millennium B.C.E. Jomon pottery was made of unrefined, low-fired clay, using manual methods such as rolling the clay into a rope and coiling it upwards from a base.
It is thought that Jomon pottery was made by women, as was the practice in most early societies, especially before the use of the potter’s wheel.
Really interesting article, the designs on this pottery are very elaborate, pity there is less of this type of skill around, maybe this site will inspire people?