Revisiting "Jomon"

In recent years, interest in Jomon culture has been rising again, with various exhibitions and events being held. Mr. Kobayashi, what first sparked your interest in the Jomon period?

I used to work at an animation production company, and a director I worked with at the time was a huge fan of the Jomon period. I also use computer graphics, and since my job involves creating forms, I got into it purely from the perspective of thinking, "Wow, this pottery looks cool." So, it wasn't an academic motivation.

One interesting point is that when reading books by Professor Tatsuo Kobayashi, he mentions that Jomon culture continued for over 10,000 years in symbiosis with nature, and during that time, almost no traces of warfare have been found.

That's true. Unlike other countries where foreign ethnic groups brought new cultures and wiped out the indigenous people who were there before, that almost never happened during the Jomon, Yayoi, and Kofun periods.

In other words, during the long era before the Nara period, a pattern was established where foreign elements were incorporated into an already mature society and transformed into something unique to Japan.

From the Yayoi period to the present day, we have lived in a pyramid-shaped economic and social system. Amidst the strong sense of stagnation in Japan today, when we think about where to seek our identity, the Jomon period lasted for 12,000 to 13,000 years—about four to five times longer than the eras that followed. I believe there are things we can learn from such an era, so I have established an NPO called JOMONISM and am currently active with it.

If I talk about things that are too difficult, it's hard for the general public to accept, so I conduct activities in conjunction with things like music festivals and art.

That is very unique. Ms. Adachi, you are an expert in archaeology, but do you actually perform excavations as well?

Yes, I used to go out every day and excavate ruins in Kyoto Prefecture from morning until evening.

Since I was a child, my family would take me to archaeological sites on trips, and I loved going to museums. That's where my interest in ruins began. Right around the time I was in elementary and junior high school, the excavation, preservation, and public exhibition activities at the Sannai-Maruyama site in Aomori Prefecture were gaining a lot of momentum.

When I actually visited Sannai-Maruyama, there was an exhibit showing a Jomon-period woven basket (pochette) with nuts still inside. I was captivated, wondering how that basket was woven. Apparently, I stood in front of that exhibit for so long that my parents started to worry (laughs).

Because I liked looking at things and seeing things made by people, I decided to study archaeology to unravel the lives of people in the past through objects. I entered Keio University because I really wanted to study under Professor Kimio Suzuki, a leading figure in Japanese archaeology.

This year, there is also the special exhibition "Jomon: 10,000 Years of Prehistoric Art" at the Tokyo National Museum.

That's right. It's the first special Jomon exhibition in a long time, since the 2001 exhibition "The Art of Pottery: Jomon Dynamism and Yayoi Stillness."

The popularity of Jomon died down a bit after around 2001, but it might be becoming a bit of a boom again.

It's wonderful to be able to see such a great selection of items, so I think Jomon is "having a moment" right now.

Also, a person named Akihide Mochizuki publishes a free paper called "Jomon ZINE," which is distributed in various places across the country. Mr. Mochizuki introduces Jomon in a very pop-culture way, so I feel like it's gradually permeating society.

Many foreigners coming to Japan today are interested in Japanese anime. I think there is a very strong connection between this anime and the "animism" of the Jomon period. I suspect that the source of anime lies in the way Jomon people saw spirit-like entities in all things in the world.

The philosopher Takeshi Umehara used the clever phrase "Jokon-Saisai" (Jomon soul, Yayoi talent). This is a play on the phrase "Wakon-Kansai" (Japanese soul, Chinese talent). The things that came in after the Yayoi period, such as writing, textiles, and metal tools, are, in a word, things that prioritize efficiency. Umehara's idea is that the fundamental nature of Japan is "the soul is Jomon, and the talent is Yayoi."

When I talk about archaeology to children or foreigners using Japanese anime as a starting point, their eyes really light up. I think there is something there that can be shared with the world.

Certainly, I think Japanese anime and subculture are heavily influenced by animism.

The roots of things like the partiality for characters and the fetishism for form might lie in clay figurines (dogu) and pottery. I think the sense of humans acting as a medium to put energy and soul into objects has been passed down from the Jomon period to the present.

That's very true. It's great that children can learn about archaeology through anime, and I think the power of the real objects, like the clay figurines, is incredible. Even without an explanation, children are drawn in and stare at them. I hope we can utilize the power of such "objects" to allow people to learn about history with a fresh perspective.

I previously gave a lecture with Professor Tatsuo Kobayashi, and there was a question that always came up: "What do the patterns on Jomon pottery mean?"

I can imagine.

Professor Kobayashi's answer was, "As a researcher, I can't say anything because there is no physical evidence." But even if there is no evidence, I believe the Jomon people must have put some meaning into them.

I think academic theories also start with something like the researcher's inspiration. So, I think it would be interesting if more varied theories from individuals like that emerged. Since I am an artist, I want to engage with the Jomon period through my own fantasy.

There is more that we don't know about the Jomon period than what we do, so each viewer can develop their own fantasy as much as they like. There can be an academic Jomon, a literary Jomon, or an artistic Jomon.

Pottery became much simpler after the Yayoi period, but I think the patterns on Jomon pottery had a narrative quality. I can't help but feel that there was some kind of message.

The patterns and decorations reached an extreme peak during the Middle Jomon period. A representative style is the Katsusaka type, but these are large and don't seem like the kind of pots and pans used in an individual home. They were special items used for rituals at the community level, which is why they might have been preserved so carefully even after being buried.

On the surface, there are things that look like frogs, snakes, or humans. But there's also a sense that they are none of those. The pottery patterns that flourished in the Middle Jomon feel like something transcendent that can't be called just a "pattern."

They are on a different dimension, aren't they?

The Jomon period can be divided into the Incipient, Initial, Early, Middle, Late, and Final periods, with the Middle period being the center of those 10,000-plus years. Pottery from that time is larger in size compared to other periods.

Research shows that the population was also highest during the Middle Jomon. Therefore, there is a theory that even for cooking, many large-sized pottery pieces were needed. Also, from the perspective of portability, the climate during the Middle Jomon was warm and the environment was relatively stable, so many groups were able to build settlements and live in one place for a long time. Since they didn't have to move, large pottery was likely fine.

The title of your book, Ms. Adachi, is "The Genealogy of Jomon (縄紋) Pottery." Is there a specific meaning behind using the character "紋" (mon) instead of "文" (mon)?

Yes, it has a special meaning. For patterns created by rolling a rope, we use the character "紋" (mon) with the thread radical. On the other hand, for other patterns like hand-drawn ones, we use "文" (mon) without the thread radical. This distinction was first made by Sugao Yamanouchi, a researcher who was active from the 1920s to the 1960s and originally specialized in biology and anthropology.

Professor Yamanouchi wrote somewhere about an incident around 1931 where he tried rolling a stick wrapped with twisted cord like a coil on a desk.

Yes, apparently that's when he realized that the patterns were made with rope.

Until then, people didn't understand that the patterns were made by rotation. There are many patterns other than rope, right?

There are also patterns made with very thin bamboo tubes or shells. On the other hand, there are many types of rope made by twisting plant fibers, depending on the method of twisting. Furthermore, there are variations in how the rope is rolled, so "Jomon" (rope patterns) are quite diverse. Professor Yamanouchi grasped this. Not only that, he discovered that the rope patterns applied to many Jomon-period pottery pieces had characteristics specific to certain regions and periods, and he made "Jomon" (rope patterns) one of the important criteria for classifying pottery. He distinguished them from other "patterns."

Another thing I don't quite understand is that there is no pictorial expression in the Jomon period. In an era where the belief in spirits was so strong, it feels strange that there is nothing resembling a painting. This is just my own imagination, but perhaps painting was a taboo.

In other words, I think there were many artists like Mr. Kobayashi back then, and they could have drawn as much as they wanted. However, perhaps there was a taboo against expressing spirit-like things in the form of a picture.

The Jomon people, who deliberately did not go in the direction of painting or music, left patterns on pottery. How should we understand this?

Of course, I think it's different from what we now call writing. However, I also think that when people of that time saw it, it might have been a series of panoramas that they could understand as a story, much like an anime.

Middle Jomon pottery is truly magical. It's a shamanic form. As we move into the Late Jomon and then the Yayoi period, it shifts toward a purely functional direction, which has continued into modern society.

Certainly, patterns are wasteful or even a hindrance when it comes to actual cooking. But the act itself of crafting such patterns into pottery is an expression of gratitude for eating.

Moreover, cooking with Jomon pottery would have been the use of cutting-edge technology at the time. Things that were too hard to eat before became edible by putting them over a fire.

They were taking a life received from nature and, by cooking it, essentially giving it a new form. For the Jomon people, adding decoration to that might have been a rational thing to do.

I see.

Also, this is another thing Professor Tatsuo Kobayashi said, but despite the countless amount of pottery left over from each era, experts say there are almost no "failures" by our modern standards.

If someone like me tried pottery, I'd end up with something messy and weird (laughs). You'd think things like that would remain, but perhaps there was an unwritten rule that you simply must not fire such pottery.

True, only the good pieces seem to remain.

There are some pieces that look like they were for practice, or small pottery with faltering patterns that were likely made by a child learning from an adult.

There are even pieces where handprints or fingerprints remain. Those less attractive pieces are often not displayed in museums.

I see.

However, it is thought that there were very strict rules for making them. In archaeology, the units used for classification based on regional and temporal characteristics are called "types," and even pottery that seems to be for practice features patterns that capture the characteristics of that type.

In other words, even if they were making it for practice, they strictly followed the rules maintained by the group of that region and period. There were rules about what kind of drawing style to use and in what order to draw the patterns. Therefore, pottery with pictorial expressions or deviant patterns was likely never produced.

This is just my intuition, but looking at various pottery, I feel like there is often one exceptionally well-made piece that you could truly call a masterpiece, and then many others that seem to be imitations of it.

Yamanashi has yielded a huge amount of pottery, and in the Middle Jomon period, there are so many different styles that it's almost as if every village had its own unique style.

But even among those, there are "super masterpieces," like the large water-spout motif pottery (Suienmon) from the Shakado ruins in Yamanashi, and it seems everyone else was making copies of them (laughs).

That's true. You can certainly still see trends where the items from a specific site or settlement are clearly superior.

Also, in Niigata, Flame-style or Crown-style pottery is common, but among them, you occasionally find pieces mixed with the style of the Idojiri ruins in Nagano Prefecture.

I suspect artists from other settlements came by and showed off their work (laughs). Others would see it and think, "Maybe I'll try making something like that too."

Regarding how pottery was used, one thing I'm curious about is alcohol. Did a unique type of alcohol exist in the Jomon period or not?

At sites like Sannai Maruyama, in addition to elderberry seeds, pupae of drosophila flies that eat ripe fruit have been detected, leading to the theory that they fermented elderberries to make alcohol. By collaborating with researchers in botany and entomology, we are learning a lot about what surrounded Jomon people. Also, many spouted vessels with elaborate decorations appear in the Late and Final Jomon periods, so it's interesting to wonder what kind of liquids were poured from them.

There is a wine company in Yamanashi called Lumiere. They actually fire their own Jomon pottery and brew wine inside it.

There is also a theory that they used wild grapes back then. When people actually tried making it, they said it contained alcohol and was drinkable, but not very tasty (laughs). They said it lacked a bit of sugar. I imagine even back then, people who loved alcohol were making it.

Also, something gaining attention in relation to environmental issues is that in pit dwellings, they wouldn't have been able to live without constant cleaning. There's the issue of toilets as well.

Regarding pottery, to borrow from Professor Kobayashi, there are cases where large quantities are discarded in specific locations when a certain period ends, even though they aren't clearly damaged. On the other hand, they also treated fragments with great care, reattaching pieces to the rim or repairing holes. There are these two completely contradictory behaviors—discarding versus reusing. How should we interpret this?

I don't think shell middens were merely garbage dumps either. In modern terms, there's a high possibility that some kind of ritualistic activities were performed there.

It seems there was a concept of recycling where broken pottery was reused; for example, fragments were used as weights (sinkers) for sea fishing. They would polish the edges of the fragment into a circle and cut notches at both ends. Quite a lot of these have been found in the Kanto region from the Middle to Late periods.

I've picked one of those up myself on a river terrace in Chiba. Looking at the back, there was black soot remaining, which I assume was from boiling things.

In other words, it's almost certain they were repurposed. First it was a pot, then for some reason it broke, and after that, they tied it in a cross with a net and used it as a weight for fishing. Seeing things like that brings tears to my eyes.

They must have cherished them. Unlike us, who are surrounded by industrial products, these pots were made with care by someone close to them, so naturally, they wanted to take care of them.

This is something lacking in today's society, where we throw things away as soon as we're done with them. Of course, we can't go back to the Jomon period, but I believe it's possible to learn from it and further spread what we've learned through modern technology.

I believe it is possible to expand upon this through modern technology.

There are stories that Jomon people consciously avoided hunting female deer, for example. They made sure not to overhunt and deplete the population. Indeed, the most important perspective we are missing is the idea that "a small amount is enough."

Today is a society of wealth and inequality, where the more you accumulate, the better. I think Jomon was the exact opposite. We tend to worry that we don't have enough and keep hoarding, but in Jomon society, perhaps they decided as a whole that "this much is sufficient," whether it was food or anything else.

They say if you fight over things, there's never enough, but if you share, there's a surplus. That spirit was at the core, and Jomon had a culture of gifting. In other words, they exchanged goods rather than money.

Since my job involves working with words, what interests me most in that sense is the issue of language at the time.

Regarding the "sinkers" mentioned earlier, the people of that time wouldn't have called them "dosui" (clay weights). For that matter, Jomon people wouldn't have used the word "doki" (pottery) either; they must have expressed it in some other way.

Of course, there might have been simple exchanges of goods, but creators must have communicated with each other using words. Therefore, there must have been names for things.

They were communicating in some form, after all. For example, obsidian from Hoshikusotoge in Nagano Prefecture has been found in Aomori Prefecture, and jade from Itoigawa has been found at Sannai Maruyama, so they were likely communicating on a larger scale than we imagine.

If that's the case, I think it presupposes the existence of something like a common Japanese language, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to interact.

Even if artists don't necessarily need many words to interact, I still think language was a prerequisite.

Of course, just like dialects, there were regional differences, and perhaps interpreters were needed. For instance, people from Aomori and Aizu might not have understood each other back then. In fact, that was the case until quite recently.

Since the number of necessary words was likely small, I wonder if they communicated through gestures and the few words they knew.

There is the giant tree worship in the Chubu region, right? Festivals like the Onbashira Festival are said to be direct descendants of Jomon festivals. How did they perform the task of bringing those trees down from the mountains? At Sannai Maruyama, there are also traces of giant wooden pillars.

In an era without power saws or anything, handling such giant trees is a highly advanced technique, no matter how many people gathered. Quite a few scholars suggest there might have been a unit called the "Jomon Shaku" (Jomon foot). How are these things viewed today? Since only the pillar holes remain, we have to ask not just archaeologists but also architectural researchers and specialists to look at the thickness of the pillars, investigate how much height and weight they could withstand, and then reconstruct what kind of superstructure stood there.

Archaeologists cannot do this alone. Reconstructing life involves everything related to living, so ultimately, we cannot reconstruct the lives of Jomon people without collaborating with experts from all academic fields.

Toyama Prefecture has created a map called the "Map of the Sea of Japan Rim and East Asian Countries." It's commonly known as the "Inverted Map," which looks at the Japanese archipelago upside down.

Regarding the Mediterranean civilization in Europe, various surrounding regions are studied. It includes Africa and is not Europe-centric. Civilization moved back and forth across the entire Mediterranean, a sea rich in resources. The idea is that we must conceive an East Asian version of that, and I completely agree.

When we look at the Japanese archipelago upside down and think of the Sea of Japan as an inland sea in East Asia, I think ancient history becomes much clearer.

In the Jomon period, of course, there was no concept of a nation in the modern sense. And in the past, everything was maritime transport, right? You could move quickly by riding the ocean currents. In that regard, places like Toyama and Wakasa Bay might have played a major role even in the Jomon period. There is a possibility they were places where people and cultures from various regions, centered around East Asia, intersected.

I also believe the Jomon period was the most international era in Japanese history.

There were people from the south, people of Russian descent, and naturally, people coming over from the Korean Peninsula. By mingling with such people, I think it was a very diverse society.

Because those people recognized each other's diversity, peace continued for 10,000 years. I want to cherish concepts like that diversity and the tolerance toward it even in the modern day.

The Jomon period lasted for over 10,000 years, and within that period, there were settlements that adapted to their local environment, found a good balance, and survived for a long time, continuing to be inhabited.

By comparing them with settlements that couldn't live sustainably and didn't last long, I believe we can find hints for thinking about environmental issues, which are a common challenge for humanity.