Jomon and Yayoi Pottery

The Jomon Period, which preceded the Yayoi Period, extended for ten thousand years. The Jomon Period is credited with the beginning of Japanese ceramics, the world's oldest earthenware. Jomon pottery is cord-marked earthenware generally formed by coiling and firing at eight hundred to nine hundred degrees in the open air without the use of kilns.
The pottery received its name based on translation by E. S. Morse, coordinator for the Omori Shell Mound Excavation. According to carbon-14 dating, the oldest Jomon pottery examples are approximately 12,000 years old.

Yayoi pottery, named after a shell mound discovered in Yayoi-cho in 1884, followed Jomon pottery. The pottery reflects a strong relationship to the eating habits and lifestyles of its users. Research, therefore, indicates that one of the reasons for the rise of Yayoi pottery production was the shift from the hunting and gathering lifestyle to the newer agricultural lifestyle during the mid-Yayoi period.

Although the amount of lifestyle vessels produced during the Jomon Period was very high, similar Yayoi production of storage jars, cooking pots, stemmed cups and offering pieces, was even higher. By that time, the area pottery that had changed not only by kind but in development area as well, served as the leading exchange medium of the ancient people living in Ikego.

　　　Wooden Tools

Yayoi Period farming equipment consisted of plowing, harvesting and threshing tools. Plowing tools included small hoes, wide hoes, single wood-block hoes and combining hoes. Harvesting tools, although not found in the Ikego area, included stone and shell knives used for cutting rice stalks. Threshing tools, including pestles and mortars, were common items pictured in threshing scenes.
This indicates that these tools were consistently used in Japanese farm villages until the Showa period of the Modern Age. Many of these tools, with little changes in quality and form, are still used today.

Yayoi clothing, on the other hand, is very difficult to pinpoint because very little evidence of it is available for research. We do know, however, that a variety of items, techniques and human beings themselves came to the Japanese archipelago from China and the Korean Peninsula during the Yayoi Period.
A specific type of weaving was one of the techniques introduced during that time. Weaving implements, including loom parts and spindle whorls, discovered there confirm this fact. This leads to the belief that people during Yayoi Period time wore simple clothing similar to tunics.

Bone, Antler, Teeth and Tusk Implements

The Yayoi people, although heavily into the rice-growing agricultural lifestyle, also lived off of nature's bounty by hunting, fishing and gathering. Judging from the remains found, the Yayoi people used many living things including deer, boar, fish, clams dolphins and whales for their living needs.

(Photo left) Fishing tools, including gaffs, harpoons and fishhooks, were designed and produced by the Yayoi people.

After using every edible part of the animals and fish for food, the Yayoi people made hunting and fishing items and ritual objects and ornaments from the leftover bones, antlers and tusks.

(Photo left) Antler, tusk and tooth implements, including sword hilts, hairpins and pendants, were also designed and created by the Yayoi people.

Shell bracelets, cylindrical beads, and other ornaments, possibly for everyday or ceremonial dressing, were also excavated.

　　　Bokkotsu and Stone Tools

The livelihood of people during the Yayoi Period was very unstable and easily influenced by the forces of nature. Because of this, the people prayed for abundant blessings through incantations and rituals in which nature and life itself were extremely important and strongly revered. These excavated wooden ceremonial items, stone objects and bone implements, more commonly called Bokkotsu, support this theory.

(Photo left) Bokkotsu, made of deer and boar shoulder blades, or sometimes tortoise shell, were burned during rituals to guarantee prosperous futures, request rain, pray for good harvests and ward off sickness.
These customs continue today as part of the Shinto ceremony.

(Photo left) Axes, with stone heads fitted into wooden shafts, were used for splitting, cutting and carving. It took hard work and creative skills to make such beautifully polished stone tools.