Japanese archipelago · Early Bronze Age
Jomon Culture
One of the world's oldest pottery traditions
14,000 BCE – 300 BCE · 13,700 years
A remarkably long-lived hunter-gatherer culture in Japan, notable for producing some of the world's earliest pottery long before agriculture took hold.
Where it sits on the calendar
Government
Tribal chiefdom
Writing system
No writing system known
Estimated peak population
260,000
How it ended
Gradual absorption
Traits
Long-distance trade Seafaring Monumental architecture Bronze metallurgy Iron metallurgy Irrigation agriculture Standing army Codified law Astronomical record-keeping Urban planning
How Jomon Culture ended
Transitioned gradually into the rice-farming Yayoi culture as new migrants and techniques arrived.
See other civilizations that fell the same way →Notable for
- Among the world's earliest known pottery, predating agriculture
- Long-term hunter-gatherer settlement stability without farming
- Extensive use of obsidian trade networks
Who else was alive at the same time
8 other civilizations in this dataset overlap with Jomon Culture's 13,700-year span.
See every overlap involving Jomon Culture →