Jōmon

Explore the Sasayama Site's flame-style pottery, Japan's only National Treasure from the prehistoric Jomon period. Visit Tokamachi City Museum to see these 5,500-year-old artistic masterpieces and experience the unique culture of Japan's snow country region.

In Mitsuke, Niigata, the Mimitori Site holds three Jomon villages layered on one hilltop, including a ring settlement with an 18-meter plaza and rare jade beads.

Spanning the city of Tokamachi and the town of Tsunan in Niigata Prefecture, the Honnoki and Tazawa Site Group is a National Historic Site preserving the dawn of the Jomon period. Composed of the Honnoki, Tazawa, and Jin Sites near the confluence of the Shinano and Kiyotsu Rivers, the group contains stone tools and pottery dating from around 15,000 to 12,500 years ago, offering an unusually clear record of how Ice Age communities transitioned from mobile Paleolithic hunting to riverside Jomon life.

At a Nagaoka museum, 1,402 Muroya Cave finds include rare Incipient Jomon pottery and Niigata's oldest burial, a woman laid to rest with a pot by her head.

Over a thousand stone spear points and Japan's oldest pottery from a Niigata river terrace: an Incipient Jomon find that named a famous debate on the Jomon's start.

Explore the Important Cultural Property artifacts from the Motoyashiki Site in Murakami City, Niigata Prefecture — 1,718 Jōmon-period pottery, stone tools, clay figurines, and jade beads revealing 4,000 years of mountain life, trade, and spiritual culture.