Jōmon

Discover the National Important Cultural Property artifacts from Yamanashi's Imojiya Site, including the iconic "Goddess of Fertility LAVIE" dogu and dancing figurine pottery that have toured world-famous museums from London to Rome. Free admission at Furusato Bunka Denshokan Museum.

Discover the remarkable Boar-shaped Clay Object, a 4,000-year-old Important Cultural Property from Japan's Jomon period. Visit Hirosaki City Museum in Aomori to see this exceptional artifact showcasing ancient spiritual culture and artistic mastery.

Discover the Gassho Dogu, a 3,500-year-old National Treasure clay figurine excavated from the Kazahari 1 Site in Hachinohe, Aomori. Learn about this praying Jomon figurine at the Korekawa Jomon Museum.

Explore the mystical Shakōki-dogū (goggle-eyed clay figurine) from Miyagi's Ebisuda Site—an Important Cultural Property at Tokyo National Museum showcasing Jomon artistry and spiritual beliefs from 3,000 years ago.

Discover Kakku, Hokkaido's first National Treasure - a magnificent hollow clay figurine from the Late Jomon period. Learn about its dramatic discovery, unique artistry, and how to visit this 41.5cm masterpiece at Hakodate Jomon Culture Center near UNESCO World Heritage sites.

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.

The Ireibaru Site in Chatan Town, Okinawa, is a nationally designated historic site preserving roughly 7,000 years of continuous human life from the early Jomon period through the Gusuku era. Centered on the perpetually flowing Uchinukā spring, the waterlogged lowlands have yielded Okinawa's oldest wooden artifacts, the prefecture's first comb, jadeite from Niigata, and obsidian from Kyushu, attesting to wide-ranging exchange between the southern islands and mainland Japan. Opened to the public in 2025, the site park and the adjacent Chatan Town Museum offer a vivid hands-on encounter with prehistoric Okinawa.

Discovered on the floor of Pit Dwelling No. 1 at the Nukatsuka Site in Katano-machi, Takayama, this pair of shallow bowl-shaped Jomon vessels was designated a National Important Cultural Property in 1988. Their flat disk forms, intricate impressed patterns, and rings of small holes preserve evidence of cultural exchange between the Hida highlands and eastern Japan some five thousand years ago. Encounter them at the Hida Takayama Museum of History and Art.

A complete polished jadeite axe from the Kamegaoka Site in Aomori, now housed at Miyagi's Tōhoku History Museum. Designated an Important Cultural Property in 1973, this 9 cm masterpiece reveals Jōmon-era craftsmanship and the vast trade network that carried Itoigawa jadeite across ancient Japan.

On a wooded slope in Minakami, Gunma, two Jomon stone-paved dwelling floors survive as a National Historic Site, preserving their stone hearths and a buried jar.

Explore the 645 Important Cultural Property artifacts from the Ushiroya Site in Okegawa, Saitama — including owl-shaped dogu figurines, red lacquered combs, and rare wooden tools from the Late to Final Jomon period. Free admission at Okegawa City Museum.

Discover the Jōmon Goddess, a 4,500-year-old clay figurine and Japan's largest dogū, designated as a National Treasure. Learn about its discovery at the Nishinomae Site in Yamagata Prefecture and visit it at the Yamagata Prefectural Museum.

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.

Two ring-shaped shell mounds in Chiba form a figure eight, one of Japan's largest Jōmon settlements. Calcium-rich soil preserved human and dog bone for millennia.

Kōde shell mound finds in Matsudo: 266 nationally designated Early Jōmon objects, some 6,000 years old. Spouted cooking pots, cord-marked wares, slit stone earrings and a boar-tusk pendant, all held at the Matsudo City Museum.

Unearthed near Narita in 1994, this 20-object Important Cultural Property centres on a unique Jomon clay head, about 5,500 years old, laid in an Early Jomon burial pit.