The Japanese word "jomon" means cord-marked. Pottery decorated with elaborate cord-marked designs gave its name to one of the most remarkable periods of abstract creative expression in prehistory. From the appearance of the oldest pottery in the world, over seventy major pottery styles flourished during the long Jomon period (c.13,000 - c.2400 years ago).(I just learned something.)
The people who made these vessels lived in relatively settled villages with complex and often heavily ritualised lifestyles. The constructed stone circles and developed striking body ornamentation. And yet while many aspects of Jomon culture appear "neolithic" to European eyes, no farming was practiced during the Jomon period, Jomon foragers instead subsisting on the abundant natural food resources available to them in the temperate forests and along the coasts of the archipelago.
In the autumn of 2001 an exhibition of Jomon pottery was held at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and an international symposium examined the contexts within which the earliest dated pottery in the world was produced. These events marked the start of the Jomon Project. The next stage of the project is the launch of a new fully interactive website about Jomon archaeology. If you would like to receive updates about the website please leave your email details with us.
The Jomon Project forms part of Japan 2001 (www.japan2001.org.uk) a nationwide festival of Japanese culture in the United Kingdom. The Jomon Project is organised in cooperation with Kokugakuin University, the Niigata Prefectural Museum of History, the Fitzwilliam Museum and Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.
The Jomon Project is sponsored by the Japan Foundation, the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Japan 2001 and Kokugakuin University, which celebrates its 120th anniversary in 2002.
The Jomon Project is also supported by the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (www.sainsbury-institute.org) and the Society for East Asian Archaeology (www.eastasianarchaeology.org).