560
Documenta Praehistorica XLVII (2020)
On the term ‘Jōmon’ and the contribution
of Russian scholars to Jōmon studies
Andrey V. Tabarev1, Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya2, and Darya A. Ivanova3
1 Division of Foreign Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Novosibirsk, RU
olmec@yandex.ru
2 Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East, Vladivostok, RU
irina1zh@mail.ru
3 School of Arts and Humanities, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, RU
nightliro@bk.ru
ABSTRACT – The article is devoted to the introduction of the term ‘Jōmon’ into Russian archaeolo-
gical literature, its understanding, and the contribution of Russian scholars to Jōmon studies start-
ing from the late 20th century. The recognition of the term and its use had some peculiarities which
were caused not only by the language barrier and political events in the far eastern region, but most-
ly by the specifics of the archaeological investigations in the Russian Far East and the priority of
research focused first on the Ainu origin, and then on the Palaeolithic rather on the nature of the
Neolithic. The rise of the interest in Jōmon grew in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the disco-
veries of initial pottery with Final Pleistocene dates in Japan and Russia (Lower and Middle Amur
Region). During the 1980s and 1990s this trend was realized in a series of publications, international
conferences, and the first joint Russian-Japanese archaeological projects. The current stage is illus-
trated by the institualization of several research centres of Jōmon studies in Russia (Novosibirsk,
Vladivostok), by a high level of international cooperation, and by a wide range of research topics,
including chronological, technological, ritual and other aspects of the Jōmon period.
IZVLE∞EK – ∞lanek je posve≠en vpeljavi in razumevanju termina ‘Jōmon’ v ruski arheolo∏ki literatu-
ri ter prispevku ruskih znanstvenikov k ∏tudijam te kulture od konca 20. stoletja. Prepoznavanje tega
strokovnega izraza in njegove uporabe je imelo nekaj posebnosti, ki so jih povzro≠ile tako jezikovne
pregrade kot politi≠ni dogodki na obmo≠ju Daljnega vzhoda, predvsem pa posebnosti arheolo∏kih
raziskav na ruskem Daljnem vzhodu in prioritete raziskav, ki so se usmerile predvsem v izvor ljuds-
tva Ainu ter v paleolitske ∏tudije in manj v naravo neolitika. Interes za Jōmon se je pove≠al ∏ele ob kon-
cu 60. in v zgodnjih 70. letih prej∏njega stoletja z odkritjem najstarej∏e lon≠enine iz obdobja finalne-
ga pleistocena na Japonskem in v Rusiji (spodnja in srednja regija Amur). V 80. in 90. letih prej∏-
njega stoletja se je ta interes pokazal v seriji publikacij, mednarodnih sre≠anj in v prvih zdru∫enih
rusko-japonskih arheolo∏kih projektih. Sedanjo stopnjo razvoja pa ponazarja ve≠ raziskovalnih sre-
di∏≠ posve≠enih ∏tudijam kulture Jōmon v Rusiji (Novosibirsk, Vladivostok), pa tudi vi∏ji nivo med-
narodnih sodelovanj in ∏ir∏i razpon raziskovalnih tem, ki vklju≠ujejo kronologijo, tehnologijo, ritu-
ale in druge vidike obdobja kulture Jōmon.
KEY WORDS – Jōmon; Neolithic; Far East; pottery; technology; periodization; cooperation
KLJU∞NE BESEDE – Jōmon; neolitik; Daljni Vzhod; lon≠enina; tehnologija; periodizacija; sodelovanje
O terminu ‘Jōmon’ in prispevku
ruskih znanstvenikov k [tudijam kulture Jōmon
DOI> 10.4312\dp.47.32
On the term ‘Jōmon’ and the contribution of Russian scholars to Jōmon studies
561
duction to the Russian archaeological literature, its
understanding and interpretation – is one such illu-
strative examples.
With high probability the first Russian scientist to
get acquainted with Jōmon archaeological materials
in Japan was Alexander V. Grigor’ev. He ended up
in Yokohama in 1879 with a Russian geographical
maritime expedition and decided to stay in Japan for
scientific research for almost a year. Among the rich
collections he presented to the Russian Geographical
Society in 1880–81 was a collection of Jōmon arte-
facts (“ornamented pottery and stone tools from
Japanese Kökkenmödding”) gathered during his
trips to Tokyo, Yokohama and Hakodate (Dudarec
2006).
Other early notes on the archaeological antiquities
of Japan were published in 1884 by the outstanding
scientist, zoologist and archaeologist Ivan S. Polya-
kov. Sent by the Academy of Sciences to the Far East
in 1881, he made successful excavations on Sakha-
lin and in Primorye, after which he made a trip to
Japan. While in Japan for eight months (1882–1883)
he examined the materials of Oomori shell mound3.
In his report, Polyakov used such terms as ‘stone
age’, ‘pre-historical inhabitants’, and ‘primitive in-
habitants’. He was not only one of the first resear-
chers in Russian historiography to make a descrip-
tion of the remains of the Jōmon material culture,
but also tried to consider them in the context of the
connection with the ancient cultures of Sakhalin and
Primorye (Polyakov 1884).
In the following years, a series of articles and books
by leading orientalists, anthropologists and ethno-
graphers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
were published, in which questions of the ancient
history of the Japanese archipelago were addressed
to some extent. It should be noted that in most cases
the prehistory of Japan was considered at this time
through the lens of historical sources or ethnogra-
phic works dedicated to the ancient population of
the Japanese Islands – the Ainu (Anuchin 1904; Bog-
danovich 1905; Pozdneev 1909; Shternberg 1929 4).
The appearance and acceptance of the term ‘Jōmon’
Introduction 
It is considered that American zoologist Edward Syl-
vester Morse was a key figure at the beginning of Jō-
mon studies. In 1877 he initiated the pioneering ex-
cavations at Oomori shell mound, and coined the
term ‘twisted cord-marked pottery’ in his publica-
tions (Morse 1877; 1879). In turn, it was Shirai Mit-
sutaro who for first translated ‘cord-marked pottery’
as ‘Jōmon pottery’ (Jōmon-doki –         ) in 1886
(Shirai 1886)1.
It should be also underlined that in Japanese archa-
eological literature the term ‘Jōmon’ up to the end
of 1920s had no systematic character, and was most-
ly used to describe the style of pottery rather than
to define the archaeological period. In fact, the term
Neolithic was in even wider use. There were also
other definitions in English versions of Japanese
texts, such as ‘earlier stone age’ with subdivisions of
‘lower earlier stone age’ and ‘upper earlier stone
age’ (Matsumoto 1921.58–59). Only with the deve-
lopment of new approaches to the classification of
the ceramic materials and chronology presented in
the works of Sugao Yamanouchi in late 1920s and
early 1930s did ‘Jōmon’ get the status of a period with
its Earliest, Early, Middle, Late and Latest phases.
Almost at the same time – at the beginning of 1930s
– the term ‘Jōmon’ began to appear in European ar-
chaeological literature. For example, in France the in-
troduction of ‘Jōmon’ (style Jōmon-shiki) was done
by Japanese archaeologist Jiujiro Nakaya, who pub-
lished several papers about dogū figurines, pottery
and the peculiarities of the Japanese Neolithic (Na-
kaya 1930a; 1930b)2.
Despite the immediate geographical proximity and
intensive archaeological surveys in the regions of
the Russian Far East (Lower Amur, Maritime Region,
Sakhalin) at the end of 19th and beginning of the
20th centuries, the archaeological interest of Russian
researchers in the territory of the Japanese archipe-
lago did not immediately acquire a systematic for-
mat and the adaptation of the Japanese terminolo-
gy. The situation with the term ‘Jōmon’ – its intro-
1 ‘Cord-marked’ was initially translated into ‘Sakumon doki’ (           ) by Ryokichi Yatabe.
2 The stay of Nakaya in Paris in 1929–1932 and multiple meetings with the leaders of French archaeological and anthropological
science is vividly described in an article by Laurent Nespoulous (2014).
3 Just five years after the pioneering excavation of the site by Morse.
4 This is the enlarged version of the report presented by L. Shternberg at the Third Pan-Pacific Science Congress in Tokyo in 1926.
In his article in 1929 he published four pieces of “…ornamented clay fragments, found by A. V. Grigor’ev in Japan between Yo-
kohama and Tokyo near Oomori Lake” (Sternberg 1929.345), which definitely belong to Jōmon. So, it is possible that Grigor’ev
was visiting the site (Oomori Shell Mound) explored by Morse two years after the excavations.
Andrey V. Tabarev, Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya, and Darya A. Ivanova
562
took place only 10 years later, but in any case, Rus-
sian scholars of the early period demonstrated high
competence in the current literature and a clear un-
derstanding of the Neolithic nature of the archaeo-
logical materials from the Japanese shell mounds. 
Acceptance and initial use of the term ‘Jōmon’
Taking into consideration the political situation in
the Far East before II World War, and control of Ja-
pan over the southern part of Sakhalin and Kuril
Islands, we should definitely mention the high lev-
els of activity of Japanese archaeologists in these ter-
ritories. The first field surveys took place in 1889,
1900–1904, then in 1920th and in early 1930th (Va-
silevski 2008). There are many publications with the
description of the discovered and, in some cases,
excavated sites, and shell mounds with the interpre-
tation of the materials and comparisons with data
on Hokkaido. The term ‘Jōmon’ appeared in these
publications as early as in 1937 in the title of an ar-
ticle by Nobuo Ito called “The Jōmon pottery exca-
vated on Sakhalin” (Yoshizaki, Ohnuki 1963.158).
The early to mid-1930s are of greater interest for
our topic – this time was marked by several expedi-
tions of Russian archaeologists in the far eastern ter-
ritories. One such expedition took place in the east-
ern part of Sakhalin in 1935, where Alexander M.
Zolotarev visited the series of locations near Nog-
liki village, and according to the stone and pottery
artefacts found there described them as “Neolithic
sites of exceptional quality” (Zolotarev 1936.273).
Another expedition was organized and conducted by
one of the key figures in our story, Alexei P. Oklad-
nikov, along the Lower Amur between Khabarovsk
and Nikholaevsk (about 1000km in total). One of
the primary goals of this expedition was the quest
for Neolithic sites. In his short report about archaeo-
logical works in 1935 Okladnikov wrote about dis-
covery of 135 Neolithic sites which enabled the first
periodization of the Neolithic for the Lower Amur
Region. This included three stages, and giving the
characteristics of the first Okladnikov wrote that “… it
is close by some attributes of pottery of the most
ancient Neolithic sites of Japan (“proto-Ainu stra-
tum” in shell mounds in Northern Japan) ...” (Ok-
ladnikov 1936.276). The term ‘Jōmon’ is not in the
text, but the cited phrase is a direct indication of its
use as the archaeological analogy.
Over the next few years, Okladnikov consistently de-
veloped the concept of the ‘Amur Neolithic culture’,
and presented its developed version at a special ses-
sion on ethnogenesis in 19405. The report was de-
voted to the Neolithic of Siberia and Russian Far
East, and talked about Amur Region. Okladnikov put
a special focus on the peculiarities of pottery: “…sud-
denly rich, curvilinear ornamentation, related, on
the one hand, to Ainu and Maori ornaments, and,
from the other, to the Neolithic sites of China
(Yangshao culture) and Japanese Islands (Joe-
mon6 culture) – “ribbon” ornamentation with typ-
ical “net-mark”, spirals and meander…” (Okladni-
kov 1941.12). This is one of the first, if not the first,
utilization of this term in the Russian archaeologi-
cal literature, on that took place, as we mentioned
above, almost 10 years later than in the European
literature.
Obviously, Okladnikov was very interested in such
inter-regional comparisons and in the Stone Age ar-
chaeology of the Japanese Islands as a whole. In
1946, right after the Second World War, he pub-
lished a special paper “Towards the most ancient
population of the Japanese Islands and Its culture”.
The references for this article contain more than 100
titles of books and various types of publications7 in
Russian, Japanese, English, German, and French, de-
voted to all aspects of the ancient history and archae-
ology of Japan. This list contains pioneering works
by Edward S. Morse, Gordon. N. Munro, and Hein-
rich P. von Siebold, along with publications from
Japanese archaeologists on the excavations of shell
mounds in different parts of the Japanese Islands
between the 1880s and 1920s, and the first publi-
cations of Japanese archaeologists about Jōmon ma-
terials in European languages. Starting in 1934 Ok-
ladnikov worked in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) at the
Institute of Material Culture, and had full access to
its rich library of foreign books and periodicals. 
In fact, this is the first fundamental Russian work
not only about the Neolithic but about the whole
prehistory of Japan, including the Stone Age, Paleo-
metal and Early Middle Ages. As for the Neolithic,
5 May 28–29th, 1940, Moscow.
6 The exact spelling in the text is ‘Joemon’ instead of ‘Jōmon’, which confirms the still unsettled status of the term.
7 In one of the footnotes Okladnikov emphasizes that the whole “… list of references for this work was lost during the war. The
main part of the sources on the on the raised issues was re-compiled with the participation of N. A. Beregovaya …” (Okladni-
kov 1946.29). This means that the work on the article started before the war (before 1941), and none of the foreign references
is dated later than 1939.
On the term ‘Jōmon’ and the contribution of Russian scholars to Jōmon studies
563
Alexey P. Okladnikov demonstrated outstanding
competence in current research and all important
aspects of material culture: types of settlements, con-
struction of dwellings, shell mounds, bone and stone
tools, burials and ritual items. He paid special atten-
tion to a number of local pottery styles – including
Entō and Katsusaka – and analysed in detail the
dynamics of ornamentation. To describe the peculia-
rities of the earliest types of ornamentation he used
terms such as ‘rope and textile’ and ‘mat-marked’.
The word ‘Jōmon’ appears in his text as ‘culture of
rope pottery (Jōmon-culture)’ (Okladnikov 1946.18)
and as one of the ornamentation types – ‘Ujō-Jōmon’
(spruce needles) (Ibid. 21). Using a wide range of
archaeological analogies Okladnikov demonstrated
the wide ‘Far Eastern’, and even wider ‘Pacific’, ap-
proach to the peculiarities of Japanese materials.
The only weakness of this article is the absence of
illustrations, which may be explained by technical
issues or, by some political limitations and the con-
ditions of the post-war relationship with Japan.
At the moment we have not been able to fully trace
the situation with the use of the term ‘Jōmon’ be-
tween 1946 and 1953, and this will require some
additional bibliographic searches. But, in any case,
it is clear that in the very late 1940s the literature
about Jōmon was analysed by Mikhail A. Vorob’ev,
who graduated as an orientalist from Leningrad Uni-
versity in 1949 and became a doctoral student of
Okladnikov at the Institute of Material Culture. In
1953 Mikhail V. Vorob’ev defended his dissertation
“Stone Age of the Japanese Sea Countries” (Voro-
b’ev 1953), regarding the Jōmon as the ‘Neolithic pe-
riod’ in the history of the Japanese Islands8. This
dissertation became the basis for the monograph
“Ancient Japan” that he published five years later
(Vorob’ev 1958). This book is accompanied by a rich
album of photos and illustrations of Jōmon pottery
and stone tools.
1953 is a very significant milestone in our story –
this year is the beginning of the works of the special
Far Eastern Archaeological Expedition under the
leadership of Okladnikov9. This research not only
resulted in a series of field works and excavations of
archaeological sites with a wide chronological scale,
from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages, but also in
the establishment of local archaeological centres
and communities in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
During 1950s the term ‘Jōmon’ was used by Russian
archaeologists working in the Far East in a number
of publications in the context of comparisons of
types of settlements, stone tools and design of Neo-
lithic pottery. For example, Rima V. Chubarova (Ko-
zyreva), who conducted excavations on Sakhalin Is-
land in 1955 and the Kuril Islands in 1956, com-
pared the design of bone tools with the analogies
in Early Jōmon (with clarification in parentheses –
‘Early Neolithic’) (Chubarova 1957.70, 75), and
noted a clear resemblance of the Neolithic pottery
on Iturup Island with the pottery of Late Jōmon pe-
riod on Hokkaido (Chubarova 1960.132–138)10.
In 1957 the leading archaeological journal, Soviet
Archaeology, published a brief translation of an ar-
ticle by the Japanese archaeologist Nomio Egami,
“Past and Present of Archaeology in Japan”11, with
an overview of the most significant achievements of
Japanese archaeology, including the subdivision of
the Jōmon period into five stages, the discovery of
pre-Jōmon sites, and monumental complexes (stone
circles and megaliths). According to N. Egami these
finds may be regarded in the context of ancient con-
tacts between Japanese Islands and Siberia (Egami
1957). This translation reflects the main result in Jō-
mon studies of the 1940s and 1950s – the transition
from an understanding of this term as the specific
design on the pottery, or style of pottery, to one of
the periods of the Stone Age on the Japanese Islands.
The other important result of the 1950s was the
appearance of a new direction of the interest among
Russian archaeologists in the Stone Age in Japan, the
pre-Jōmon and Palaeolithic periods. The discovery of
Palaeolithic artefacts at Iwajuku site on Honshu Is-
land in 1948–1949 opened a new era in Japanese
archaeology and attracted the attention of the ar-
chaeologists from all over the world. Analysing the
literature on the pre-Jōmon complexes in Kanto re-
gion (Central Honshu) and on Hokkaido, Okladnikov
wrote about them having the highest significance
for far eastern archaeology, and compared the lithic
and obsidian artefacts with the Paleolithic materials
8   He did not use the word ‘Jōmon’ in the abstract of the dissertation.
9   He managed it until his death in 1981.
10 In particular, she used the book of Gerard J. Groot “The Prehistory of Japan” (Groot 1931). Okladnikov also mentioned this
book several times along with the work of Jonathan E. Kidder (Kidder 1957) as the most useful and complete collections of
data on Japanese archaeology.
11 Original article: Egami N. 1956. Past and Present of Archaeology in Japan. The Oriental Economist XXIV(544): 82–83.
Andrey V. Tabarev, Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya, and Darya A. Ivanova
564
in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia) and the con-
tinental part of Eurasia (Mongolia, China, Amur Re-
gion) (Okladnikov, Goreglyad 1958.250).
Among the important events of the 1950s we would
also note the first visit of Okladnikov to Japan with
a presentation at the International Symposium on
the History of Eastern and Western Cultural Con-
tacts organized by UNESCO in Tokyo in November,
1957. During this three weeks long trip he had the
chance to observe rich collection of archaeological
artefacts in Tokyo University. In a short report about
his trip to Japan he wrote: “Our attention was drawn
to recently found sites of the culture which existed
on the Japanese Islands about 6000 to 5000 BC.
We found many similarities with the finds done by
the Soviet archaeologists in Primorye. This suggests
that ancient inhabitants of our Far East also took
part in the peopling of the Japanese Islands…” (Ok-
ladnikov 1958.217).
Jōmon studies in the context of archaeological
and ethnographical research during the 1960s
and 1970s
The next twenty years in the history of Jōmon stud-
ies in Russia were marked by the activities of both
archaeologists and ethnographers. The ethnographers
were continuing the investigations of ethnohistory
of North East and East Asia started in late 1950s,
and the origin of the modern Japanese population
was one of the research’s focuses. For example, a
number of publications were devoted to the Ainu
and the sequence of Jōmon and Ainu populations in
different regions of the Japanese Islands (e.g., Aru-
tyunov 1960; 1961)12.
At the beginning of 1960s Okladnikov moved from
Leningrad to Novosibirsk (Western Siberia) and took
an active part in the formation of the humanities at
the new scientific centre. In 1966 a specialized re-
search institute that united all the humanities, in-
cluding archaeology, was established13. With this
event archaeological research in Siberia and the Rus-
sian Far East received a new impetus and was dis-
tinguished by the impressive scale of survey and
excavation projects. A series of such projects were
realized at the Neolithic sites in the Maritime Region,
Lower and Middle Amur Regions, on Sakhalin and
Kuril Islands by specialists from Novosibirsk, Vladi-
vostok, Khabarovsk and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. 
The rapid growth of materials required their analy-
sis and interpretation using data from neighbouring
territories. Therefore, there was an increase in inte-
rest in publications by Japanese authors and in direct
contacts between the specialists from Russia and Ja-
pan to discuss common problems. For example, Rus-
sian archaeologists (Okladnikov14, Ruslan S. Vasi-
l’evskij) took part in VIII International Congress of
Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (Tokyo
and Kyoto, 1968), where they had the chance to ob-
serve archaeological collections and establish con-
tacts with the leading Japanese archaeologists.
It should be underlined that the 1960s were marked
by very important archaeological discoveries on the
Japanese Islands – and, first of all, by the finds and
dating of early pottery in such caves as Kamikuroi-
wa and Fukui (Ikawa 1964). Carbon dating of these
complexes demonstrated the unexpected antiquity
(13 000–12 000 BP) of first ceramic traditions, and
raised the question of whether to revise the lower
chronological limits of Jōmon to the Final Pleisto-
cene time.
In 1970 the book “Siberia and Its Neighbours in
Antiquity” was published in Novosibirsk with arti-
cles of Russian and American archaeologists, includ-
ing on the Paleolithic and Early Neolithic sites on
the Japanese Archipelago (Larichev 1970), accom-
panied by detailed lists of radiocarbon determina-
tions for the Initial, Early, Middle, Late and Final pe-
riods of the Jōmon15.
A series of international conferences took place in
Russia during 1970s – such as the International
Symposium on Beringia (Khabarovsk, 1973); “Cor-
relation of Ancient Cultures of Siberia and Neigh-
boring Territories of the Pacific Basin” (Novosi-
12 Sergey A. Arutyunov travelled to Japan in 1960 as part of the special agreement between the Institute of Ethnography, Moscow
and Tokyo University. During this two-month journey he visited Tokyo, Yokohama, Sendai, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, and Hokkaido
Island. In addition to intensive ethnographical studies he also met with archaeologists, visited sites, and made some valuable ob-
servations about the nature of the Paleolithic and Jōmon periods.
13 Currently the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences.
14 Okladnikov made a presentation “The Neolithic of Lower Amur and Its relation to the Neolithic cultures of the other Asian
regions”.
15 Special article in Russian based on the publications of 1962–1968 by Richard E. Morlan, Chester S. Chard, Fumiko Ikawa, and by
a number of Japanese archaeologists.
On the term ‘Jōmon’ and the contribution of Russian scholars to Jōmon studies
565
birsk, 1975), and, in particular, the 14th Pacific Sci-
ence Congress (Khabarovsk, 1979), which brought
together scientists from 46 countries. The Japanese
delegation was one of the biggest (124 people), in-
cluding a group of archaeologists headed by Chosu-
ke Serizawa. After the intensive contacts that oc-
curred during this event, Okladnikov invited Japa-
nese archaeologists to Novosibirsk, where they got
access to the collections and continued the discussion
on a wide range of research topics related to the
Stone Age of the North East Asia and methods of di-
rect cooperation.
Among the scientific publications of this period the
first dissertation in Russian devoted to the Jōmon is
of exceptional importance. It was prepared by Chan
Su Bu and had the title “Late Jōmon of Hokkaido”
(Chan Su Bu 1977). He also published several arti-
cles on the Jōmon including a special investigation
on the origin and implementation of the term ‘Jō-
mon’ in Japanese archaeology (Chan Su Bu 1975)16.
Various aspects of the Jōmon were also analysed in
the publications (articles and books) of the other
authors from Moscow, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok and
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk – such as “Culture of Ancient Ja-
pan” (Iofan 1974), “Far Past of the Maritime Re-
gion and Amur Region” (Okladnikov, Derevyanko
1973), “Ancient Cultures of the Pacific North” (Va-
sil’evskij 1973), “Stone Age Cultures of Northern
Japan” (Vasil’evskij et al. 1982)17, and so on.
In all these publications Jōmon is interpreted as a
Neolithic ‘culture’ of the Japanese Islands consisting
of several periods and dated in the frame of 8000 to
2500 BP. While the materials of the Jōmon culture
were widely used in a comparative context with re-
gard to the regions of the Russian Far East, the cha-
racteristics of various periods of Jōmon and its local
diversity within the Japanese Archipelago were ra-
rely specifically considered. The finds of earliest pot-
tery (12 000 to 10 000 BP) were recognized as ‘Me-
solithic’ rather than Neolithic (Jōmon). To a large
extent, this was also due to the fact that great inter-
est of Siberian researchers in the 1960s and 1970s
was associated with the Paleolithic period and the
earliest manifestations of this in North East Asia (Si-
beria, Mongolia, Far East).
This view changed only after the dating of similar
findings of early pottery in the Lower and Middle
Amur Regions during the 1980s and 1990s.
New topics and trends of the 1980s and 1990s
A number of archaeological sites known since the
initial surveys near Khabarovsk in late 1920s and
early 1960s became the subject of a special project
from the mid-1970s up to the 1990s. At the initial
stage of research archaeological materials (stone as-
semblages) were interpreted as the ‘Osipovka Meso-
lithic culture’. After the discovery of early ceramic
fragments (in 1975 and 1980) and their carbon dat-
ing (12 960±120 BP) (Okladnikov, Medvedev 1983)
it became clear that technology of pottery-making
appeared in the Lower Amur Region almost at the
same time as on the Japanese Islands. According to
this Osipovka culture (by analogy with the Jōmon
periodization) was relegated to a new stage – ‘Initial
Neolithic’ (13 000–10 000 BP).
Subsequent discoveries of early pottery in the other
regions of the Russian Far East and Trans-Baikal Re-
gion along with the analogical finds in South and
Eastern China confirmed the validity of this divi-
sion, and opened a wide discussion on the various
aspects of this phenomenon – the function of early
pottery, reasons of its origin in the context of hun-
ters-gatherers and fishers, the independent or diffu-
sional character of the origin, etc.
The detailed analysis of the technological characte-
ristics of early pottery in the Far Eastern region is
one of the significant contributions of Russian archa-
eologists to this discussion. This was effectively de-
monstrated in a series of publications by Irina S.
Zhushchikhovskaya after direct observations of Jō-
mon collections in Tokyo and Kyoto in the mid-
1990s (e.g., Zhushchikhovskaya 1997). One of the
main tasks facing researchers into the origin of tech-
nologies for making ceramic containers is to deter-
mine the likely raw material base and the recipe for
preparing the moulding masses. It was found that
the Japanese Islands within the Incipient Jōmon and
partially Initial Jōmon are characterized by a focus
on the use of natural clay raw materials without spe-
cial additives and impurities. For the Initial Jōmon,
there is the occasional use of compounding mould-
ing masses with an artificial admixture of grass or-
ganic matter. The recipe technology of the early pot-
ters of Japan differed from the technology of the
mainland regions of the South of the Far East, the
Korean Peninsula, and Northern China, where the
oldest ceramics were made from moulding masses
16 Recently the authors of this article returned to the topic and published more details on the first studies of shell mounds and
discovery of Jōmon-type pottery in Japan in the late 19th–early 20th centuries (Tabarev, Ivanova 2018).
17 The monograph was based on the Japanese literature and results of research trips on Hokkaido in the late 1970s.
Andrey V. Tabarev, Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya, and Darya A. Ivanova
566
with a ‘clay + grass organic’ composition. At an early
stage of making ceramics, the quality of raw materi-
als and moulding mass would have largely deter-
mined the method of designing clay containers. 
Incipient Jōmon pottery in Japan is characterized by
the technology of ‘patchwork’ moulding, or slab con-
struction. There is evidence of the existence, along
with the ‘patchwork’ sequence, of a moulding tech-
nology close to the ring sequence. It should be espe-
cially noted that there are no traces of the use of
templates or form models for the manufacture of ves-
sels on the most ancient ceramics of Japan. Another
feature associated with the moulding process is the
moulding of the bottom part of the vessels. For the
earliest pottery of the archipelago, the leading trend
is the absence of a structurally separated flattened
section of the bottom, as the known examples are
dominated by models of a rounded and conical bot-
tom. In contrast to this, materials from other areas
of the East Asian area of early ceramics (Southern
Far East) have characteristic features of the techno-
logy of forming flat-bottomed containers using tem-
plates (hard, semi-soft-basket or rope). 
From a technological perspective, it is the characte-
ristics of the formulation of moulding masses and
the features of moulding that most emphatically
argue for the independent development of ceramic
technology on the Japanese Islands and in the main-
land regions of East Asia. At the same time, the signs
of surface treatment operations and firing of clay
products reflect the general technical and technolo-
gical level of the initial stages of formation of pot-
tery skills, and of their universal character. For the
most ancient ceramics of Japan and most of the early
ceramic complexes of the South of the Far East, and
China are characterized by a lack of skills in surface
treatment. According to the results of special analy-
ses and its external characteristics, the ancient cera-
mics were fired in primitive conditions, in an open
fire, at low temperatures from 550–600°C.
The quest for the earliest pottery in the Maritime Re-
gion was in the focus of the first multiyear joint Rus-
sian-Japanese archaeological expedition organized by
Tohoku Fukushi University (Sendai) and the Insti-
tute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the
People of the Far East (Vladivostok) which started in
1991–92. During this project fragments of early pot-
tery were discovered at the Ustinovka III Site (Ko-
nonenko 2001). According to 14C-dating their age is
about 9300 BP18. This remains the earliest manife-
station of ceramic production in the Maritime Region.
When considering the 1990s it is also necessary to
mention the beginning of a multiyear study on the
exploration and distribution of volcanic glass (obsi-
dian) in the Far Eastern region on the basis of geo-
chemical analysis. On the Japanese Islands the obsi-
dian was used as early as the initial stage of the
peopling of the territory in the Upper Paleolithic, at
35 000 to 33 000 BP, and continued during all pe-
riods of the Jōmon (Kuzmin et al. 1999), which is
one of the best illustrations of the intensity and
directions of the contacts with regard to the Japane-
se Islands and adjacent territories19. Another exam-
ple of a multi-disciplinary approach used in the
1990s is the collecting and summarizing of the data-
base on 14C-dating of the Stone Age sites in the Far
Eastern regions with special focus on the sites with
earliest pottery (Kuzmin 1998).
Current stage and interim conclusions
The 2000s have been characterized by many advan-
ces in the organization of research, and in the inter-
national cooperation which fosters the Jōmon studies
by Russian archaeologists. Three points are of parti-
cular importance here, the new structure of scientif-
ic funding, new approach to the organization of re-
search teams, and new format of the international
collaboration.
Since the end of 1990s several Russian national sci-
entific foundations20 have been developing various
types of support for research (including for all the
humanities) in the form of grants. This has created
new possibilities for archaeologists to focus on re-
gions, materials and problems which were not avail-
able under the previous system. 
A series of such three-year projects, for example,
were successfully realized over the last 15 years and
are currently being conducted by specialists of a new
division in the Institute of Archaeology and Ethno-
graphy, Novosibirsk (Division of Foreign Archaeo-
logy). This work has examined such topics as dogū
figurines and their Pacific analogies (Solov’eva et al.
2010), Jōmon pottery and its role in ritual activity
18 9305±31 BP. This date was mentioned in several publications (e.g., Kononenko 2001.46).
19 The most significant contribution to the development of this topic has been made by Yaroslav V. Kuzmin. To see the enlarged list
of references one could check his numerous publications in English language journals (e.g., Kuzmin 2019; Kuzmin, Shackley 2007).
20 The Russian Foundation for Basic Researches, Russian Foundation for Humanities, and Russian Science Foundation.
On the term ‘Jōmon’ and the contribution of Russian scholars to Jōmon studies
567
(Tabarev 2017), the evolution of Jōmon settlement
system and local types of Jōmon dwelling construc-
tions (Tabarev et al. 2015), Jōmon burials and bur-
ial practices (Ivanova et al. 2013), the phenomenon
of Jōmon megalithic complexes (Nesterkina et al.
2017; Tabarev et al. 2017), etc. Within these pro-
jects a number of agreements with Japanese Univer-
sities and research centres were signed which made
possible the exchange of students and specialists,
participation in the excavations in Japan, regular
joint symposiums, and joint publications.
Some aspects of Jōmon have also been successfully
developed in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Grishhenko 2011;
Vasilevskij 2003), Vladivostok (Zhushchikhovskaya
2005; Zhushchikhovskaya, Danilova 2008), and St.
Petersburg (Yanshina 2019).
In 2005, 28 years after the first, the second disserta-
tion in Russian on the Jōmon (dogū figurines) was
defended by Elena A. Solov’eva (2005), and the third
(about the Middle Jōmon) by Darya A. Ivanova in
2018 (Ivanova 2018)21. 
A characteristic feature of publications in the 2000s
is the attention to detail, to materials of separate
sites (Ivanova, Tabarev 2018), and to specific fea-
tures within the territory of the sites (caches, dwel-
lings, pits), to local styles of pottery or adornments
(Zhushchikhovskaya 2015), and to the difference
between coastal and inland Jōmon sites.
As example of such interest is the morphological
and technological analysis of Lower and Upper Entō
pottery styles based on the collections of Ookubo
site in The National Museum of Japanese History. In
Japanese archaeology, these styles are known as one
of the main indicators of cultural traditions at the
Early and Middle Jōmon periods in the northern part
of Honshu Island. These styles, along with their ori-
ginality, show signs of continuity in the development
of pottery among the ancient population of North-
ern Honshu. It is possible to assume a common cul-
tural basis among the population of this region of
the Japanese Islands. Changes in morphological stan-
dards are gradual and evolutionary. The most signi-
ficant changes are in the ornamentation of ceramics
(techniques, compositional principles, motifs, etc.),
which mainly determines the visual recognition of
the Lower and Upper Entō styles. These changes are
a local manifestation of general trends in the dyna-
mics of ornamental traditions of the Early and Mid-
dle Jōmon of Honshu. It is in the Middle Jōmon that
the local variety of ceramic styles is most clearly ex-
pressed. In particular, the specificity of the Upper
Entō style consists in the development of techniques
and compositional principles that mimic three-dimen-
sional rope structures (knots, loops, etc.) (Zhushchi-
khovskaya 2007; 2015).
From 2003 to 2007 Kokugakuin University (Tokyo)
and Far Eastern State University (Vladivostok) im-
plemented a joint project in the Maritime Region fo-
cused on the Early Neolithic and initial evidence of
pottery-making, with the excavation of several sites
in the inland (Osinovka, Gorbatka III) and coastal
(Ustinovka III) zones. Some results of this research
along with a series of AMS-dates were published in
a joint paper in 2007 (Kunikita et al. 2007). A num-
ber of small-scale Russian-Japanese projects were
also realized during early 2000s by archaeologists
from Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Yuzhno-Sakha-
linsk.
Another type of international cooperation took place
during the project “Neolithization and Moderniza-
tion: Landscape History on East Asia Inland Seas”
organized by the Research Institute for Humanity
and Nature, Japan (RIHN, Kyoto) from 2007 to 2012.
In this project Russia was represented by a group
of specialists from Vladivostok and Novosibirsk. In
addition to intensive comparative research into the
Neolithic in the Russian Far East and Jōmon on the
Japanese Islands, the Russians got a unique chance
to attend a series of international conferences in Ja-
pan and visit a wide range of museums and archae-
ological centres with collections of Jōmon materials
(Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyusyu, Okinawa), which were
never before available to Russian specialists. In 2008
a Russian group also organized an international
archaeological symposium in Vladivostok which was
devoted to the 100th anniversary of Okladnikov and
brought together experts in Neolithic (Jōmon) studies
from Russia, Japan, Europe and the United States
(Popov, Uchiyama 2008).
An extremely useful role in the growing cooperation
between Russia and Japanese archaeologists is played
21 According to the current Russian system there are two types of dissertations, the lower level, so-called Candidate, and a high
level, Doctorate. So far, all dissertations focused directly on Jōmon materials in Russian (Chan Su Bu 1977; Solov’eva 2005; Iva-
nova 2018) are of the Candidate type. All of them with some time intervals were defended at the Institute of Archaeology and
Ethnography, Novosibirsk. In addition, there are several Doctorate and Candidate dissertations devoted to the archaeology of Far
Eastern regions with reference to Jōmon materials – Hokkaido (Lavrov 1984), Kuril Islands (Golubev 1972) and Sakhalin (Gri-
shhenko 2009; Vasilevskij 2003) – which were also defended in Novosibirsk.
Andrey V. Tabarev, Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya, and Darya A. Ivanova
568
by a network of international conferences, such as
SEAA (Society for East Asian Archaeology), CHAGS
(Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies),
WAC (World Archaeological Congress), and IPPI
(Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association). As an example
of a new forum that is already recognized by Japa-
nese and European archaeological societies is the
“Pacific Archaeology” symposium hosted since 2018
by Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok.
Jōmon studies in Russian archaeology are thus grow-
ing rapidly, and the growing number of publications
in English and other foreign languages on this topic
confirm this. Speaking of some of the intermediate
results we would like to emphasize several impor-
tant points. Undoubtedly is was Okladnikov who
played one of the key roles in the introduction of
the term ‘Jōmon’ to the Russian archaeological lite-
rature, being highly interested himself in this topic
and directing the interest of his students during his
scientific career both while in Leningrad (St. Peters-
burg) and Siberia (Novosibirsk). It is thanks to his
efforts that ‘Jōmon’ did not remain at the status of a
book-study, term but was developed into a broad
research subject with permanent contact and colla-
boration with Japanese colleagues, joint projects and
excavations.
Since the first works of Lev Shternberg (1929) and
Okladnikov (1946), the Japanese Neolithic (Jōmon),
in spite of its visual peculiarities, was viewed by the
Russian scientists from the widest possible histori-
cal perspective within the cultural process in the Far
Eastern and Pacific regions.
The initial understanding of term ‘Jōmon’ as a spe-
cific type of decoration on the pottery or style of
pottery was elaborated during the 1960s and 1970s
to the ‘Jōmon culture’ as one of the Neolithic cultures
in the Far East. This was quite consistent with the
practice of Russian archaeology at that time to dis-
tinguish local and regional archaeological cultures
based on the unity of the territory, chronology, and
material culture.
In the 2000s this position has been significantly re-
thought. The New Jōmon chronology (14 000 – 2500
BP), its duration (more than 11 000 years), and signi-
ficant local differences in archaeological materials
in various areas of the Japanese Islands, came into
conflict with the traditional understanding of the
‘archaeological culture’ in Russian science. As a re-
sult, the current position about the Jōmon in the
Russian archaeological literature implies the status
of a ‘Jōmon epoch’ (with the Neolithic type of life
and economy) divided into five, or, depending on
the territory, six ‘periods’. The term ‘culture’ is used
in such contexts as, for example, ‘material culture of
the Middle Jōmon’. The term ‘Jōmon culture’ is also
used in popular science literature and in works de-
voted to Japanese art and traditional crafts.
The other direction of discussion is connected with
the subdivision of the Jōmon epoch and with the
peculiarities of Incipient and Initial Jōmon periods,
for which pottery does not demonstrate the ‘cord-
marked’ design in the classical sense of this feature.
Several alternative interpretations may be suggest-
ed, including the Jōmon epoch itself (Early, Middle,
and Late periods) and its ‘Prelude’ (Incipient, Initial
periods), like the transition from the Paleolithic to
the Neolithic.
And, of course, one important issue is connected
with wider problematic where the Jōmon is consi-
dered as an example of the original scenario of the
Neolithisation in the Far East – in comparison with
the agricultural models on the territories of China
and Korea, and from the Eurasian perspective – in
format of ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ types of the Neoli-
thisation. The high level of technology, settlement
organization, burial rituals, monumentality, and so-
phisticated art indicates the dynamic evolution of
Jōmon society and its ranked social structure, which
allows specialists to engage in productive discussions
about the possibility for the Jōmon to be considered
as an ‘Early Neolithic Civilization’ based on highly
effective environmental management. 
As an additional trajectory, developed by Russian
specialists, the future of Jōmon studies will also be
connected not only with the detailed analysis of the
materials, new excavations, and comparative research
between the Far Eastern and European region, but
also with the understanding of Jōmon phenomena
as part of a specific model of the Neolithisation from
a wider, Pacific, perspective. One of the recent exam-
ples of such an approach was successfully realized
by a joint Russian-Japanese project in Ecuador from
2013 to 2018, including the testing of famous ‘Jō-
mon-Valdivia hypothesis’ and comparison of the va-
rious models of the transition from the Paleolithic to
the Neolithic type of economy, and emergence of
the pottery technologies in the Pacific basin (Kano-
mata et al. 2019).
On the term ‘Jōmon’ and the contribution of Russian scholars to Jōmon studies
The authors are deeply grateful to their Japanese colleagues Profs. K. Akoshima, H. Kajiwara, Y. Kanomata, and
T. Tsutsumi for their priceless comments on the history of the cooperation of Russian and Japanese archaeo-
logists, to Prof. L. Nespoulous (France) for valuable information on Jōmon issues. A special debt of gratitude goes
to our Russian colleagues Dr. L. B. Vishniatsky (St. Petersburg), and Dr. O. V. Yanshina (St. Petersburg) for their
invaluable help with literature and archive data. The research was supported by Russian Scientific Foundation
(Project #19-18-00003 “Neolithic Civilizations of Eurasia: Jomon, Japanese Archipelago – Origin, Early Stage, Local
Peculiarities”).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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