Bronze Age Globalisation and Eurasian Impacts on Later Jōmon Social Change

Abstract

From northern China, millet agriculture spread to Korea and the Maritime Russian Far East by 3500–2700 BC. While the expansion of agricultural societies across the Sea of Japan did not occur until around 900 BC, the intervening period saw major transformations in the Japanese archipelago. The cultural florescence of Middle Jōmon central Honshu underwent a collapse and reorganisation into more decentralised settlements. Mobility increased as Late Jōmon influences spread from eastern into western Japan, and populations expanded to offshore islands such as Okinawa and the Kurils. In Kyushu and other parts of western Japan, the eastern Jōmon expansion was associated with the cultivation of adzuki and soybeans but, contrary to earlier assessments, there is no evidence for the introduction of cereal crops at this time. Here, we analyse archaeological and historical linguistic evidence of connections between the Eurasian mainland and the Japanese Islands c. 3500 to 900 BC. A re-evaluation of archaeological material discussed since the 1920s concludes that the transformations in Jōmon society during this period were at least in part a response to contacts with Eurasian Bronze Age cultures. Evidence for linguistic contact between Koreanic and the Ainuic languages which are presumed to have been spoken by Jōmon populations is also consistent with new Bronze Age mobilities. Although prehistoric Japan was one of the most isolated regions of Eurasia, we conclude that the historical evolution of societies in the Japanese archipelago after the third millennium BC was linked with processes of Bronze Age globalisation.

Bronze Age Maritime and Warrior Dynamics in Island East Asia

“…Tripods were rarely found in the Korean Bronze Age (Nelson 1999: 161) and regards the Imazu tripod as a direct imitation of a Chinese vessel. Three more tripods from the same period found at other sites in Aomori may similarly have been influenced by continental Bronze Age contacts (Hudson et al 2021). A possible connection with long-distance trade is suggested by salt-making pottery found at Imazu.…”

“…1 During the Yayoi, material culture sometimes incorporates designs from the preceding Neolithic Jōmon, one example being decorative patterns on bronze bells. This is usually understood as reflecting the continuing influence of Jōmon tradition (Shitara 2014a), but a broader view would be to see Yayoi appropriation of the Jōmon as a new type of transculture, especially as some decorative designs on Final Jōmon pottery already seem to reflect continental influence (Hudson et al 2021).…”

“…In my view this perspective makes a great deal of sense, even for the Japanese islands. While Japan remained one of the most isolated parts of Eurasia in the third millennium BC, many of the changes which occurred there from that time can be understood as a reaction to the Bronze Age as a world historical epoch (Hudson et al 2021). On a regional scale, the problem of time/space classification is nicely illustrated by debates over Yayoi Japan.…”

“…A similar increase in voyaging is known in East Asia from the same time period. In the waters around Japan, there is clear evidence that many small islands such as those in the Okinawa archipelago, the Kurils and Rebun and Rishiri were visited more frequently during the Late Jōmon phase (c.2500-1250 BC) (Fitzhugh et al 2016;Takamiya et al 2016;Hudson et al 2021). The Izu islands south of Tokyo may have been one exception to this trend; according to Oda (1990), sites there are most common circa six thousand to five thousand years ago, whereas the Late-Final Jōmon saw a decline in site numbers.…”

“…On one hand, archaeologists have sometimes been overly keen to link distant peoples and places, often without proper evaluation of dating, yet at the same time there is no doubt that certain regions have been neglected in debates over ancient globalisations (Boivin & Frachetti 2018;Spriggs 2018). Bronzisation, it can be argued, began to impact the Japanese islands from as early as the third millennium BC (Hudson et al 2021), but what were the geographical limits of that process? Here I briefly consider this question by examining Alaska, Australia and the Ryukyu islands.…”