World Cultural Heritage: Sannai Maruyama Site (Aomori Prefecture)

In July 2021 the Jomon prehistoric sites of Hokkaido and the northern Tohoku region ofJapan were listed as UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. Ever since then I had wanted
to visit and write about them, and recently the opportunity arose for me to go to andcompile this report on the Sannai Maruyama Site, which was an especially large
settlement among the 17 component places of the World Cultural Heritage and is thebiggest Jomon site in Japan. On the day of my visit, I was able to speak with Mr. Yasuhiro
Okada, who was involved in the large-scale excavation survey of the Sannai Maruyama
Site, which began in 1992, right from the start and currently is director of the Sannai
Maruyama Jomon Culture Center. Mr. Okada is also the author of some books I read
before my visit. In addition, despite the poor weather forecast, it was a miraculously fineearly morning, so we got our drone photography done and were fortunate enough to takesome marvelous videos. Together with the text, I hope readers will enjoy viewing thevideos of the Jomon site, which, viewed from above, appears just like a fairyland.
Video of the whole site: https://youtu.be/7KdmM0L2lRA

What is the Jomon period of Japanese history?
Since the dates of the Jomon period differ depending on the definition of Jomon culture,
it is difficult to give a clear answer to this question. The two great inventions of the
Jomon period are said to have been earthenware and the bow and arrow, and in modern
textbooks it is written that the period began 15,000 years ago in around 13,000 BC. These
textbooks do not say when the period ended, but it is generally said to be 2,400 years ago(400 BC).
Because of the rapid warming that began about 15,000 years ago, forests ofdeciduous broad-leaved trees like chestnut, walnut, and mizunara (Quercus crispula),which were highly nutritious and suitable for eating, formed, and the rise in sea levels

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created bays and inlets rich in fish and shellfish. This was an advantageous environment
for hunter-gatherers, and when they became able to engage in cooking as well following
the invention of earthenware, their range of food supplies expanded too. It was in places
close to the sea or a river and with forests of deciduous broad-leaved trees offering
abundant animal and plant life that the Jomon people came to reside.
Due to the climate at that time, many forests of deciduous broad-leaved trees grewin central to northeastern Japan. Such places also had salmon and trout swimming
upstream and, because of the ocean current, a wealth of other fish and shellfish as well,so it was an ideal environment for the Jomon people. For this reason, around 80% of the
population is said to have been concentrated in eastern Japan.
Position of the Sannai Maruyama Site in the Jomon period
The Sannai Maruyama settlement is said to have continued from around 3,900 BC to2,200 BC. In terms of the six stages of the Jomon period, this corresponds to the middleof Early Jomon to the end of Middle Jomon. At first, due to warming, the averagetemperature was 2–3 degrees Celsius higher than today, and the sea level was up to 5
meters higher, so forests of deciduous broad-leaved trees grew in the vicinity ofsettlements built on fluvial terraces. People lived by gathering, fishing, and hunting, andthey are thought to have cultivated especially highly nutritious trees, such as chestnuts
and walnuts, for food. In response to changes in the natural environment and a decline
in foodstuffs after the cooling trend began, settlements later shrunk in size and dispersed.
Buildings and daily life
Mr. Okada gave me a guided tour of the site and museum.
The Sannai Maruyama Site, Japan’s biggest
Jomon site, is huge, covering an area of 36 hectares,
and more than 600 remains of residential pit
dwellings have been confirmed here. Most of them
have a base diameter of about 4 meters, so it isthought that they housed single families. These pit
dwellings were rebuilt over and over again, so it is not the case that 600 of them stood
simultaneously. It seems likely that up to 500 people were living at the site at any one
time.
Video of cluster of pit dwellings (reconstruction): https://youtu.be/vaw-qEQbJZMIHCSA Café

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Among the pit dwellings, traces of 13 large
structures with a length of more than 10 meters havebeen found. Since these structures stood near thecenter of the settlement, there is a possibility thatthey were used as meeting places or joint workplaces.
Among them, an especially large and long pit
dwelling measuring 32 meters in length and 10 meters in width has been discovered andreconstructed for visitors to see. This building has an internal space of about 300 m2, so
it could easily hold 300 people. It is thought that such a meeting place would have beennecessary in the settlement’s heyday.
Video of large pit dwelling (reconstruction): https://youtu.be/4jIsGMoTPLQ

As another big building, the remains of a structure supported by six pillars
standing in holes at intervals of 4.2 meters havebeen excavated. The pillar holes are enormous,with a diameter of 2 meters and depth of 2 meters.
Because underground water meant that the pillars
were not exposed to air, and because the Jomon
people made use of their wisdom in preventing
decaying by burning the surroundings and bottoms of pillars, the bottoms of chestnut
pillars with a diameter of 1 meter have remained without any decay. To preserve these
excavated pillar holes, they are covered by a dome, but visitors can freely view them.
When I peered into the holes, I could see that spring water was accumulating even now.
Regular drainage is necessary, I was told. The structure, which has been rebuilt nearby,
greets visitors as a symbol of the site.
Video of large pillar-supported structure: https://youtu.be/kspCh2gXC3g

In addition, stilt-type buildings supported by
six pillars dug into the ground were discovered
standing closely together where the rows of adultgraves near the center of the settlement come to an
end. These graves stretch for 420 meters on bothsides of a road leading from the eastern side of thesettlement to the center. Since the buildings stood just beyond the graves, Mr. Okada
said that although still uncertain, he thinks they are likely to have been facilities
involved in funerals and burials.

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Video of pillar-supported (stilt-type) buildings: https://youtu.be/XaTZ3HZ-2M4

Diet
Rather than large animals like boar and deer, theJomon people in this region are thought to have hunted
smaller creatures like hare and flying squirrels. In
addition, because of the site’s proximity to the sea andrivers, the bones of more than 50 species of fish havebeen discovered there. Like present-day people, theJomon people ate such fish
as horse mackerel, mackerel, sardines, and sea bream, andunearthed bones show that they consumed tuna from the
Tsugaru Strait too. To catch the fish, they used fishinghooks, spears, and nets.
The bones of these fish and animals were discovered ata low-lying marsh called Kitanotani on the northern side of
the site, near the Okidate River. This place served as adumping ground, or midden, around the middle of the Early
Jomon period. The conditions for preserving organic matter were excellent because therefuse was buried in the marsh and therefore did not come into contact with air. In termsof understanding the diet and daily life of the Jomon people, it was a precious find indeed.
Nevertheless, the fact is that the Jomon people did not consume very much animal
protein; about 80% of their diet consisted of vegetables obtained from gathering.
Special mention should be made of the fact that chestnut and walnut trees, whichwere especially important sources of nutrition, were planted in thevicinity of the settlement. DNA analysis and other investigations
have proved that chestnuts were managed in the Jomon days. Also,
although this has nothing to do with diet, lacquered woodenwareand earthenware have been unearthed at the site. Since lacquer in
its natural state cannot be extracted from trees in large quantities, it is thought thatlacquer must have been managed as well. In other words, although crop farming had not
begun at the Sannai Maruyama Jomon settlement, the people there did engage in quasicultivation to control nature.
Video of a chestnut tree at the site: https://youtu.be/o64ODwiWyXo

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Stoneware and earthenware
A lot of good quality shale, which is thin and easy to
break off in layers, could be found in this district, so
there was no shortage of material for stoneware.
The earthenware excavated at the Sannai
Maruyama Site, called “cylindrical-style pottery,” wasat first only used for cooking. But as time went on, theuses and types diversified.
The clay and stone figurines, which are said tohave been related to festivals, come in an abundant
array of styles and sizes ranging from large to small;no two are the same. More than 2,000 figurines havebeen excavated at the Sannai Maruyama Site, whichis relatively many more than at other sites. It is still
not known what the figurines were used for, but almost all of them were in the form of
women, so there seems to be no reason to deny the theory that they were used in festivals
to pray for the blessings of nature, safe childbirth, and so on.
Video of Jomon earthenware repository: https://youtu.be/f3wI4M_MKyw

Exchange and trade
Several books that I had read prior to my visit suggested that the Jomon people might
have had some kind of link with the continent. When I asked Mr. Okada about thispossibility, his reply was, “There is no clear evidence.” There are many similarities, suchas living in pit dwellings and using earthenware. But a decisive difference was the factthat at that time the crop farming of grains, such as barnyard millet, foxtail millet, andcommon millet, had already begun on the continent.
Regarding ties with distant places in Japan, there were clearly some traded items,
such as obsidian from Nagano Prefecture and jade from Itoigawa in Niigata Prefecture.
It is thought that there undoubtedly was a trading route via the Sea of Japan.
⇚ Obsidian from Nagano Prefecture
Stone

arrowhead(SannaiMaruyama Jomon Culture Center)

Jade from Itoigawa ⇛IHCSA Café

International Hospitality and Conference Service Association (IHCSA)In addition, regarding relations with surrounding regions, many excavated items
indicate a common cultural zone stretching north to Sapporo and the Chitose area in
Hokkaido and south as far as Morioka and Akita. Exchange is thought to have been quite
lively.
Life-death view and rituals
There are dumping grounds, or middens, at Jomon sites. At the Sannai Maruyama Sitethere is a midden in a valley called Kitanotani. Because this valley is near a river andvery marshy, animal and fish bones, plants, broken earthenware, and other items datingfrom the Jomon period have been unearthed here. As time passed, besides these middens,
mounds also appeared. Excavations from these mounds have revealed not only soil
discarded at the time of the settlement’s formation and daily life waste but also, mixed
among the broken artifacts, many undamaged and still usable items and earthenwareand clay figurines that were clearly destroyed intentionally. Traces of fires have also
been discovered, and periodically the mounds were leveled by adding soil to create layers.
One senses some kind of religious or ritualistic significance.

Section of mound taken from the south moundAfter removal of the section, the southern moundwas covered for preservation and opened to the public.

Adult graves lined the roads in the settlement inan orderly manner. Situated away from the remainsof dwellings, these places clearly were viewed as aseparate world. Personally speaking, the rows ofgraves lining the roads leading from the world outside
the settlement to the central part of the settlement
seemed like not so much cemeteries as kind of monuments.
In addition, many children who died in their infancy were placed in earthen jars
used for cooking and reused as coffins, and they were buried in group cemeteries

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relatively close to the dwellings. Since the settlement seems tohave consoled the souls of children in almost the same ways, suchas cutting holes in the earthenware pots and inserting roundstones, the people possibly had a different sentiment, such as hopefor rebirth, toward the death of children.
The stone circles with burials seem to have been made in thelate Middle Jomon period. They are thought to indicate places where special people, suchas patriarchs, were buried, although there is still no definite proof of this. Some of thelarge stone circles that appeared in the following Late Jomon period bear a resemblance
to the stone circles with burials. There is also a theory that in the Late Jomon period theshrinking and dispersal of settlements advanced due to the cooling trend, and the large
rows of stone circles were festive
places not for individual settlements
but for entire districts.
Surprises
I

asked

Mr.

Okada

what

had

surprised him about the Jomon people. The first thing he said in reply was, “There were
no wars!” No weapons used in fighting have been discovered, there were no moats or
trenches around the settlement, and there is no sign at all of many people having been
killed collectively in battle. They probably had no need to fight. Mr. Okada said hethought that in their daily living the Jomon people possessed an image of humans as
members of nature. And then, as if remembering something else, he added, “And I was
surprised that when excavating at the site, we found so little garbage and waste.”
A lot of labor was surely necessary for building the large pillar-supported structure
and other buildings, so there must have been many people working and others
instructing them. And undoubtedly there were some who were buried in graves andothers who were not, so it cannot be said that there were no social classes at all. But
even so, I was told, there is no trace of any fighting.
Value as a heritage of humankind
I also asked Mr. Okada what he thought was the reason for the listing as World Cultural
Heritage. He replied, “I think the concentration in this region of sites that can explain,
as a single current, the daily life and spiritual culture of preagricultural human beingsin Northeast Asia was recognized as a universal value.”IHCSA Café

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Afterword
The Jomon people were not simply folk who lived from day to day by hunting andgathering. They managed a yearly schedule related to gathering, fishing, and hunting
and settled in places for a long time. They cleverly handled tools for fishing and hunting,and they even engaged in the cultivation of plants that were valuable sources of nutrition.
Moreover, their scope of activity extended far beyond what I had imagined. They
procured precious resources from distant places,
skillfully processed them at large settlements like
Sannai Maruyama, and then spread them to othersettlements.
As Mr. Okada says, we cannot go back to the
Jomon period. But the least we can do, I felt, is lookat their relatively peaceful lifestyle in harmony withnature and reflect a little on the present-day
destruction of the natural environment and thenever-ending fighting.
The “Jomon pochette” excavated on the northern edge of the site
The woven basket and walnut found inside

Cooperation
Sannai Maruyama Jomon Culture Center
Address: 305 Sannai Maruyama, Aomori City, Aomori Prefecture 038-0031
Tel.: 017-781-6078 Fax: 017-781-6103
Website: https://sannaimaruyama.pref.aomori.jp/english/
Sannai Maruyama Jomon Culture Center and Jomon Jiyukan admission:
General: 410 yen; senior high school students, university students, etc.: 200 yen; juniorhigh school students and under: free
Access: About 15 minutes by bus and 10 minutes by taxi from Shin-Aomori Station
References (in Japanese)

Jomon bunka to nihonjin (Jomon Culture and the Japanese; by Takaaki Sasaki)
Jomon dogu gaidobuku (Jomon Clay Figurines Guidebook; by Tetsuya Mikami)
Harukanaru Jomon no koe: Sannai Maruyama o horu (Distant Jomon Voices: Digging at
Sannai Maruyama; by Yasuhiro Okada)Sekai isan ni natta! Jomon iseki (Jomon Sites Become World Heritage! edited andcompiled by Yasuhiro Okada)

Sannai Maruyama iseki gaidobuku (Sannai Maruyama Site Guidebook; digest edition)

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