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The story
At a progress briefing on excavation work at the Sannai-Maruyama site in Aomori Prefecture, researchers reported finding a new structure that may be a grave. Sannai-Maruyama is one of Japan’s largest archaeological sites, documenting roughly 10,000 years of settled Jomon-period life, and is known for a sophisticated sedentary culture sustained by chestnut cultivation and fishing. On 5ch, rather than excitement about the find itself, commenters mostly brought up the “God Hand” scandal — the infamous Paleolithic artifact fabrication case uncovered years ago — and the thread spun off into debate over the origins of the Jomon people, the climate of the time, and the beginnings of agriculture.
Sannai-Maruyama Site Excavation: New Structure Discovered
A briefing was held on the fiscal year 2026 excavation survey at the Sannai-Maruyama site, reporting the discovery of a new structure that may be a grave.
(Omitted — see the source for the rest.)
Source: aba-net.com / Original article here
What people said
Honestly I don't get why that's even a question. They settled there for over 10,000 years thanks to rich fishing grounds and abundant forests (chestnut cultivation). These are the people who made the goggle-eyed clay figurines (shakoki-dogu) and the praying clay figures (gassho-dogu).
Farming probably would've been tough there, so fishing makes sense
Compared to today, you could say almost nowhere in the world made much progress before the Industrial Revolution
That just means it was a peaceful era where people had little to complain about.
In a way it was a good era — easy to live in. Once farming starts and storage becomes possible, gaps in living standards appear, and that's when conflict begins.
– Rituals/charms (majinai)
– Military force
– What else?
The Jomon period didn't rely much on military force. It's not that there were no conflicts with neighboring settlements — there are human bones showing signs of violent death — but what mattered most in this era was advanced life skills. It's like modern camping: the key was living comfortably, healthily, and without hunger. Pottery for cooking, stone arrowheads for hunting, and the skills to make clothing and housing all mattered just as much.
Surprising how many people can't even explain the difference between the Paleolithic and Neolithic, either
During the Jomon period, warmer regions would've been better, no?
Under a materialist view of history, that's the only conclusion you can reach. But just like evolutionary theory insists evolution proceeds gradually even when it's not visible, Jomon-period culture and civilization actually changed a lot depending on the era.
Farming had already begun during the Jomon period — it's only paddy rice cultivation that was delayed until the late Jomon. Murder was common too.
Once paddy rice cultivation starts, that's already the Yayoi period by definition. There's no need to make the silly claim that paddy rice farming began in the late Jomon — if an older example turns up, it just pushes the start of the Yayoi period back further.
The Jomon period is neither Paleolithic nor Neolithic — there's now a concept called the Mesolithic, and Jomon fits that category. The Yayoi period, meanwhile, lumps together the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age because they can't be cleanly separated.
Also, before WWII, rice farming wasn't thought to exist yet in the Yayoi period, so in a sense both the Jomon and Yayoi periods used to be considered 'Mesolithic.'
I think the whole periodization system needs rethinking:
Jomon period → Mesolithic
Early Yayoi → Neolithic
Middle Yayoi → Bronze Age
Late Yayoi / early Kofun → Iron Age
As for the Kofun period too, instead of using keyhole-shaped tumuli (zenpokoenfun) as the benchmark, it should be defined by the presence of an individual ruler's mausoleum that isn't a communal burial ground.
Around year 1 to 50 CE. Rice farming was introduced around the time the Kingdom of Israel had close ties with Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of Qin.
The iconic post-supported building can probably be imagined as serving both as a lookout and for ritual use — basically a large dwelling for the tribe's leader figure.
Compared to that, though, the dwellings of the ordinary class who presumably supported the tribe seem awfully few.
I'm also curious about the climate conditions and food production levels of the time.
Japan never really used bronze for practical tools, so there wasn't really a Bronze Age
Yeah, because it arrived almost at the same time as iron
Yeah, stone tools vs. iron tools is probably fine for the broad periodization. For anything more detailed, you could factor in regional differences through cultural complexes.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Sannai-Maruyama was a large settlement that lasted roughly 1,700 years from the early to middle Jomon period, known for managed chestnut cultivation and a wide-ranging trade network. The “God Hand” reference that kept coming up in the thread points to a 1990s fabrication scandal in which a researcher was found to have planted Paleolithic-era artifacts himself before “discovering” them — it has since become a stock joke trotted out whenever a new archaeological find is reported. As for why a large settlement was built in a cold region like Aomori, commenters pointed to the theory that the climate back then was warmer than today, supporting a settled lifestyle sustained by rich fishing grounds and forest resources. Opinions also diverged over when farming began and how to draw the line between the Jomon and Yayoi periods, with one camp holding that the Yayoi period begins with the start of paddy rice cultivation, and another arguing that farming already existed in the late Jomon period. It’s worth noting that the article itself doesn’t go into detail on the actual scale or dating of the structure presented at the briefing.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Science News+) thread “[Archaeology] Sannai-Maruyama Site Excavation: New Structure Discovered.”
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