Early Japan: the Jōmon, the Kofun and Shinto

East Asian Civilization · Unit 1 · Civilization Packet

1. At a glance

Question	Answer
Where?	Japan: an archipelago (a chain of islands), cut off from the Asian mainland by the sea
Who?	The Jōmon culture (prehistoric hunter-gatherers), then the Kofun period (rulers buried in huge tombs)
When?	Jōmon: thousands of years, ending about 300 B.C.E. · Kofun: about 300–550 C.E.
Religion	Shinto, Japan's indigenous religion: belief in kami (spirits)
Known for	Cord-marked pottery; keyhole-shaped tombs; kami in mountains, rivers and trees
How do we know?	Jōmon: archaeology only. Kofun: archaeology, and the Kojiki (712 C.E.), written 400 years later in borrowed Chinese characters

Why Japan was slow: the sea lay between Japan and the mainland, so new ideas (farming, metal and writing) reached Japan slowly. Japanese civilization developed later than China's and India's.

Map of early Japan

2. SPICE-T: the Jōmon

The Jōmon are the earliest people we know of in Japan. They lived thousands of years ago, before Japan had cities, kings or writing. That makes them prehistoric: from a time before written records.

SPICE-T	The Jōmon
S — Social	Small groups that moved with the seasons. Many archaeologists believe Jōmon society was matriarchal: women held central power and passed down the family line.
P — Political	No kings and no cities. Small groups, not a state.
I — Interactions	The sea kept Japan apart from the mainland, so new ideas arrived slowly.
C — Cultural	Cord-marked pottery: they pressed cords into wet clay to make patterns. "Jōmon" means "cord-marked". No writing at all.
E — Economic	Hunter-gatherers: they did not farm. They hunted, fished, and gathered nuts, plants and shellfish. Japan's forests and seas gave them plenty of food.
T — Technology	Pottery: some Jōmon pots are among the oldest pottery found anywhere in the world. Stone tools.

**A Jōmon pot with flame-like decoration.** A clay vessel from Niigata, about 3000–2000 B.C.E. Jōmon potters made pots by hand, with no potter's wheel. Many Jōmon pots have cord-marked patterns; this later style has wild, flame-like rims.
Credit: Daderot, Tokyo National Museum, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (public domain)

3. SPICE-T: the Kofun period and Shinto

Over time, farming and metal reached Japan, and the Jōmon period ended. An organized civilization rose in its place: the Kofun period (about 300–550 C.E.).

Powerful rulers at the top, buried with great honor. Many workers were needed to build their tombs.
Worship of ancestors: the dead could become kami. "A waterfall can be kami. So can your grandfather."

P — Political

Rulers were strong enough to make thousands of people build giant tombs for them.
The Kojiki later claimed that Japan's rulers were descended from the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. This gave the rulers the right to rule.

I — Interactions

Japan borrowed China's writing (Chinese characters).
Buddhism later arrived from China, through Korea.
But Japan did not borrow China's religion. The kami were there first.

C — Cultural: Shinto

Japan is mostly mountains and forest, with the sea on every side, volcanoes and earthquakes. For the first people there, nature was not just beautiful. Nature was power. It fed you, and it could kill you.

Out of that land came Japan's indigenous religion (indigenous = belonging to a place from the very beginning, not brought in from somewhere else).

Kami are spirits that live inside the world: in high mountains, rivers, old trees, strange rocks, storms, and the dead. A kami is not a god on a throne far away in the sky. A kami is a presence, inside a thing. Kami can be found everywhere.

Three great principles:

Respect for nature
Worship of ancestors
Belief in the kami

What it did NOT have: no founder (no Confucius, no Laozi, no Buddha) and no holy book.

The name: for a long time it had no name. When Buddhism arrived, the Japanese needed a word for what they already had. They called it Shinto: shin = the gods, to = the way, so "the way of the gods". They wrote it with Chinese characters, 神道, and the second character, 道, is the same one the Chinese read as Dao.

Remember: Japan borrowed China's writing. Japan did not borrow China's religion.

**A torii gate at Ōmiwa Shrine.** A torii gate marks the entrance to a sacred place. At Ōmiwa Shrine, the mountain itself, Mount Miwa, is honored as a kami. This is a modern photo of a very old practice.
Credit: Immanuelle, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

E — Economic

By the Kofun period, people farmed, and metal tools and weapons were in use.
Rulers could gather enough food and workers to build huge tombs.

T — Technology

Kofun tombs: huge mounds of earth. From the ground they look like hills. From the sky they are shaped like a keyhole. The largest is longer than four football pitches.
Haniwa: clay figures placed on and around the tombs.

**The Daisen Kofun, seen from the sky.** The largest Kofun tomb, in Sakai, near Osaka. It is about 486 metres long and shaped like a keyhole, with water around it. It is traditionally said to be the tomb of Emperor Nintoku. It has never been opened.
Credit: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (2007), Wikimedia Commons, used with attribution

**Haniwa: clay figures from a Kofun tomb.** Two "dancing" haniwa from the 500s C.E., found at Nohara in Saitama. Figures like these were set on and around the tombs.
Credit: Daderot, Tokyo National Museum, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (public domain)

4. Big ideas

The sea slowed Japan down. Farming, metal and writing reached the islands late.
No words of their own. The Jōmon left no writing. Everything we know about them comes from archaeology.
Kami are everywhere. Shinto grew out of a land where nature had power. It is worship in nature, not just liking nature.
Borrowed writing, not borrowed gods. Japan used Chinese characters, even to write the name "Shinto", but its religion was its own.
A tomb nobody can open. The greatest Kofun tombs have never been opened. The Japanese government does not allow it.

5. Key sources: how do we know what we know?

Source	Who made it? When?	Insider or outsider?	What it tells us	Be careful!
Jōmon pots, tools, homes and bones	Jōmon people, thousands of years ago	Objects	How the Jōmon lived, ate and made things	Objects do not tell us what people believed or said.
Kofun tombs	Kofun rulers and workers, from about 300 C.E.	Objects	Powerful rulers; many workers	The greatest tombs have never been opened.
The Kojiki ("Record of Ancient Matters")	The royal court, 712 C.E.	Insider	Kami; Amaterasu; the rulers' descent from the Sun Goddess	Written 400 years after the first great tombs, in a borrowed script, by a court with its own reasons.

6. Timeline and vocabulary

Timeline of early Japan

Date (approximate)	What happened
Thousands of years ago	The Jōmon: hunter-gatherers making cord-marked pottery
About 300 B.C.E.	Farming and metal reach Japan; the Jōmon period ends
About 300 C.E.	The first great Kofun tombs are built
About 500s C.E.	Buddhism reaches Japan
712 C.E.	The Kojiki is finished

Word	Meaning
archipelago	A chain or group of islands
prehistoric	From a time before written records; known only from the things people left behind
hunter-gatherer	A person who hunts, fishes and gathers food instead of farming
matriarchal	A society in which women hold central power
Jōmon (cord-marked) pottery	Pottery with patterns made by pressing cords into wet clay
indigenous	Belonging to a place from the very beginning; not brought in from somewhere else
spirit	A being without a body, believed to live in the world
kami	The spirits of Shinto, living in nature and in the dead
Shinto	"The way of the gods": Japan's indigenous religion
Kofun	A huge keyhole-shaped burial mound; also the name of the period
Kojiki	The oldest surviving book written in Japan (712 C.E.)

7. Connections

How do we know what we know? The whole unit

Civilization	The evidence problem
Indus Valley	Writing we cannot read
Vedic India	Sacred texts memorized for centuries, then written down by believers
Shang China	Writing we can read: oracle bones
Zhou China	Rival texts, arguing on purpose
Early Japan	No writing of their own; a book written 400 years late in a borrowed script; a tomb nobody can open

Shinto and the Dao

The to in Shinto (道) is the same character as the Chinese Dao: "the way". Daoism and Shinto both honor nature. But they are different religions from different places.

Next: Unit 2

In Unit 2 you will meet the Yamato rulers of Japan, and the queen Himiko, described in Chinese records.

8. Where students lose marks on this topic

Mistake	Fix
Saying "Japan's religion came from China"	Japan borrowed China's writing, not its religion. Shinto is indigenous.
Calling Kofun a religion	Kofun is a period and a kind of tomb. The religion is Shinto.
Saying kami are gods on thrones in the sky	A kami is a presence inside a thing: a mountain, a river, an ancestor.
Saying the Jōmon were farmers	They were hunter-gatherers.
Saying the Jōmon had writing	They had no writing at all. We know them from archaeology.
"They liked nature" as a characteristic of Shinto	Name the three principles: respect for nature, worship of ancestors, belief in kami.
Choosing a true fact that is not in the passage	On a Kojiki passage about kami, "the tombs are keyholes" is true but not in the source.
Saying "it was a long time ago" as an evidence problem	Name the specific problem: no writing, 400 years late, borrowed script, tomb never opened.

Self-check

Cover the answers. Can you answer these in complete sentences?

Why did Japanese civilization develop more slowly than China's and India's?
How do historians know about the Jōmon?
What are kami?
Describe two characteristics of Shinto.
What does the name "Shinto" mean, and how was it written?
Describe two problems with the Kojiki as a source.

Check your answers (click to open)

Japan is an archipelago cut off from the mainland by the sea, so new ideas like farming, metal and writing reached it slowly.
The Jōmon left no writing, so historians know about them only from archaeology: their pots, tools, homes and bones.
Kami are spirits that live inside the world, in mountains, rivers, trees, rocks, storms and the dead.
One characteristic of Shinto is respect for nature. Another is worship of ancestors. (Also accepted: belief in kami; it is indigenous; it has no founder; it has no holy book.)
"Shinto" means "the way of the gods". It was written in Chinese characters, and its second character is the same one the Chinese read as Dao.
The Kojiki was written 400 years after the first great tombs were built. It was written in a borrowed Chinese script, by a royal court with its own reasons for telling the story its way.