Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan World Heritage Site

Official name

Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan | UNESCO

Country

Japan | Map

Continent

Asia

Location

41.6550° Lat, 140.5522° Lon | Map

Code

1632

Time Zone

Asia/Tokyo (JST, +0900)

Current Time

Category

Cultural

Description

Inscribed 2021. The property consists of 17 archaeological sites in the southern part of Hokkaido Island and northern Tohoku in geographical settings ranging from mountains and hills to plains and lowlands, from inland bays to lakes, and rivers. They bear a unique testimony to the development over some 10,000 years of the pre-agricultural yet sedentary Jomon culture and its complex spiritual belief system and rituals. It attests to the emergence, development, maturity and adaptability to environmental changes of a sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherer society which developed from about 13,000 BCE. Expressions of Jomon spirituality were given tangible form in objects such as lacquered pots, clay tablets with the impression of feet, the famous goggle eyed dogu figurines, as well as in ritual places including earthworks and large stone circles reaching diameters of more than 50 metres. The serial property testifies to the rare and very early development of pre-agricultural sedentism from emergence to maturity.