Absence of Agriculture in the Jomon

Archaeologists outside of Japan, have not taken much interest in the Jomon culture, something that Professor Junko Habu, one of the leading Japanese arcaheologists and a professor here at UC Berkeley whom I had the chance to take last semester (Spring 2012), stressed throughout the course of the semester. Matsui explains why, "The very long persistence of foraging lifestyles has made the Jomon cultures seem irrelevant to one of the most important points of dicussion in modern archaeology, the processes that gave rise to agriculture" (Matsui 357). Matsui also mentions that the Jomon persistence on foraging continued until wet rice agriculture was introduced from continental Asia about 2500 B.P., much later than other societies began experimenting with agriculture and domestication. So, the lack of agriculture in the Jomon culture has turned off archaeologists around the world. But as we discussed in Professor Maher's lectures on complexity, there is not single path to complexity and a society does not need to meet all the criteria that has been put forth by Western archaeologists. Also, I believe that the lack of agriculture does not mean that a society is therefore not complex. I believe that societies who did not experiment with agriculture but at the same time had complex economies, ways of interacting with the environment, complex material culture such as pottery or basketry, were semi or fully sedentary and took advantage of different ecological niches; did not have a need to experiment with agriculture. "...Every part of Japan offered Jomon communitites fairly solid resources in all parts of the year. And large-scale seasonal movement was not necessary... They lived in a zone that could support them as sedentary collectors" (Matusi 359). The Jomon simply lived in a rich environment where they could use different resources throughout the whole year while being able to live a sedentary life. Where as societies linked with agriculture, may have gone through challenges with their environment that may have forced them into agriculture.

Akira Matsui. Why Didn’t Agriculture Develop in Japan? A Consideration of Jomon Ecological Style, Niche Construction, and the Origins of Domestication. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. 2010