− | [[Kyushu]] yields some of the oldest pottery in the world - dated at approximately 10-11,000 BCE. As one moves from West to East along the archipelago, the disparity of dates of the pottery and our own time becomes less and less<ref>Delmer M. Brown (editor). The Cambridge History of Japan Volume One: Ancient Japan, Page 57</ref>. | + | [[Kyushu]] yields some of the oldest pottery in the world - dated at approximately 10-11,000 BCE. Pottery dating back several thousand years has also been found elsewhere throughout much of the archipelago.<ref>Delmer M. Brown (editor), ''The Cambridge History of Japan Volume One: Ancient Japan'', 57.</ref>. |
| While debates go back and forth between whether pottery developed first in China or in Japan, as different sites are discovered, and dated or re-dated, it is widely accepted that pottery in Japan does go back at least as far as several millennia BCE, defining the [[Jomon period|Jômon period]] of Japanese prehistory. The term Jômon, meaning "cord marked," in fact comes from a description of the pottery decoration style of typical works of that period. Jômon pieces were worked entirely by hand, however, without the use of a potter's wheel, a technology that developed or was introduced in the [[Yayoi period]].<ref>Kobayashi Tatsuo, Simon Kaner, and Oki Nakamura, ''Jomon Reflections: Forager Life and Culture in the Prehistoric Japanese Archipelago'', Oxford: Oxbow Books (2004), 77.</ref> | | While debates go back and forth between whether pottery developed first in China or in Japan, as different sites are discovered, and dated or re-dated, it is widely accepted that pottery in Japan does go back at least as far as several millennia BCE, defining the [[Jomon period|Jômon period]] of Japanese prehistory. The term Jômon, meaning "cord marked," in fact comes from a description of the pottery decoration style of typical works of that period. Jômon pieces were worked entirely by hand, however, without the use of a potter's wheel, a technology that developed or was introduced in the [[Yayoi period]].<ref>Kobayashi Tatsuo, Simon Kaner, and Oki Nakamura, ''Jomon Reflections: Forager Life and Culture in the Prehistoric Japanese Archipelago'', Oxford: Oxbow Books (2004), 77.</ref> |