── I think one of the hardest parts about visualizing an ancient civilization like the Jomon people is separating our preexisting values and ideas from the facts of history. For example, it seems that the Jomon people who lived around the Isedōtai and the Ōyu Stone Circles received a sturdy stone called "Aotora Stone" from the people in Hokkaido, but there’s no evidence of what the Jomon people gave in return to the people of Hokkaido. There may be no remaining evidence because the item exchanged was something that doesn’t fossilize, like animal skin. But before we even go there, I think we have to question our assumption of what “fair trade” meant back then. We live in a modern world of equivalent exchange by the monetary economy, but the Jomon people must have lived with completely different values than we do now. Perhaps the act of giving was thought of as valuable on its own, and by doing so you are rewarded with rebirth after death.

In that sense, archeology is interesting because it makes us question our values by witnessing views so different and seemingly unimaginable. It’s like a sort of space-time travel.

To get into it, let’s go back even earlier than the Jomon period, to Africa 7 million years ago, when human beings were born and were a small part of the natural world, same as any other animal. Then, 2.5 million years ago, humans invented the first tools by smashing a stone into a knife. As tools were invented, it gradually became essential to the survival of mankind. Some researchers believe that the greatest invention of mankind is the "needle" because it expanded the range of travel humans could endure. Human beings first left Africa about 80,000 years ago and expanded into Western Asia, but when the volcano of Sumatra erupted and led to an era of global cooling, they went back to Africa. But 30,000 years later, even though it was still during the ice age, humans went to colder areas such as Europe and Siberia all at once. How was that possible? Because humans invented the "needle". The invention of needles made it possible to sew clothes to protect against the cold.

Even though we were unable to evolve and transform our bodies as a species, humans were able to evolve by creating inventions to make the world more hospitable to them. This led to humans conquering the earth in a surprisingly short period by inventing and improving their tools. Humans crossed the Pacific Ocean to the United States 13,000 years ago and traversed from North America to the edge of South America in just 1,000 years. While animals spread from east to west, to maintain a similar environment that their bodies could endure, humans used their inventions and improvements of new tools to travel from north to south, where the environment is very different.

In the beginning, there were about 19 species in 6 different genera of humanity who lived in the balance between “nature”, “humanity”, and “tools”. Then suddenly, all of those species except for the homo sapiens went extinct. So what made us so different? Even though all of the species invented and used tools, it was only the homo sapiens who worked on “improving” their tools. For example, chimpanzees can use tools but they don’t improve them. On the other hand, we’re constantly working on improving our tools to this day and will continue doing so.

While we’ve come far as a species, we may have arrived at a time where the delicate balance between technology and nature is in jeopardy. At such a pivotal moment, archeology turns out to be a discipline that can be of great use. We can re-examine the way we faced the changes of "nature, humans, and tools" through over 7 million years of humankind’s history and use these hints as feedback on the present situation. I'm sure many people have re-examined the black plague and the Spanish flu as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but we can also look at the big picture on a larger scale. I think there are archaeological sites and relics as materials for that.