Just as suddenly as the stone circles were created in different places in the late Jomon period, they were mysteriously abandoned all at once. This marks the beginning of the Yayoi period, whose people are said to have come from China and brought with them revolutionary tools for rice farming. They traveled from western Japan to Tohoku, and this journey took hundreds of years until they reached their destination. And despite what you might expect, the Yayoi people didn’t drive out the Jomon people once they arrived, but rather they united together. There’s even a theory that the present Japanese DNA contains about 10 to 50% of Jomon DNA.

As the natural progression would go, when rice cultivation started, people started to become tied to their land, which created a class system, which was the cause for wars, and here we are today. What would our future look like if we had followed the path of the Jomon people?

It’s believed that the Jomon people prospered so well because they were situated in the luscious eastern part of Japan, where there are many forests and sustenance for peaceful survival. Naturally, the leaves dropped in the winter which gave nutrients to the soil to sprout new wild plants each spring, the same as it does today. People in the Tohoku Region will go to great lengths, even encountering bears, to harvest the plants of the season. Undoubtedly, that is the DNA of the Jomon people appearing.

ON THE TRIP Editorial Staff
Writer: Akihito Shiga
Photography: Hiroshi Honma
Translation: Sara Scarf, Dale Angles
Voice Over: Kate Beck

*This guide was created based on documents and interviews and includes some interpretation done by us at ON THE TRIP. Theories differ between experts, so try to find out what really happened on your travels!