Jomon People Subsistence and Settlements: Discriminatory Analysis of the Later Jomon Settlements

Abstract

This study concerns with the subsistence diversity of the prehistoric hunter-gatherers of Japan during the Jomon period. Discriminant function analysis of 91 lithic assemblages from later Jomon settlements is utilized to divide the Jomon societies into homogeneous subgroups. The study has four sections. First, a general outline of Japanese prehistory is given; second, the approach chosen for the study is described; and third, the results from the discriminant analysis of the Jomon settlements and associated lithic assemblages are presented. The concluding part examines the problem of how and why the diversity in subsistence activities and associated technologies occurred in the Jomon societies. The cultural dichotomy between western and eastern Japan during the later Jomon period is studied: intensive plant collecting and/or incipient plant cultivating societies flourished in the west, whereas more specialized fishing and hunting societies with less specialized plant collecting activities flourished in the east.