Abstract
This review revealed the size and morphological changes of soybean (Glycine max) seeds in the Jomon period by compiling and comparing their impressions detected by the replication method. This review confirmed that soybean seeds that first appeared in the middle phase of the initial Jomon period, the latter half of the 8th millennium BC, in central Japan become larger through later Jomon periods. Soybean seeds of cultivated types came to be distinguished by the middle Jomon period, the latter half of the 4th millennium BC. This enlargement in seed size is one of the characteristics accompanying plant domestication. Four mophological types can be recognized in the soybean seeds of the Jomon period, and this indicates possibile differentiation of soybean breeds during the Jomon period through the use of wild soybeans to that of domesticated ones.
