The Jomon people of Japan created the world’s first pottery, a distinctive cord-patterned style. Radiocarbon dates for the earliest pottery mark the beginning of the Jomon in the late Pleistocene (16,500 BP). The Jomon lasted until the arrival of agriculture on the mainland of Honshu (2000 BP). On the north island of Hokkaido, it persisted until the arrival of immigrants from Sakhalin (modern-day Russia). Climate changes during the Jomon alternately exposed and covered large amounts of coastline. Archaeological data suggest these changes influenced local subsistence economies, settlement patterns, and social structure. By the Middle Jomon (5000-3000 BP), climate stabilization had primed the environment for abundant resource production. In response to the stable food supply, Middle Jomon populations more than doubled in numbers. Sedentism led to increased cultural homogeneity across regions and, in some instances, social complexity. By the Late and Final Jomon periods (roughly 4000-2000 BP), a population crash of an estimated 100,000 individuals splintered the culture into regionally divergent subsistence economies and settlement patterns.
I hypothesized that major changes in the Jomon environment, culture, and diet would upset nutritional and developmental stability during growth and development. Specifically, I was interested in two questions. First, does health status decrease from the Middle to the Late/Final Jomon? Second, does health status change in the Okhotsk period on Hokkaido? To test these hypotheses, I looked at various indicators of health. Dental enamel hypoplasias indicated nutritional instability. Fluctuating facial asymmetry indirectly measured developmental instability. And, dental caries, wear, and masticatory stress indicated dietary variation. A general trend toward decreased health in the Late/Final periods was not consistently statistically significant. Social stratification in the Middle Jomon may have mitigated the positive effects of cultural and environmental stability. One consistently statistically significant finding was a great improvement in health during the Okhotsk period on Hokkaido. This is perhaps a result of population admixture providing genetic buffering.