（漆と縄文文化──1万5千年続いた日本の和と工芸の遺産）
Over 12,000 years ago, at the dawn of Japan’s Jomon period, people were already cultivating lacquer trees — a labor-intensive craft that demands nearly a decade before yielding sap. This discovery from the Torihama Shell Midden challenges long-held beliefs that lacquer culture came from China, revealing instead a native tradition far older than any known Chinese examples. The Jomon period, spanning some 15,000 years, saw the rise of a peaceful, cooperative society with no weapons for killing humans, advanced pottery and textiles, and a culture of mutual aid that still shapes the Japanese spirit today.
Charred fragment of a lacquer tree branch, excavated from the Torihama Shell Midden in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, dating back approximately 12,600 years to the earliest Jomon period.
Introduction – A Branch of Urushi from the Dawn of the Jomon Period
In October 2011, a remarkable archaeological revelation was announced in Japan:
A simple branch of lacquer tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum, known in Japanese as urushi) excavated in 1984 from the Torihama Shell Midden in Wakasa Town, Fukui Prefecture, was confirmed to be approximately 12,600 years old, dating to the very beginning of the Jomon period. The research team, led by Professor Mikio Suzuki of Tohoku University (a botanist), used radiocarbon dating conducted at the National Museum of Japanese History in Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture. The identification of the wood as urushi had already been made in 2005 through microscopic analysis at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.
For those outside Japan, a shell midden (kaizuka) is a kind of ancient refuse heap containing shells, bones, pottery, and other artifacts — typically the remains of long-term habitation. To find a lacquer tree branch in such a context is not simply proof that lacquer trees once grew naturally in the area. This is far more significant.
Why a Lacquer Branch Matters – Evidence of Cultivation and Settlement
Urushi trees do not thrive without deliberate human care. They require yearly maintenance such as undergrowth clearing, and it takes nearly a decade before they can be tapped for their sap, which is the raw material for lacquer. Therefore, discovering urushi wood in a settlement site dating back 12,600 years strongly suggests that the inhabitants were not nomadic hunters but people who had already established a permanent community. They were likely cultivating lacquer trees specifically for sap extraction.
Some archaeologists resist this conclusion, claiming that the urushi was simply wild and that true cultivation came only after the plant was introduced from China. However, testing confirmed that the Torihama branch belonged to a native Japanese species, not an imported one. Moreover, lacquered artifacts from the Kakinoshima B site in Hakodate, Hokkaido, date back some 9,000 years, showing a well-developed lacquer craft long before Chinese examples.
Spouted earthenware vessel excavated from the Kakinoshima A site in Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan, dating back about 3,200 years, coated with black lacquer underlayer and finished with red lacquer for a rich, refined appearance.
Challenging the China-First Narrative
For decades, Japanese lacquer culture was widely described as an import from China. In China’s Zhejiang Province, the Hemudu site yielded a lacquered bowl dated to about 7,000 years ago, and the Kuahuqiao site produced a lacquered wooden bow claimed to be 8,000 years old. Yet, the Hemudu site itself spans only from about 7,000 to 6,500 years ago, raising doubts about the much earlier dating of the Kuahuqiao bow. Many scholars believe the Japanese artifacts, which predate the Chinese finds by 4,000–5,000 years, point to a reverse flow: lacquer culture originating in Japan and later spreading to China.
This is not to diminish Chinese achievements, but to insist that scientific, objective facts — particularly those from radiocarbon dating — must not be distorted by ideology or politics.
The Jomon Period – An Exceptionally Long Peace
The Jomon period in Japan lasted from roughly 17,000 years ago (15th century BCE) to around 3,000 years ago (10th century BCE). Thousands of Jomon sites have been found across Japan. Strikingly, there is one thing absent from all of them: weapons designed specifically for killing other humans.
Jomon sites contain arrowheads, stone axes, and stone knives, but these are small and suited for hunting rabbits or raccoons, not for warfare. The stone axes, with their thin, long handles and small heads, would break if used against people. The pottery — known for intricate patterns and elegant forms — is likewise inconsistent with cultures dominated by warfare, as such craftsmanship thrives only in peaceful, stable societies.
Agriculture, Cooperation, and the Culture of Harmony
Irrigated agriculture, especially on a village scale, requires constant cooperation. Water channels must be dug and maintained collectively, and all must agree not to pollute the water supply. Warfare destroys such systems. Adjusting water levels itself is a high-level engineering task that can only be sustained in a cooperative, peaceful environment.
Thus, Japanese culture evolved not around taking from others by force, but around helping one another so that all could live without conflict. Rather than glorifying weapons, people found purpose and dignity in holding hoes and spades, working side by side in the fields. This may be the root of the Japanese cultural emphasis on harmony (wa), mutual aid, and the joy of work.
Jomon Culture and the Japanese Disposition
It is plausible to see the traditional Japanese qualities — helping each other, valuing harmony, finding joy in labor — as having matured over the 15,000-year span of the Jomon period. To put this in perspective: the oldest pottery in Japan, from the Ōdai Yamamoto I site in Aomori Prefecture, is 16,500 years old, making it the oldest in the world. At that time, Europe was still in the Upper Paleolithic, populated by fur-clad hunter-gatherers.
In Japan, by contrast, people had already developed advanced pottery, permanent settlements, and a culture of mutual assistance without weapons. This represents a remarkable cultural achievement.
Clothing and Lacquer Artistry
Contrary to outdated textbook imagery of Jomon people as half-naked in animal skins, the Torihama Shell Midden has yielded textiles — clothing with patterns and tailoring so refined that one could walk down modern Tokyo’s Harajuku district wearing them without attracting notice. As for lacquerware, the Kakinoshima A site (about 3,200 years old) produced a spouted vessel first coated in black lacquer and then finished with red lacquer to achieve a deep, elegant tone.
Footprint Pottery and Parental Love
One touching class of artifacts from the Kakinoshima sites are “footprint pottery” — clay pieces bearing the impressions of children’s feet, taken after the child’s death. In ancient times, child mortality was tragically common. Even in the late Edo period, a statesman like Ii Naosuke could be the 14th son in his family because his elder brothers had all died young. Such pottery reflects parents’ deep and enduring grief, preserving the memory of their lost children.
Clay plaques with imprints of children’s feet, known as “footprint pottery,” from the Jomon period, believed to have been created to memorialize deceased children.
The Longevity of Jomon Culture
A human generation changes roughly every 25 years. From the writing of the Kojiki (about 1,300 years ago) to today is roughly 50 generations. The Jomon period spanned some 15,000 years — around 600 generations. If national character can solidify in 400 years, then Japan’s emphasis on cooperation and harmony was forged 40 times over during the Jomon.
Some have called Japanese culture “the last bastion of the world’s conscience.” In a postwar era when many Japanese have lost a sense of national pride and historical perspective, rediscovering the world’s oldest culture of harmony is vital.
Loss, Suppression, and the Need for Historical Clarity
The 9,000-year-old lacquerware from Kakinoshima B was tragically damaged in a suspicious fire in December 2002, destroying some 80,000 artifacts and records. Curiously, this happened soon after the find challenged the narrative that Chinese lacquerware was older. Similarly, evidence that Japanese wet-rice agriculture predates Chinese examples remains underreported. Japanese Jomon sites are never officially labeled as a “civilization,” while Chinese Neolithic sites are routinely called “civilizations.”
Whether by accident or intent, such omissions obscure the Japanese cultural heritage. Yet, as the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake showed, the qualities nurtured since the Jomon — discipline, mutual aid, order — emerge naturally in crisis. This, one might say, is the work of DNA shaped over millennia.
Conclusion – Restoring Pride and Perspective
The path forward for Japan lies in restoring a sound historical consciousness and a pride in being the inheritors of the world’s oldest culture of harmony — a culture where people live in kyōshin kyōmei hibiki-ai (“resonating in empathy and shared vibration”), sensing and responding to one another as part of a greater whole. When Japan once again lets the sun rise in its full strength, perhaps the world, too, will awaken — moved by that same resonance.
