Climatic changes help to bring about a Mesolithic stage in early Japanese culture, during which the expanding human population of the archipelago largely depletes the previously abundant fauna.

The introduction of the bow and arrow is regarded as a local response to a decrease in game available for food.

The Jomon hunting and gathering culture, named for its cord-pattern ceramic wares, emerges in Japan in about the tenth millennium and begins to produce distinctive pottery in conical and cylindrical forms.

Jomon pottery first appears around 10,000 BCE in northern Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main Japanese islands, in an era that is sometimes called the “incipient” Jomon period.

While continental influence is suspected, the fact that Kyushu pottery remains predate any Chinese findings strongly suggests that the impetus to develop pottery is original.

The culture, whatever its origins, will eventually grow to encompass a great number of small communities throughout Japan.