Japan Without Rice?

Try Nut Cookies Instead!

It is difficult to imagine Japan without Rice. Today, one half of all arable land in Japan is devoted to rice paddies. But rice was brought to Japan only in 300 BC by Korean peninsula inhabitants.

It is certain that the ancient Japan’s Jomon period from 10,000 to 400 BC - that I talked about in my two previous postings - was totally without rice. Unlike the contemporaneous population on the continent, the Jomon people were not agricultural, though they tended some plants, and were good at exploiting the islands’ recourses. They hunted deer and wild boar with bows and arrows, gathered and cooked nuts, harpooned whales, fished for salmon, and harvested shellfish.

The Jomon lived in large villages. In colder regions, they made pit-dwellings with sunken floor that took advantages of the soil’s natural insulation. Throughout the archipelago, they also build wood structures, some of them quite large. The archaeologists uncovered the remains of such buildings, as well as dug-out holes that originally held enormous upright chestnut trunks. At the Japan Exhibition currently held at the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History Pointe-à-Callière (http://www.pacmuseum.qc.ca ) you can see photos from the Jomon Sannai Maruyama dwelling site. They show gigantic holes in the ground where tree trunks were inserted, and a hypothetical reconstruction of a three-floor building.

Nut Cookies Instead of Rice

So if Jomon did not have rice what did they eat instead? Nuts!

The archaeologists found that many dwelling sites had pits containing nuts. The Jomon soaked some types of nuts to remove bitterness, and grounded them to make edible dough and cookies. At the Japan Exhibition you can see a photo of the charred remains of cookies excavated at the sites.

And the recipe for those cookies?

Ground hazelnuts
Yams
Perilla (spice)
Basil
Garlic
Shallots

Grind and mix all the ingredience, make cookie patties, put them on a flat stone used as a cookie sheet - also found during excavations - and cook over an open fire pit.

How large was Jomon population?

According to some estimates, the archipelago’s population grew from 20,000 in the early Jomon, to over 260,000 by the Middle Jomon. But around 900 BC the number of Jomon dwelling sites started to decline. By the end of that period there were only about 75,000 people left. So what had happened?

It is difficult to say why there was such a market decline. Despite the fact that the climate was cooling and Mount Fiji erupted a few times, that did not cause the population to decline. Something else may have been responsible: the arrival of immigrants from the continent. The new know-how that they brought with them transformed daily life in the archipelago.

Around 400 BC political turmoil rocked the East Asian continent. For some time, small groups of people have been leaving the Korean peninsula. Most of them migrated to Kyushu, the Japanese archipelago island closest to the continent. They also spread northeast almost as far as the island of Hokkaido. It is not known if their encounter with Jomon was peaceful. What is clear, they mixed with the local population – as shown by modern day Japanese DNA research.

And thus in 300 BC began the Yayoi period, which lasted up to 300 AD. It was the period of bronze, iron, and rice. And this is when rice became a staple of Japanese cusine.

The photo in the beginning of this article shows a dogu clay mask.*

* Earthenware mask
2000 to 1000 BC
Prehistoric period: Jomon (10,000 to 400 BC)
© Tokyo National Museum collection

This eloquently simple mask shows only relief modelling and a distorted mouth. It was unearthed by a farmer clearing land.