Jōmon Pottery at the World’s Columbian Exposition

“Jōmon Pottery at the World’s Columbian Exposition”
Boxi Liu (Penn EALC)

Horinouchi is a distinctive style of Late Jōmon pottery. Dating to the early Late Jōmon period (2000-1000 BCE), it was named after the Horinouchi shell-midden site in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture by the famous Jōmon scholar Yamanouchi Sugao. This type of pottery is mainly distributed in the Kantō region, and it consists of two substyles, Horinouchi I and Horinouchi II. Archaeologists differentiate the two substyles based on the shapes, decorations, and colors of the pots. Among the various Horinouchi shapes, the morning-glory- and the abacus-bead-shaped pots are the most distinctive and noted. Pottery from the Horinouchi II type onwards generally sports a black surface, in contrast to the reddish-orange surface of Horinouchi I pots. From a comprehensive study of Horinouchi pottery and comparison between the published data and Jōmon shards in the World’s Columbian Exposition collection at the Penn Museum, we can identify over twenty fragments of Horinouchi pots. According to museum records, most of the shards were gathered from Hirayama village in Chiba Prefecture. This collection of Horinouchi shards is a critical resource for the study of Horinouchi pots and the material culture of Late Jōmon society in Chiba Prefecture.