Burials, pottery, and shell-mounds: from the history of the jōmon epoch sites studies, japanese archipelago

September 16th, 1877 American naturalist E.S. Morse (1838-1925) started the excavations at Oomori shell-mound (Honshu island). This was the starting point in the history of the investigation of a new culture called “Jōmon” (cord-marked ornament). The authors thoroughly reconstruct the context of the introduction of this term into the scientific practice in the end of the XiXth - beginning of the XXth centuries and offer their own version for the meaning of “Jōmon” which is called by various names, including “culture”, “period” and “epoch”. in connection with the Jōmon epoch studies the authors pay special attention to the phenomenon of “early pottery” in the Final Paleolithic cultures of the continental part of the Far East.