Tradition guide
Jomon
10 sacred sites available through this shared spiritual lineage.
Countries with strong presence
Common site types
Akyū Ruins
Hara, Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Six thousand years ago, the Jomon people gathered here to tend sacred fires beneath the gaze of Mount Tateshina. At the heart of their ceremonial ground stood a single stone, deliberately aligned toward the mountain they venerated. Today the ruins lie buried beneath a highway, preserved for eternity—but above them, a quiet forest holds the memory of what once made this ridge a place where worlds could meet.
Fugoppe Cave
Yoichi, Hokkaidō, Japan
Carved into the walls of a small sea-facing cave near Yoichi, approximately 800 petroglyphs have puzzled scholars since their discovery in 1950. The images—human figures with wings or horns, boats, fish, marine creatures—date to roughly 2,000 years ago, created by a people whose identity remains unknown. The 'winged man' figures have become iconic in Hokkaido. This is one of only two petroglyph caves in all of Japan, preserving evidence of a spiritual tradition that appeared briefly and then vanished.
Goshono Site
Ichinohe, Iwate Prefecture, Japan
For forty generations, Jomon communities gathered at this river terrace to tend their dead and feed their fires. The earthen mounds along the settlement's southern edge hold evidence of repeated ceremonies: burned animal bones, charred nuts, clay figurines—offerings made across eight centuries. At the center of the village, two stone-outlined burial grounds marked where the living gathered to honor ancestors. Today, reconstructed earthen-roof dwellings bring the settlement back to life.
Komakino Stone Circle
Aomori, Aomori Prefecture, Japan
Four thousand years ago, Jomon communities leveled a hilltop and arranged nearly three thousand stones in a configuration so distinctive that archaeologists named it the 'Komakino style'—a vertical arrangement with flanking flat stones found at no other site in Japan. More than a hundred burial pits lie beneath the circles, marking this ridge as a threshold between worlds where the living gathered to honor their dead.
Ōmori Katsuyama Stone Circle
Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, Japan
Three thousand years ago, the Jomon people positioned this stone circle with extraordinary precision: on the shortest day of the year, the setting sun descends directly behind the summit of Mount Iwaki. This alignment was no accident. The ellipse of 77 stone assemblages, the large ceremonial dwelling on the exact axis between circle and mountain, the 250 mysterious disc-shaped stones—all speak to a community that understood their place within a cosmos shaped by sacred peak and turning sun.
Ōyu Stone Circles
Kazuno, Akita Prefecture, Japan
On a plateau above the Oyu River in northern Japan, two stone circles have watched the summer solstice sun set along the same axis for 4,000 years. The Manza circle spans 46 meters; the smaller Nonakado reaches 42 meters. Both contain sundial-like stonework pointing to the moment when the year's longest day ends. For the Jomon people who built them, these circles served as cemetery, calendar, and place of ceremony where earth and sky aligned.
Sannai-Maruyama Site
Aomori, Aomori Prefecture, Japan
For seventeen centuries, the Jomon people lived at Sannai-Maruyama, cultivating chestnuts, trading jade across hundreds of kilometers, and building structures that still challenge our assumptions about prehistoric societies. The reconstructed six-pillar building towers 15 meters over the 42-hectare site, its purpose debated but its scale undeniable. Aligned burial rows and planned settlement layout reveal a community that understood sacred geography. This is not merely archaeology; this is encounter with 80 generations of human continuity.
Tabata Stone Circle
Machida, Tokyo, Japan
Five minutes from a Tokyo train station, a ring of stones marks where Jomon peoples gathered three thousand years ago. They built their ceremonial circle directly over the graves of thirty ancestors, aligning it so the winter solstice sun would set precisely over Mount Hirugatake in the Tanzawa range. It remains the only Jomon period stone circle in the Tokyo metropolitan area—a quiet reminder that the sacred can persist beneath modern landscapes.
Washinoki Stone Circle
Mori, Hokkaidō, Japan
Beneath a highway tunnel in southwestern Hokkaido lies Japan's largest stone circle, a 4,000-year-old Jomon burial site that was nearly destroyed by modern construction. Discovered in 2003, the Washinoki Stone Circle contains 602 carefully arranged stones in a double-ring formation, with outer stones aligned on their long axes and inner stones pointing toward the center. The volcanic ash that buried it for centuries preserved evidence of sophisticated ritual architecture.
Yubunezawa Stone Circle
Takizawa, Iwate Prefecture, Japan
Four thousand years ago, Jomon peoples of northern Japan established this ground exclusively for the dead and for ceremony. No homes stood here, no everyday debris accumulated—only the careful placement of nine hundred stones over ancestral graves. The vernal equinox sunset aligns with Mount Yachiyama on the horizon, suggesting that spring's return was marked in this place where the boundary between living and dead grew thin.