Jomon Japan is fantastic. It ought to be preserved in stone. It was preserved in stone. For 10,000 years, this New Stone Age culture flourished. It is one of the longest-running single traditions in the world. A man, woman or child dying in, say, 10,000 B.C. and coming back to life circa 400 B.C. would have found the essentials of life pretty much unchanged.
Not entirely. Pottery styles evolved, stone tools grew slightly more refined, housing marginally more comfortable. But metal? None. Woodworking? None. Agriculture? Almost none.
No war either, apparently. Archaeologists conjecture as much from a general absence of hacked bones and bashed-in skulls.
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