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This was the topic of my daughter's open class today. I'm curious how Twitter's answers will compare to the students. I'll touch on a few topics after I (hopefully) get some thoughts from everyone here :)
For those familiar with the topic, remember, comments based on pics only!
For those familiar with the topic, remember, comments based on pics only!
Keep the comments coming and share it around! Really interesting to see everyone's observations!
Alrighty then. I really enjoyed seeing everyone's thoughts on this topic. I'm going to share the schoolchildren's' comments, touch on some of your comments, and add in a few of my personal thoughts about this exercise.
Fore general topics of comparison regarding the Jomon and Yayoi periods, the students suggested: Food & cooking, Clothing, Pottery, Houses, and Environment/Nature.
Based on the pictures, the students pointed out that it looked like the Jomon people were hunters 
One child pointed out that the roofs were different in the Jomon period, where they appear to be made of straw, as opposed to wood.
The students pointed out that there seemed to be a lot of open fires in the Jomon period.
The students also noticed that it seems the Jomon people all wore the same clothing.
Finally, like some of you mentioned, the students said that Jomon period buildings all seemed shorter than the Yayoi period, and one student said it seemed like the ground of the Jomon village was rough and uneven while the Yayoi village had smoother ground.
There were more comments on the Yayoi village than the Jomon village. Like some of you mentioned, the Yayoi village has a more segmented structure to it. The students said it seemed harder to get around in the village, saying entrances and exits were limited.
The students said the Yayoi people in the picture wore different kinds and colors of clothing, compared to the Jomon people who all seemed to be wearing the same thing.
Students pointed out that there were planted fields in the Yayoi village, but there didn't seem to be any cultivation in the Jomon village.
My daughter pointed out that some buildings in the Yayoi village had smoke coming out of them, indicating that they had fires inside, but the Jomon buildings didn't.
Students said it looked like people were buying and selling goods in the Yayoi village
Interestingly, the students also pointed out the same thing that @archaeocattus did, that it looked like people in the Yayoi period had jobs. He specifically based it on these people in the picture.
I think one of the first comments by the kids, and also pointed out by many people here is that the Yayoi village seemed greener and friendlier, while the Jomon village seemed somewhat drab and uninviting.
Some parents mentioned how much they enjoyed this style of teaching. Instead of the teacher lecturing from a book, the class was more student centered, allowing them to discover things on their own instead of being told what the differences are.
I totally agree that student centered learning is generally superior to teacher-centered lecture style classes, but this lesson demonstrated the effect that the materials used can have on the learning experience, and how they can bias perceptions.
First of all, as was pointed out, these two sites are not typical or indicative of normal Jomon and Yayoi period villages. The Jomon period Sannai-Maruyama site is a absolutely massive site for the period.
It's been suggested that the site served as a gathering place for trade and religious ceremonies, and that the day to day population of the site may have been smaller than the size of the site suggests. The site has been reconstructed. See more here: sannaimaruyama.pref.aomori.jp/english/index.…
The Yayoi period Yoshinogari site is another huge & complex site, not a typical village. Comparing these two sites is like using New York & Tokyo as typical American & Japanese cities. The comparison is interesting, but not representative samples. yoshinogari.jp/en/
As for the depictions of the villages, I think the difficulty lies in the fact that pictures aren't unbiased. They have their own viewpoints to share & stories to tell. As for the greenery, there are certain aspects of Jomon life that are easier to share in an autumn setting.
There is a big emphasis on the importance of seasonal food sources during the Jomon period based on work by Tatsuo Kobayashi. Nut gathering was quite important during the Jomon period, and this was generally done during autumn months. You can see this going on in the picture.
The textbooks focused on the idea of Jomon people as hunter-gatherers and Yayoi people as agriculturists, specifically focusing on rice. Most of the rice season in southern Japan takes place in greener months, (April~October-ish) So the greenery matches this chosen narrative.
I was a bit surprised that the students didn't focus on the more militaristic aspects of the Yayoi village (maybe not a bad thing). Not only are there sharp wooden palisades, moats, and limited entry points, but there are a number of soldiers/guards depicted
This is a huge societal change. It's not to say there wasn't violence during the Jomon period, but studies based on skeletal remains show a significantly greater proportion of violent injuries during the Yayoi period. See philarchive.org/archive/TOMVAW and related articles for more info
As the Yayoi and Kofun periods are often viewed as the beginnings of Japan as a nation, I'm not sure if this is avoided intentionally as a negative aspect associated with the formation of the Japanese state, but that's a whole other issue.
Although the kids didn't mention it, aspects of religion, spirituality, and ceremony are depicted in both pictures. In the Jomon village there is a row of of large stone circle burials (4m in diameter) and additional burial pits along the road headed out from the site.
In the Yayoi village you can see a ceremony taking place in one of the more restricted areas of the village. At the site there is also a large burial mound that researchers believe housed the remains of successive generations of rulers, indicating a non-egalitarian class system
I guess the key takeaway of all of this is that presentation matters. Did people do work in the Jomon period? Of course, but it is more recognizable and visible in the Yayoi village picture.
Jomon dwellings also had hearths in them for cooking & warmth, but since smoke is absent from the Jomon dwellings in the pictures, it leads students to believe that they didn't have fire inside their houses, maybe making it seem that the period was colder & more inhospitable
Many of these narratives go on unchallenged, giving students a distorted view of the past and a negative view of other lifeways. I'll check up with my daughter on how the lesson proceeds, but sharing this with everyone was too good of an opportunity to pass up :)
If you have any other comments of questions regarding any of this, please let me know! Thanks again for the conversation!
