Kashiwa City Local Historical Artifacts Collection Room

Mystery Time

The local historical collection of Kashiwa shows archeological items from the area around Kashiwa throughout the history of Japan, beginning with the Jomon era and continuing up to more modern times. Walking through the exhibition, it is easy to notice repeating patterns on pottery from the Jomon era, and not knowing why the same patterns were used repeatedly over thousands of years created a mystery. After going through the whole exhibition, looking at ancient coins, the first appearance of writing, and seeing changes in materials from clay to bronze to iron, I moved back to the beginning and the oldest pottery pieces, where I found the answer to my mystery. Ancient Japanese people picked up clams from the ocean, ate the flesh, then used the shells to carve a variety of patterns into soft clay, before heating it and thus creating pottery. Mystery solved.