Goshono Site

Most Jomon reconstructions you see in Japan have thatched roofs. At Goshono several of the pit houses are covered in earth instead, grass growing on top, so they look like low mounds with a doorway. That is not guesswork: dig teams here found houses that had burnt down, and the way they collapsed showed the roofs had been packed with soil.

The village sat on a long plateau above the Mabechi River in Ichinohe, northern Iwate, and people lived here for about 800 years, from roughly 5,000 to 4,200 years ago. More than 800 pit dwelling sites have been found. In the middle was a cemetery marked by rings of stone arrangements, and next to it a man-made mound full of pottery, stone tools, burnt deer and boar bones and nuts, which points to rituals with fire held again and again. After the village faded, the big stone circles of the region, Oyu in Akita and Komakino in Aomori among them, began to appear. Goshono is one of the 17 parts of the Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan, inscribed as World Heritage in July 2021.

You reach the site from the car park and the Goshono Jomon Museum by the Kikiki no Tsuribashi, a covered wooden suspension bridge that curves over a small wooded valley. The plateau beyond is planted with chestnut, walnut, horse chestnut and lacquer trees, the kinds the villagers used. The park is free and the museum's exhibition rooms cost 300 yen (18 and under free). It is open 9:00 to 17:00, closed on Mondays. A cafe opened in the museum in April 2026.

Two warnings. Since July 2026 the park has kept the Jomon forest and its viewing platform closed because of bears; staff lend bear bells at the museum desk. And buses are thin: a handful a day from Ichinohe Station, none at all in winter.