Jomon people dedicated a great deal of time to elaborate ceremonial activities that often brought together members of different communities. They made a wide variety of ritual artefacts, including clay figurines and stone 'swords' and 'clubs'.
In the later Jomon period stone circles were constructed throughout eastern Japan, sometimes over burial grounds, and sometimes as communal ceremonial centres within settlements. At Oyu a double ring of stone cairns enclosed central standing stones.
Jomon people marked important changes in life with rites of passage, including filing and removing teeth at the onset of adulthood and marriage.
People were often buried in cemeteries, usually located in the middle of villages. The bodies of adults were usually laid out in a grave pit, occasionally with a few personal ornaments as grave goods. Small children were often buried in pottery urns beneath the floor of the house. The acid soils of Japan usually destroy the bones except in special circumstances, for example when they are buried by shell middens (mounds of discarded shells).
