Large settlements situated their houses in a circular pattern, with a central communal space for burials, food storage, and ceremonial functions. Often, figurines depicted buxom women, suggesting that their ritual purpose was aimed at reproduction and safe childbirths. Phallic items point to fertility rituals. Snakehead motifs offer tantalizing evidence of snake-related ceremonies, perhaps conducted by village shamans. Skeletal remains with missing adult teeth indicate forms of ritualized teeth pulling, probably as a form of coming-of-age ritual. Some of the larger pottery jars, called ‘placenta pots’, contain placental remains and even the remains of infants, demonstrating elaborate forms of burial and ceremony.

On agriculture, Jomon cultivated yams and taro as well as lily bulbs, horse-chestnut, and other plants critical to their survival. They raised simple crops, but they did not engineer the environment for agriculture which will prove to be their failure in survival.

Jomon peoples primarily source of food was yet again through hunting and gathering. Hunting became more sophisticated with the development of bows, fishhooks, and domestication of wolfish dogs. Elaborate system of pit-traps were also used perhaps to hunt boar and other game. Gathering nuts and seafood were another source of nutrition. However all this was not enough as fossil remains demonstrate that the Jomon lived in a nearly constant state of malnutrition and proved ill-prepared for the future ahead. Environmental changes some 4500 YBP dropped global temperatures and reduced mammal population, leaving Jomon people vulnerable to food shortages and famine. Some insist that Japan’s 260,000 inhabitants in 4500 YBP might have declined to 160,000 over the course of the next millennium.