Qualla: Togariishi Museum of Jomon Archaeology

Togariishi Museum of Jomon Archaeology: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

She stands 27 centimeters tall, weighs just over two kilograms, and has been waiting for visitors for roughly 5,000 years. The Jomon Venus -- a clay figurine with exaggerated hips, a swollen belly, and a face reduced to the barest suggestion of features -- was pulled from the earth at the Tanabatake site in Chino on September 8, 1986. In 1995, she became the first Jomon-period artifact ever designated a National Treasure of Japan. Today she shares a museum with another clay figure of equal status: the Masked Goddess, a hollow figurine whose tilted triangular face looks like it is peering through a mask tied on with string. Together, they are the twin stars of the Togariishi Museum of Jomon Archaeology, a municipal museum in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, that opened in July 2000 and holds more than two thousand artifacts from a period spanning roughly 14,000 to 1,000 BCE.

Togariishi Museum of Jomon Archaeology: The Schoolteacher Who Found a Civilization

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Long before the museum existed, the Togariishi ruins were already famous. The site sits on a plateau at the foot of Mount Yatsugatake at an elevation of 1,000 meters, where abundant spring water once supported dozens of Jomon communities. Although the ruins had been known since t...

Togariishi Museum of Jomon Archaeology: Two Goddesses, Two Mysteries

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Jomon Venus, excavated from the nearby Tanabatake site, is made from ocher-colored clay carefully polished and mixed with mica, giving it a subtle shimmer. Her exaggerated proportions -- the wide hips, the pronounced belly, the diminutive head -- place her firmly in the tradi...

Togariishi Museum of Jomon Archaeology: The Yatsugatake Jomon Corridor

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Togariishi is not an isolated site. Over fifty mid-Jomon settlement sites have been identified in the near vicinity, all clustered around the springs that flow down Yatsugatake's volcanic slopes. This concentration speaks to a landscape that was exceptionally productive for hunte...

Togariishi Museum of Jomon Archaeology: Standing Where They Stood

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The museum, which opened in 2000, sits adjacent to the ruins themselves. Visitors can walk from climate-controlled galleries displaying the Jomon Venus and Masked Goddess out into the open-air site park, where reconstructed pit dwellings dot the plateau. The transition is immedia...