Geographical range | Korean peninsula |
---|---|
Period | Neolithic |
Dates | c. 8000 – c. 1500 BC |
Followed by | Mumun pottery period |
Korean name | |
Hunminjeongeum | 즐문 토기 시대 |
Hanja | |
Revised Romanization | Jeulmun togi sidae |
McCune–Reischauer | Chŭlmun t'ogi sidae |
History of Korea |
---|
Timeline |
Korea portal |
The Jeulmun pottery period (Korean: 즐문 토기 시대) is an archaeological era in Korean prehistory broadly spanning the period of 8000–1500 BC.[1] This period subsumes the Mesolithic and Neolithic cultural stages in Korea,[2][3] lasting ca. 8000–3500 BC ("Incipient" to "Early" phases) and 3500–1500 BC ("Middle" and "Late" phases), respectively.[4] Because of the early presence of pottery, the entire period has also been subsumed under a broad label of "Korean Neolithic".[5]
The Jeulmun pottery period is named after the decorated pottery vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage consistently over the above period, especially 4000-2000 BC. Jeulmun (즐문; 櫛文) means "Comb-patterned". A boom in the archaeological excavations of Jeulmun Period sites since the mid-1990s has increased knowledge about this important formative period in the prehistory of East Asia.
The Jeulmun was a period of hunting, gathering, and small-scale cultivation of plants.[6] Archaeologists sometimes refer to this life-style pattern as "broad-spectrum hunting and gathering".