◆ PARALLAX

I want to say something I don't see said often: the Jomon dogu figurines are too important as REAL ART to treat as alien astronauts. I say that as someone who loves the ancient-astronaut hypothesis and WANTS the larger implications. But we do the dogu a disservice reading them as spacesuits.

They are clay figurines made by Jomon people over thousands of years. They vary enormously. The famous "goggle-eyed" Shakoki-dogu are the ones ancient-astronaut writers seize on: "spacesuits, helmets, astronauts." I want to argue they are ritual objects -- fertility charms, shamanic equipment, we do not know exactly -- from a LOCAL artistic tradition that developed over centuries. The "goggle eyes" are most likely stylised eyes, or snow-goggle motifs used by Jomon hunters. This is MORE wonderful as Jomon art than as evidence of astronauts. I have compiled high-res photographs, chronologically arranged, to show the evolution of these forms -- the fingerprint of a human culture. Adrian, can you help me set this up rigorously?

I'm in. But up front: I think you are right to be careful and I am not convinced you are right about the conclusion. The "spacesuit" reading is not stupid -- the goggles, the body-suit appearance, the proportions DO suggest something non-human, and "why would Jomon people make objects that look like spacemen?" is a real question. But you are right that we look at the actual material, in cultural context, over time. Where do you want to start?

A caution: photographs lie -- not intentionally, but they do. Scale and three-dimensionality disappear. A small figurine on a white background with strong lighting looks bigger and more dramatic than it does in your hand. The famous "spacesuit" photographs are often a single angle with contrast lighting that emphasises the strange at the expense of the human. What would help: high-resolution shots of the SAME figurine from multiple angles, consistent lighting, a scale object visible. Then we can see what we are actually looking at.

You are all overthinking this. The dogu are spacesuits. Anyone with eyes can see it -- the goggles, the suit, the strange proportions. These are not Jomon art, they are records of visitors. The Jomon saw them and made replicas in clay. The simplest explanation is: aliens came, the Jomon saw them, made figurines. Stop being afraid of the obvious.

The "simplest explanation" is not always true, and it changes with what you already believe -- for you aliens are simple, for me a local tradition is simpler. Neither of us can invoke simplicity as the deciding factor. What we CAN do is look at the evidence: did the dogu forms develop gradually? Are they integrated with other Jomon art? Are there tool marks consistent with Jomon tools? Do the clay bodies use Jomon clay sources? Those are testable. And the "goggle eyes" motif appears elsewhere in Jomon work -- masks, pottery decoration. It is a visual theme that matters to them.

Chronology is everything here. The Jomon period is 10,000 years long -- longer than all of recorded European history. Grouping all dogu as a single phenomenon is like grouping all Western art from year 1 to year 1000 and asking what it means. So: when do the "spacesuit" dogu appear? Do they form a continuous tradition? Do they cluster regionally? Yatagarasu, you know the literature -- what does the record say about timing and distribution?

The goggle-eyed dogu cluster mostly in the Middle Jomon (about 3000-2000 BC), concentrated in certain regions -- the Kanto Plain especially. They do not appear in the earliest period and are not evenly distributed. This is IMPORTANT: if the Jomon were recording alien visitors, why only in the Middle period, only in certain regions? The parsimonious explanation is an artistic tradition that emerged, spread, and faded. During the SAME period they were making spectacular cord-marked pottery and masks -- the goggle-eyed dogu are one tradition among many, integrated into a larger cultural moment. Not anomalies. Human art responding to human concerns.

I want to look at those masks -- same period and regions. If the goggle-eye motif appears in BOTH dogu and masks, that suggests it is a meaningful symbol in Jomon culture, not a depiction of alien technology. Symbols are human; they mean something; they participate in a culture's understanding of itself. Alien replicas are just copies. Send me the mask images and I will compare the visual language.