in hunting and fishing, and also practiced some degree of agriculture. The Jōmon people also used stoneware and pottery, and generally lived in pit dwellings. Some elements of modern Japanese culture may have come from the Jōmon culture. Among these elements are the precursory beliefs to modern Shinto, some marriage customs, some architectural styles, and possibly some technological developments such as lacquerware, laminated , metalworking, and glass making. Pottery The style of pottery created by the Jōmon people is identifiable for its "cord-marked" patterns, hence the name . The pottery styles characteristic of the first phases of Jōmon culture used decoration created by impressing cords into the surface of wet clay, and are generally accepted to be among the oldest forms of pottery in East Asia and the world. Next to clay pots and vessels, the Jōmon also made many highly stylized statues (), clay masks, stone batons or rods and swords. Craftsmanship There is evidence that the Jōmon people built ships out of large trees and used them for fishing and traveling; however, there is no agreement as to whether they used sails or paddles. The Jōmon people also used obsidian, jade and different kinds of wood. The Jōmon people created many jewelry and ornamental items; for instance, were likely invented by one of the Jōmon tribes, and are commonly found throughout Japan and less in Northeast Asia. Religion It is suggested that the religion of the Jōmon people was similar to early Shinto (specifically Ko-Shintō). It was largely based on animism, and possibly shamanism. Other similar religions are the Ryukyuan and Ainu religions. Origins The Jōmon people predominantly descended from an Ancestral East Asian population expanding out of Mainland Southeast Asia or the southeastern Himalayan region. Geneflow from Upper-Paleolithic groups of Northern Eurasia and Siberia was detected in local Jōmon period samples from Hokkaido and Tohoku. Evidence suggests that the ethnic roots of the Jōmon period population was rather heterogeneous and that migration routes can be traced back to ancient Northeast Asia, the Tibetan plateau, ancient Taiwan and paleolithic Siberia. According to a 2009 study, the Jōmon people are an admixture of several distinct ethnic groups. According to the review article “Jōmon culture and the peopling of the Japanese archipelago” by Schmidt and Seguchi (2014), the prehistoric Jōmon people descended from diverse paleolithic populations with multiple migrations into Jōmon-period Japan. They concluded: "In this respect, the biological identity