The Japanese kitchen () is the place where food is prepared in a Japanese house. Until the Meiji era, a kitchen was also called kamado (; lit. stove) and there are many sayings in the Japanese language that involve kamado as it was considered the symbol of a house. The term could even be used to mean "family" or "household" (much as "hearth" does in English). Separating a family was called kamado wo wakeru, or "divide the stove". Kamado wo yaburu (lit. "break the stove") means that the family was broken. Early history In the Jōmon period, from the 10,000 BC to 300 BC, people gathered into villages, where they lived in shallow pit dwellings. These simple huts were between 10 and 30 square meters and had a hearth in the center. Early stoves were nothing more than a shallow pit (jikaro 地床炉), but they were soon surrounded by stones to catch the fire sparks. A bottomless clay vase soon replaced the stones as these became hot quickly and occupants had to be careful around a stove. This type of stove is called umigamero (埋甕炉; lit. "buried vase stove"). As the stove became safer, it was moved from the center of house to the side and, by the late Kofun period (6th century), almost all houses had a stove at one end of the house. Some rich families in the Kofun period built a separate house where cooking was done. In these houses, food was stored in sacks and pots in a hole dug on the floor. Houses were constructed near a river or a spring for easy access to water. In the Yayoi period (300 BC to AD 250) the cultivation of rice became widespread, and villages would be constructed near a marsh and a lowland. The water was muddy and Asaido (浅井戸), which means a shallow well, were constructed. An asaido was filled with sand and pebbles through which the water flowed to filter out mud and larger organisms. Some villages stored food outside a house in a large storehouse. The kitchen remained unchanged for over 500 years, between the Nara period in the 8th century until the Muromachi period (1336–1573). Kitchens were furnished with the following items: Ashikanahe or Ashimarokanahe (足釜) - A nine- or ten-legged iron pot. Kakekanahe or Kakemarokanahe (懸釜) - An iron pot that was fitted over a stove. It had a "fringe" that