The word jômon means "straw-rope pattern," the typically used description for the style of pottery of the earliest Japanese period. As a result, such period, the Jomon Period (8000 B.C.E. - 250 B.C.E.), was named after the style. The pottery of the Final Jomon period is much simpler in design compared to the older styles, beginning to resemble those of the second prehistoric Japanese period, the Yayoi Period (250 B.C.E. - 250 C.E.).

Scholars divide Jomon pots into four different categories: fukabachi, or deep bowls/jars; asabachi, or shallow bowls, tsubo, vessels with narrow mouths and usually long necks; and chuko, vessels with spouts.

Jomon pottery had multiple uses. It's primary use was for storing food. The Jomon people, who dug pits to store things, including for to bury the dead. However, scholars have discovered that pots were also used for storing corpses, such as that of infants.

The following are examples of pottery from the four different types of Jomon pottery: