Jōmon Mawaki Onsen

Jomon Mawaki Onsen in Ishikawa Prefecture takes its name from the Jomon period — Japan's prehistoric era spanning roughly 14,000 BCE to 300 BCE — and the Mawaki archaeological site in Noto Town, where excavations have uncovered evidence of Jomon people using the local thermal spring for bathing, making this one of the few Japanese hot springs with documented prehistoric human use stretching back thousands of years beyond the oldest written records of Japanese onsen history. The spring occupies a setting on the Noto Peninsula's Ura-Noto coast, a UNESCO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage region where the traditional satoyama and satoumi landscape of integrated mountain and marine agriculture has been maintained for centuries, adding a layer of living cultural heritage to the extraordinary prehistoric bathing history of this geothermal site. Jomon Mawaki Onsen's prehistoric bathing legacy, its Noto Peninsula coastal setting, and its position within one of Japan's most culturally and agriculturally significant traditional landscapes make it one of the country's most historically profound thermal spring destinations, connecting contemporary bathers directly to the same geothermal waters used by Japan's prehistoric inhabitants.