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The origins of pottery in East Asia and neighboring regions: An analysis based on radiocarbon data
... Currently, four contrasting scenarios for the emergence of pottery in the Urals and West Siberia within the wider sphere of Stone Age huntergatherer ceramics seem possible: (1) The innovation dispersed in a continuous spread from the early centres in East Asia in a westerly direction, ultimately meeting other (farmer) pottery traditions along a kind of frontier running from NW to SE Europe (e.g., Jordan et al., 2016); (2) Pottery vessels were invented independently by various North Eurasian foraging communities, forming separate regional innovation centres, one of them possibly located in the Trans-Urals (e.g., Kuzmin, 2017); (3) The pottery technology dispersed into the study region from the West, originating from early ceramic production cores in the North Pontic and Caspian regions, with a "meeting line" between the different Eastern and Western traditions further east; (4) Various strands of early pottery traditions reached the study area from the South-West and from the East, triggering the development of local styles further north. The evaluation of these respective scenarios must be based on a sound absolute chronology. ...
... Continent-wide, the data adds up to the phenomenon of a world of pottery-producing hunter-gatherers that developed completely independent from farming communities for many millennia from the Far East to the Baltic region. It is not clear, however, whether this phenomenon was the result of a continuous East-West dispersal of the ceramic innovation , or whether pottery technology has rather been invented/adopted independently several times by hunter-gatherer groups in this vast area and dispersed along smaller-scale regional trajectories into new areas (Kuzmin, 2017;Yanshina, 2017). The world's oldest known ceramic vessels have been produced in Eastern China in the remote times of the Last Glacial Maximum, around 18,000 cal BC (Kuzmin, 2017;Sato and Morisaki, 2017). ...
... It is not clear, however, whether this phenomenon was the result of a continuous East-West dispersal of the ceramic innovation , or whether pottery technology has rather been invented/adopted independently several times by hunter-gatherer groups in this vast area and dispersed along smaller-scale regional trajectories into new areas (Kuzmin, 2017;Yanshina, 2017). The world's oldest known ceramic vessels have been produced in Eastern China in the remote times of the Last Glacial Maximum, around 18,000 cal BC (Kuzmin, 2017;Sato and Morisaki, 2017). Over the following millennia, pottery technology became known in the Russian Amur region, in Japan, Korea, Transbaikalia and the northern parts of South-East Asia. ...
The emergence of pottery among Stone Age hunter-gatherer societies of Eurasia constitutes one of the major open questions in Old World prehistory. Located halfway between the earliest Late Glacial cores of pottery production in East Asia, and Eastern Europe with forager ceramic starting around 6000 cal BC, the Urals and West Siberia are a key region in various scenarios currently under discussion. A lack of reliable absolute dates has been hindering an in-depth understanding of the temporal and spatial scales of the initial spread of the ceramic innovation. A Russian-German dating programme has now created a more reliable chronology of the early pottery phase, based on 28 AMS dates from across the study region. Taking freshwater reservoir effects into account, we can show that the earliest reliable evidence for pottery stems from the West Siberian forest steppes and Urals foothills, dating to the end of the 7th millennium cal BC. Over the following centuries, the innovation spread rapidly north into the taiga. Here, the early pottery horizon coincides with a unique set of innovations and intensification in the settlement system and the socio-economic sphere, including the appropriation of vast previously barely settled regions, the emergence of complex and even fortified settlements, and of ritual mounds. Pilot isotopic analyses of pottery charred crusts indicate diverse functions of the early vessels that were apparently not restricted to the processing of fish. The emerging wider picture indicates a surprisingly late, largely concurrent appearance of pottery in hunter-gatherer groups over extensive areas along the southern fringes of the taiga to both sides of the Urals at the end of the 7th millennium cal BC which is apparently not connected to the earlier, Late Pleistocene ceramic traditions in Trans-Baikalia and further East. Possible links to the 8.2 ka climatic event, other underlying triggers as well as the detailed chronology of these developments are still poorly understood and require further archaeological, biomolecular and typological studies.
... 16,000-10,000 years ago; hereafter e cal BP, e.g. Kuzmin, 2015Kuzmin, , 2017. Together with southern China and Japan, the RFE represents one of the three main centres of early pottery emergence in East Asia. ...
... These early pottery sites are associated with two different archaeological cultures e Osipovka Culture and Gromatukha Culture (Kuzmin, 2002(Kuzmin, , 2017Zhushchikhovskaya, 2005;Derevianko and Medvedev, 2006;Shevkomud and Yanshina, 2012;Yanshina, 2017). The sites of Khummi, Gasya and Goncharka 1 are located in the extensive lowlands of the Lower Amur River, and belong to the Osipovka Culture. ...
... Radiocarbon dating has since demonstrated that the oldest pottery layers date to the Late Glacial (e.g. Kuzmin, 2015Kuzmin, , 2017. ...
... The earliest pottery vessels in the world, however, appeared in East and Northeast Asia as early as the late Pleistocene (Barnes 2015;Cohen 2013;Gibbs and Jordan 2013;Jordan and Zvelebil 2009;Kaner and Taniguchi [2017] 2018; Kuzmin 2015Kuzmin , 2017bSato and Natsuki 2017;Yanshina 2017), with studies suggesting an appearance in South China between 20,000 and 17,000 cal yr BP (Boaretto et al. 2009;Cohen et al. 2017;Wu et al. 2012), in North China around 11,500 cal yr BP (Li, Kunikita, and Kato 2017;Xia et al. 2001), in the Japanese Archipelago between 17,000/16,000 and 15,000 cal yr BP (Barnes 2015;Habu 2004;Kaner and Taniguchi [2017] 2018; Keally, Taniguchi, and Kuzmin 2003;Kudo 2012;Morisaki and Natsuki 2017; National Museum of Japanese History 2009;Taniguchi 2005Taniguchi , 2006, in the Russian Far East between 16,000 and 14,000 cal yr BP (Buvit and Terry 2011;Hashizume, Shevkomud, andUchida 2016, 2017), and in the Transbaikal region of Siberia between 14,000 and 12,900 cal yr BP (Kuzmin 2015(Kuzmin , 2017bKuzmin and Vetrov 2007). In these contexts, ceramics had to have been adopted by hunter-gatherers with varying degrees of mobility. ...
... The earliest pottery vessels in the world, however, appeared in East and Northeast Asia as early as the late Pleistocene (Barnes 2015;Cohen 2013;Gibbs and Jordan 2013;Jordan and Zvelebil 2009;Kaner and Taniguchi [2017] 2018; Kuzmin 2015Kuzmin , 2017bSato and Natsuki 2017;Yanshina 2017), with studies suggesting an appearance in South China between 20,000 and 17,000 cal yr BP (Boaretto et al. 2009;Cohen et al. 2017;Wu et al. 2012), in North China around 11,500 cal yr BP (Li, Kunikita, and Kato 2017;Xia et al. 2001), in the Japanese Archipelago between 17,000/16,000 and 15,000 cal yr BP (Barnes 2015;Habu 2004;Kaner and Taniguchi [2017] 2018; Keally, Taniguchi, and Kuzmin 2003;Kudo 2012;Morisaki and Natsuki 2017; National Museum of Japanese History 2009;Taniguchi 2005Taniguchi , 2006, in the Russian Far East between 16,000 and 14,000 cal yr BP (Buvit and Terry 2011;Hashizume, Shevkomud, andUchida 2016, 2017), and in the Transbaikal region of Siberia between 14,000 and 12,900 cal yr BP (Kuzmin 2015(Kuzmin , 2017bKuzmin and Vetrov 2007). In these contexts, ceramics had to have been adopted by hunter-gatherers with varying degrees of mobility. ...
... (2012) because he did not realize that the uppermost layers, corresponding to the possible Holocene and Neolithic, had been removed in the excavation in the 1960s. Contrary to this perspective, there are suggestions that age-depth reversals can be identified and the presentation of antiquity in Wu et al. (2012) is skewed towards older dates (Kuzmin 2015(Kuzmin , 2017b. ...
Scholars have suggested that late Pleistocene foragers in greater East and Northeast Asia adopted pottery, but the chronology and behavioral contexts of pottery adoption are debated. This review evaluates those cases and debates, and places them into the context of the peopling of the Americas. Pottery was adopted (1) around the time of the adoption of (partially) domesticated plant foods in China, (2) by mobile foragers of the terminal Oldest Dryas in Honshu Japan, (3) by Bølling/Allerød period foragers with increased sedentism in the Russian Far East, and (4) by mobile foragers either in the Bølling/Allerød or early–mid Holocene in the Transbaikal. I suggest that mobile foragers without pottery migrated from East and Northeast Asia to Beringia prior to 15,000 calendar years ago. Alternatively, mobile pottery producers of Honshu (Oldest Dryas), or Hokkaido and/or Honshu (Bølling/Allerød) may have dispersed to Beringia and the Americas, but pottery has a low visibility.
... Wide ranging dates from pottery-bearing layers and potential diagenesis have also been suggested (e.g., Iizuka, 2018;Kuzmin, 2017;Lu, 2010;Wu et al., 2005;Yanshina and Sobolev, 2018). Rice phytoliths and rice macro-botanical remains, with evidence of domestication and partial domestication normally associated with the early Holocene, are reported from early ceramic-bearing layers at certain sites (e.g., MacNeish, 1999;Yuan, 2002;Zhang, 2002;Zhao, 1998). ...
... In northcentral Mongolia, near the border with the Transbaikal, estimated dates for the first pottery are in the early Holocene ca. 8500 Cal yr BP (Kuzmin, 2017adopting Kuzmin 2014 adding to the controversy. Therefore, in the Transbaikal area, debates about the earliest ceramic dates have continued, mainly between interpretations based on the radiocarbon chronology and the stratigraphy. ...
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Two opinions exist regarding to the appearance of the oldest pottery in the Transbaikal Region, Russia— (1) in the early Neolithic during the Holocene Atlantic optimum (6.5–5.5 ka Cal yr BP), or (2) during the Taymir Warm period of the Sartan Glacial (12.0–10.8 ka Cal yr BP)— both derived from the same archaeological component, Cultural Layer 9, at the Studenoe 1 Site. Here we scrutinized data related to the geochronology of early ceramic-yielding layers at Studenoe 1. Results shows that the radiocarbon dates between 15,080 and 12,720 Cal yr BP contradict site stratigraphy which consists of vertically accreting overbank deposits and buried soil horizons that developed during periods of landscape stability. Palynological and stable-carbon isotope analyses also show inconsistencies with the calibrated radiocarbon dates. We do not yet know the reason for these anomalies, however, it may be that alpine glacier and permafrost thawing, and the subsequent supply of older carbon into the Chikoi River, ceased during cold periods, but accelerated during terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene warm periods, causing a systematic error of older radiocarbon dates.
... During the past decade several studies have shown that pottery was indeed abundantly present in the hunter-gatherer societies of Northern Eurasia Jordan et al., 2016;Kuzmin, 2017;Lucquin et al., 2018;Shoda et al., , 2018Wu et al., 2012). Jordan et al. (2016) showed that pottery was independently invented in both East Asia -South China, and sub-Saharan Africa. ...
... The adoption of pottery by non-agriculturist hunter-gatherer societies has gained substantial interest over the past two decades. Research focus is mainly on initial pottery invention (at around 20,000 years ago (Wu et al. 2012)) and the subsequent dispersal in Northeast Asia Jordan et al. 2016;Kuzmin 2017;Lucquin et al. 2018). The majority of these studies employed organic residue analysis as a method to establish the prehistoric contents of the ceramic vessels, and subsequently infer vessel function. ...
This PhD research investigates the adoption of pottery technology into New World Subarctic
(i.e., Southwest Alaska), through the application of organic residue analysis and stable isotope analysis to identify pottery function. While durable containers such as pottery first made their appearance as early as 20,000 years ago in southeastern China, the adoption of such technologies was significantly delayed in (sub)Arctic regions. In fact, the very presence of pottery in this extreme marginal area has long been considered an enigma, as the Arctic
environment and climate is ill-suited for pyrotechnology. Nonetheless, ceramic technology
made an abrupt appearance in Alaska by about 2,800 years ago. While there is general
consensus that the ultimate source of this Alaskan pottery tradition lay in Northeast Asia, the drivers behind the adoption of pottery into the New World have remained largely unclear, but are thought to be associated with a maritime intensification.
By applying organic residue analysis to nearly 40 early pottery vessels from the Alaska Peninsula it was found that early pottery was in fact generally used to process anadromous
species such as salmon. This riverine focus of pottery function is further supported by the
distribution of early pottery sites adjacent to large river systems, both in Alaska as well as in
Northeast Siberia. It is only later that a focus on the coastal zones becomes apparent.
Therefore, while some have suggested (or assumed) that Alaskan pottery was a tool inherent to maritime adaptations, mainly on the basis of ethnographic information, we argue that the first Alaskan (Norton) pottery was in fact an integral part of a riverine adaptation that originated in the Late Neolithic cultures of interior Northeast Siberia.
The shift from a riverine to a marine focused function of the pottery occurs in Alaska with the introduction of the Thule phase (ca. 1,000 cal BP to contact times). This is apparent on the Alaska Peninsula and on Kodiak Island where about 40 Thule and Koniag vessels were tested. Locally, differences in uptake are apparent. In the Aleutian Islands stone bowls, used to render marine mammal oils, occur as early as 9,000 years ago, but were never used on the
neighbouring Alaska Peninsula. On Kodiak Island pottery adoption was significantly delayed
(by 2,000 years compared to the Alaska Peninsula). These differences in uptake may reflect
long-established social boundaries that are apparent in material culture as well as in linguistics on Kodiak Island, the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. Nonetheless, this research shows a fairly uniform function for durable container technologies in SW Alaska: the processing of aquatic resources. These insights make an original contribution to the wider debate on hunter-gatherer pottery adoption, and further supports its connection to the
exploitation of aquatic products.
... The Neolithic in North Asia is defined by the appearance and dispersal of new stone (tool) technologies (nephrite) and the use of different manufacturing methods [19][20][21] . Important features of the period are several categories of tools, which include the bow, early pottery and fishing equipment of great variety: fishing hooks (often of composite types) and harpoons 10 . ...
... In North Asia the oldest ceramic dates are from 14,000 -10,000 BP and are found in the Transbaikal region, the lower Amur river, in Primorsky Krai and in Japan 20,24 . Early pottery has also been discovered in the Cis-Baikal area but the remains a rare type of archaeological artefact 10 . ...
... In East Asia, recent radiocarbon studies regarding the earliest pottery have provided a precise chronology of the emergence of pottery use in this region (Taniguchi and Kawaguchi, 2001;Kuzmin and Keally, 2001;Keally et al., 2003;Kudo, 2012;Kuzmin, 2017;Morisaki and Natsuki, 2017;Derevianko et al., 2017;Sato and Natsuki, 2017). Also, archaeological excavation and/or re-investigation (Wu et al., 2012; Sasebo city board of education, 2016; Hashizume et al., 2016Hashizume et al., , 2017Li et al., 2017;, analyses of carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios and C/N values from charred remains on pottery Kunikita et al., 2013Kunikita et al., , 2017, and recent results of lipid and organic substances remaining as charred residue (Craig et al., 2013;Gibbs et al., 2017;Lucquin et al., 2018) provide ample data on pottery adoption and use. ...
A number of AMS radiocarbon dates, accumulated since the 1990's, reveal that ceramic technology first developed among non-agricultural, hunter-gatherer societies in the late Pleistocene of East Asia. Specifically, on the Japanese Archipelago the radiocarbon chronology indicates a diverse trajectory of pottery adoption. The earliest adoption of pottery here was by mobile hunter-gatherers, regardless of region and climatic event. On the other hand, pottery culture suddenly started to flourish later along the warmer Pacific coastline region of southwestern Japan just after the onset of climatic warming of the Late Glacial, and spread throughout the archipelago by the onset of the Holocene. Climatic amelioration, therefore, did not induce the ‘beginning’ of pottery use, but prompted the ‘development’ of sedentary lifestyles accompanying intensified use of pottery. This complicated situation clearly means that motivation and context of pottery adoption do not follow a simple explanation. However, recent studies of chemical and isotope analyses of charred residues on pottery indicate similar use of early pottery throughout the archipelago in the late Pleistocene and the early Holocene. This paper critically re-evaluates these issues through examining synchronic and diachronic archaeological contexts. Existing data indicate that there is great inter-regional variability in technology, subsistence, paleoenvironment, and adaptation associated with pottery, therefore the motivation for the adoption of pottery is distinct within various geographical, environmental, and temporal contexts in the archipelago.
... At Ust-Karenga 12 in Transbaikal, ceramics dating as early as 14,000 years ago were found (Razgildeeva et al. 2013). No ceramics within Mongolia are yet dated to this period (Kuzmin 2014(Kuzmin , 2017. The earliest firmly dated ceramics are from the Gobi region (Odsuren et al. 2015), at c. 7900 years ago where "netimpressed" decorations have been found . ...
There has been a great increase in archaeological research in Mongolia since 2000. Increasingly precise chronologies, regional studies, and the growth of development-driven archaeology are transforming our knowledge of this key region of northeastern Asia. This review summarizes recent work and provides a narrative of the prehistoric and medieval cultural sequences as presently understood. I focus on long-standing key topics: early human habitation, the adoption of food-producing economies, Bronze Age social transformations, and the emergence of central places and large polities. I argue that, on the one hand, Mongolia has unique data and new examples to offer the archaeological community and, on the other, that the prehistory of Mongolia and the steppe are not so different from the rest of the world in its history of research and key questions. This review provides general overviews covering the Upper Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic or Neolithic, and Bronze Age to the Xiongnu period; specific data related to each period provide jumping-off points for comparative analysis and further examination.
... Thanks to the diffusion of non-and micro-destructive analytical techniques, the information gathered from the evaluation of stylistic parameters can now be supported by archaeometric studies. Beside dating [1,30,31], the main contribution provided by the analytical characterization of terracotta-based artefacts consists in the determination of their production technology [53,21,6,48]. ...
This work summarizes the spectroscopic-assisted archaeometric study of the most important terracotta statue of Poseidonia-Paestum (Italy), the so-called Zeus Enthroned (VI sec. BC). The selected analytical strategy combines the mineralogical and molecular information provided by X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman analysis with the elemental data obtained from X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) and Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled to Energy Dispersive Spectrometry (SEM/EDS). To shed light on the raw materials used to create and decorate this unique artwork, the analytical results gathered in this study helped disclosing the applied production technology. As suggested by the detected mineral assemblages, the body was prepared in two steps, using calcareous clay (CC) rich in Mg-and Fe-minerals as raw materials. The inner core and the outer depurated layers were both fired in oxidizing conditions but reaching different temperatures (≥900 o C and 850-900 o C respectively). The statue was decorated by firing manganese-(jacobsite MnFe 2 O 4) and iron-(hematite Fe 2 O 3) oxides in oxidizing conditions. Knowing that the decoration techniques based on the use of Mn-oxides were mastered by Etruscans rather than by Ancient Greeks, the obtained results suggest a transfer of production technology across borders, thus providing an additional clue about the flourishing commercial and cultural exchanges occurred between Greek colonies and Italic pre-Roman societies.
... (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.) (Kuzmin, 2017;Kuzmin and Vetrov, 2007;Razgildeeva et al., 2013). However, dates based on stratigraphic observations-with pottery recovered from the black A horizon that developed in the Holocene-indicate the introduction of pottery during the Atlantic Optimum, 7000-6000 years ago (Konstantinov, 2016). ...
... (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.) (Kuzmin, 2017;Kuzmin and Vetrov, 2007;Razgildeeva et al., 2013). However, dates based on stratigraphic observations-with pottery recovered from the black A horizon that developed in the Holocene-indicate the introduction of pottery during the Atlantic Optimum, 7000-6000 years ago (Konstantinov, 2016). ...
In the southern part of Kyushu Island in southern Japan and the small islands further south the earliest pottery is found beneath the Satsuma tephra, which has been well dated to ca. 12,800 cal BP. Here we focus on Incipient Jomon pottery, 14,000/13,500–12,800 cal BP, from the Sankakuyama I site on Tanegashima Island. Previous visual analysis of the fabrics suggested that about half of the vessels were not locally made. In this study, we conducted both ceramic and raw material petrography and an electron microprobe study on samples of pottery. Our results indicate that pottery was mainly produced in situ, away from the coast, but that there is some clear non-local material which came from either Yakushima Island or Kyushu Island proper. Yakushima has no reported Incipient Jomon sites. There should be undiscovered sites on Yakushima if pottery circulated from there rather than Sankakuyama I residents embedding production in their logistical moves on Yakushima. Minor signatures of non-local geology in locally produced pottery are probably the result of volcanic eruptions and sea currents. Pottery production began when Tanegashima was disconnected from Kyushu and probably about to be separated from Yakushima. During the Incipient Jomon period, Tanegashima had become isolated. We conclude that pottery producers were hunter-gatherers who were mainly sedentary, living in a mild environmental with ecotone properties. They occasionally engaged in costly communication and exchange, which may have involved transporting pottery by watercraft and on foot, to buffer risks. Our study is among the first to investigate the pottery economy of the late Pleistocene and the decisions made by its producers and users in response to environmental variability and change. The research contributes to the debate on the origins of pottery and the Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic transition.
In north-eastern Europe, resource-rich aquatic and boreal ecotopes were created with the stabilization of climate during the early Holocene, with a climatic optimum from ca, 8ka cal BP. During this period, pottery technology also dispersed across the continent and was taken up by a broad range of hunter-gatherer societies. We aim to explore how early pottery-producing hunter-gatherers adapted to these new conditions and the relationship between pottery and their subsistence economy. This study focuses on the site of Zamostje 2, located 110 km north of Moscow in Russia, along the Dubna River, one of the most important sites in this region due to its remarkably preserved, uninterrupted stratigraphic sequence from Mesolithic to Middle Neolithic (Lozovski and Chaix, 1996). The site was occupied during the Atlantic period from around 7,000 to 5,500 cal BC. The site has produced a very significant collection of well-preserved artefacts and ecofacts.
Faunal remains at Zamostje 2 site suggest a broad subsistence economy based on hunting/gathering/fishing throughout the late Mesolithic and Neolithic (Losovski and al. 2013), the latter period defined by the introduction of pottery. In order to examine the motivation for its introduction, we aimed to test whether pottery had a specific function or alternatively were used for processing a broad range of foodstuffs. To do this, we undertook molecular and isotope analysis of lipids extracted from 135 samples of absorbed and superficial organic residues on ceramics from Zamostje 2, using GC/MS and GC-c-IRMS. The results are compared to the use of other food-processing technologies (lithic, wooden artefacts, basketry) which are exceptionally preserved at this site, and to the botanical and faunal records.
The article presents in details the data recently obtained by the authors as a result of specified technological study of ancient Middle Eastern pottery (Proto-Hassuna period and the Hassuna culture (the archaic stage)) and the earliest pottery of the Russian Far East (the Osipovka, Gromatukha, Novopetrovka and Mariinskoe cultures). In total, fragments of approximately 823 vessels were studied. The authors reconstructed earliest ancient traditions inherent in all stages of pottery technology, shapes of the vessels, their decoration and use in everyday life. Finally, the comparative analysis of the earliest Near Eastern and Far Eastern pottery traditions was conducted. The paper summarizes similarities and peculiarities of the pottery emergence in these two regions.
The Neolithization of Northern Eurasia is marked by the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer societies. The driving forces behind the adoption of ceramic cooking vessels among non-agricultural societies remain unclear, although previous research, mainly in North East Asia (e.g. Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East), suggests that it was adopted as a specialist technology for processing aquatic resources, linked to the intensification of fishing activities and a move to sedentism. The stratified site of Zamostje 2 in the forest zone of the Volga-Oka region includes both aceramic Mesolithic and two early ceramic horizons dating to Early Neolithic (EN) and Middle Neolithic (MN). This provides a unique opportunity to look at the impacts of the adoption of pottery on the wider economy and determine whether pottery function changes over time. This was achieved through the analysis of lipids from 166 potsherds dating from the earliest phases (mid-6th millennium cal BC) to the MN (5th millennium cal BC). Contrary to our expectations, the pottery from the EN phase was used to process a broad range of foodstuffs including terrestrial resources, such as forest fruits, in addition to freshwater fish. In contrast, pottery from the MN phase was used exclusively for processing aquatic resources. The results show that in this case, pottery was adopted as a more general-purpose cooking container, at least in the earliest phases of use, and that a specialist function only emerged later.
Significance
The motivations for the widespread adoption of pottery is a key theme in world prehistory and is often linked to climate warming at the start of the Holocene. Through organic residue analysis, we investigated the contents of >800 ceramic samples from across the Japanese archipelago, a unique assemblage that transcends the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary. Against our expectations, we found that pottery use did not fundamentally change in the Early Holocene. Instead, aquatic resources dominated in both periods regardless of the environmental setting. Nevertheless, we found that a broader range of aquatic foods was processed in Early Holocene vessels, corresponding to increased ceramic production, reduced mobility, intensified fishing, and the start of significant shellfish gathering at this time.
The earliest pottery in East Asia, as is found in several cave sites in southern China, emerges in Upper Paleolithic contexts dating from the Last Glacial Maximum, ∼20 Ka cal BP. The making of simple pottery vessels in Late Pleistocene East Asia also has been noted in eastern Siberia and Japan but not yet in the Central Plains of China. This paper summarizes the better-reported evidence for early pottery sites across the vast region of China south of the Yangtze River, providing details on two dating projects conducted in the cave sites of Xianrendong (Jiangxi Province) and Yuchanyan (Hunan Province). The excavated contexts in these two caves and a few others clearly indicate that this early pottery was the creation of hunter-gatherers who hunted available game and foraged a variety of plant foods. The nature of the cave occupations is ephemeral, and where the published animal and plant remains allow, we suggest that there were repeated, seasonal occupations. In sum, there is no basis yet to suggest that the making of early pottery in South China marked sedentary or plant-cultivating communities.
In the Chinese context, pottery that predates ca. 9000 14C BP is referred to as “early pottery”. Research on the early pottery of China had been conducted mostly in central and southern China; in contrast, research in northern China has been restricted, and only 5 sites had been discovered to date. Therefore, additional data is needed to foster the progress of research on early pottery in northern China. Given this situation, there is great value in the investigation of the many potsherds associated with microblade industry that have been found in secondary sediments of Layer 5 of the Lingjing site in Henan Province, on the Huang-Huai Plain at the southern end of the North China Plain.
Where did pottery first appear in the Old World? Statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates suggests that ceramic vessel technology had independent origins in two different hunter-gatherer societies. Regression models were used to estimate average rates of spread and geographic dispersal of the new technology. The models confirm independent origins in East Asia (c. 16000 cal BP) and North Africa (c. 12000 cal BP). The North African tradition may have later influenced the emergence of Near Eastern pottery, which then flowed west into Mediterranean Europe as part of a Western Neolithic, closely associated with the uptake of farming.
The Neolithic is a key topic in the study of Old World prehistory but how the Neolithic is defined varies between regions. In East Asia the invention of pottery is often seen as marking the start of the Neolithic. In contrast to this ‘eastern’ perspective, in western parts of Eurasia it is the presence of agriculture that usually defines the onset of a Neolithic way of life. This paper adopts a comparative perspective, examining the origins and development of pottery, agriculture and sedentary life in East Asia and Southwest Asia. We suggest that a comparative perspective indicates that some of the most enduring themes of Neolithic studies need to be reconsidered, namely: (1) the idea of a Neolithic package consisting of a number of associated traits (including, among other things, agriculture, sedentary sites, and pottery) that developed and spread together, (2) the notion of the Neolithic as a revolutionary event marking a sharp break from the preceding Palaeolithic period, and (3) the enduring impact of the Neolithic on later periods.
Late Pleistocene and early post-Pleistocene communities in East Asia experimented with pottery production and the domestication of plants and animals. What was the nature of the social organisation of these early small-scale societies? Some North American writers consider pottery making to be a 'prestige technology' sponsored by aggrandising individuals. However, examples from south of the Nanling Mountains and other areas have simple tool assemblages and site plans showing very little evidence of social differences. Judging from recent debates about social agency, there are more appropriate explanations for the earliest pottery making, which focus on the collective rather than the individual.
Recent developments related to the emergence of pottery in East Asia and neighbouring regions are presented. According to a critical evaluation of the existing evidence, the oldest centres with pottery in East Asia are situated in South China (dated to c. 18 000 calBP), the Japanese Islands (c. 16 700 calBP), and the Russian Far East (c. 15 900 calBP). It is most likely that pottery-making appeared in these regions independently of each other. In Siberia, the earliest pottery now known is
from the Transbaikal region (dated to c. 14 000 calBP). However, it did not influence the more westerly parts of Siberia in terms of the origin and spread of pottery-making.
As with conventional definitions of the Neolithic anywhere, the concept in this region relies on there being an agricultural economy, the traces of which are largely indirect. These traces are artefacts interpreted as being linked to agriculture, rather than direct finds of agricultural crops, which are rare in Island Southeast Asia. This definition by artefacts is inevitably polythetic, particularly because many of the sites which have been investigated are hardly comparable. We can expect quite different assemblages from open village sites as opposed to special use sites such as burial caves, or frequentation caves that are used occasionally either by agriculturalists while hunting or by gatherer-hunter groups in some form of interaction with near-by agricultural populations. And rarely is a full range of these different classes of sites available in any one area.
The invention of ceramic objects made from fire-hardened clay represents an important and early step in the development of pyrotechnology. This paper examines pottery invention and innovation by hunter-gatherers in East Asia and by farmers in the Near East to examine how prehistoric communities in different socio-economic systems came to rely heavily on fired-clay containers. Drawing on advances in archaeological science, it examines from a comparative perspective early pottery's broader entanglements related to technology and use and argues that early pottery production by farmers in the Near East can be viewed as a process of innovation in a longer tradition of container technology, while the first hunter-gatherer pottery production in East Asia provides a better case for independent invention.
This paper discusses recent data from North and South China, Japan, and the Russian Far East and eastern Siberia on the dating and function of early pottery during the Late Pleistocene period and shows how reconsiderations are needed for the patterns and reasons for its emergence and spread. Early pottery typically appears in contexts that, except for containing small amounts of pottery, are otherwise similar to Late Paleolithic sites. There is also no evidence of plant cultivation, so clearly in eastern Asia, the old view of pottery's emergence or dispersal as only coming within agricultural societies is no longer viable. Greater consideration needs to be given to the invention and spread of pottery in hunter-gatherer societies. This paper first reviews recent finds of early pottery sites in South China and North China that now clearly show that the pottery first appears in otherwise Late Paleolithic contexts. Excavations and re-dating at Xianrendong Cave (Jiangxi) in South China show that pottery appears there in securely dated stratigraphic contexts dating to ca. 20,000 cal BP, during the Last Glacial Maximum, some ten millennia before sedentary, Early Neolithic villages first appear in China. Yuchanyan Cave (Hunan) has pottery dating to 18,300 cal BP, evidence for processing deer bones to extract marrow and grease, and perhaps evidence of seasonal visits to the site in annual rounds by mobile hunter-gatherer groups.
Sites with early pottery in North China, such as Yujiagou, Zhuannian, Donghulin, Lijiagou, and Nanzhuangtou, appear relatively late, from the climatic downturn of the Younger Dryas, some eight millennia after sites in South China and four millennia after early pottery in Japan and the Russian Far East. North China sites variously feature such adaptations as microblades and/or grinding stones, as well as evidence for the exploitation of wild grasses (including millets), acorns, and tubers. These sites might represent hunter-gatherers retreating to more favorable habitats during the Younger Dryas and indicate reduced mobility and semisedentary practices with more intensified exploitation of closer resources.
Early pottery finds beginning from ca. 16,800 cal BP in Japan (Incipient Jōmon) and the Russian Far East (“Initial Neolithic”) are also reviewed. Incipient Jōmon sites occur contemporaneously with Final Upper Paleolithic sites, and are found from southern Kyūshū to Hokkaidō (Taishō 3 site). With over 80 known sites, Japan has a better evidence for changes in pottery distribution patterns and diverse adaptations to climatic changes from the time period of the earliest site, Ōdai Yamamoto I, to the Holocene. Molecular and stable isotope analyses of pottery adhesions provide valuable data on the use of early pottery in Japan lacking for all other regions: these indicate the widespread use of pottery for processing marine and freshwater animals.
Like Final Upper Paleolithic sites, Incipient Jōmon sites also may have microblades, edge polished stone axes, arrowheads, and bifacial spear points. Undecorated pottery with Mikoshiba-type lithics are found in the initial phase of pottery making (Ōdai Yamamoto I, Kitahara, and Maeda Kōji sites, dating ca. 16,500-13,500 BP). Decorated pottery (Phase 2) begins ca.15,700 cal BP during the Bølling-Allerød warming period and rapidly disperses across the archipelago at a time when there may have been significant changes in subsistence and mobility patterns. Phase 1 pottery might occur during a time of intensive information flow and fluidity of social networks, while diversification of pottery in Phase 2 occurs when social networks were becoming more embedded in place.
Russian “Initial Neolithic” early pottery sites, such as Khummy, Gasya, and Goncharka 1 in the Lower Amur River basin, are transitional between Paleolithic traditions and typical Neolithic sites of the Holocene, with pottery and ground stone tools gradually appearing amongst Upper Paleolithic toolkits. As in China and Japan, early pottery production is at a very low scale, with only limited quantities of sherds being found at a few sites. Eastern Siberia early pottery is first present at the Ust’-Karenga 12 site ca. 13,000 cal BP. Pottery may have dispersed westerly across Siberia as forested areas expanded, perhaps resulting in the introduction of pottery into Europe by hunter-gatherer groups.
Across East Asia, early pottery appears only in small amounts and at a few sites, and it persists in this episodic, low scale usage from the Last Glacial Maximum until the Early Holocene. We still need to better understand why this is the case. Early pottery may have been invented and used for special purposes, such as in feasting that was carried out to achieve various socio-political goals. While pottery also offered utilitarian or economic value, its long-lasting, low-scale use, but widespread dispersal despite this, cannot be fully accounted for only in terms of it being an adaptation tied to subsistence and increasing energy yields. Questions still remain over whether pottery was the result of a single or multiple inventions in East Asia. South China sites are clearly earlier, and the contemporaneity of Japan and Russia does not rule out singular invention and spread, as sites of the same radiocarbon date in the Late Pleistocene actually fall within a real calendrical range on a centuries-long scale. We need to better understand the scale and patterns of hunter-gatherer mobility and the extent of information exchange networks through which knowledge of pottery making could have spread widely in Late Pleistocene East Asia.
This article examines Siberia's increasingly important role in the study of the emergence of pottery across northern Eurasia. The world's earliest pottery comes from Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer sites in East Asia. This material is typically seen as disconnected from later pottery traditions in Europe, which are generally associated with sedentary farmers. However, new evidence suggests that Asian and European pottery traditions may be linked to a Hyperborean stream of hunter-gatherer pottery dispersals that spanned eastern and western Asia, and introduced pottery into the prehistoric societies of northern Europe. As a potential bridge between the eastern and western early pottery traditions, Siberia's prehistory is therefore set to play an increasingly central role in one of world archaeology's most important debates.
This is the first technological analysis of the earliest ceramics from final Late Pleistocene sites on the Amur River (Khabarovsk Province). Principal stages of manufacture are reconstructed, from the selection of raw materials to the chemical and thermal treatment of the surface. Differences between technological traditions practiced at three sites include the choice of paste. The general technological level corresponds to stage 3 of proto-ceramic manufacture, characterized by the use of “alluvial” or “mountain” silt as the principal raw material.
The sources of high quality volcanic glass (obsidian) for archaeological complexes in the Amur River basin of the Russian Far East have been established, based on geochemical analyses by neutron activation and X-ray fluorescence of both ‘geological’ (primary sources) and ‘archaeological’ (artifacts from the Neolithic and Early Iron Age cultural complexes) specimens. A major obsidian source identified as the Obluchie Plateau, located in the middle course of the Amur River, was found to be responsible for supplying the entire middle and lower parts of the Amur River basin during prehistory. The source has been carefully studied and sampled for the first time. Minor use of three other sources was established for the lower part of the Amur River basin. Obsidian from the Basaltic Plateau source, located in the neighboring Primorye (Maritime) Province, was found at two sites of the Initial Neolithic (dated to ca. 11,000–12,500 BP). At two other sites from the same time period, obsidian from a still unknown source called “Samarga” was established. At the Suchu Island site of the Early Neolithic (dated to ca. 7200–8600 BP), obsidian from the ‘remote’ source of Shirataki (Shirataki-A sub-source) on Hokkaido Island (Japan) was identified. The range of obsidian transport in the Amur River basin was from 50 to 750 km within the basin, and from 550 to 850 km in relation to the ‘remote’ sources at the Basaltic Plateau and Shirataki-A located outside the Amur River valley. The long-distance transport/exchange of obsidian in the Amur River basin in prehistory has now been securely established.
Yuchanyan Cave in Daoxian County, Hunan Province (People's Republic of China), yielded fragmentary remains of 2 or more ceramic
vessels, in addition to large amounts of ash, a rich animal bone assemblage, cobble and flake artifacts, bone tools, and shell
tools. The artifacts indicate that the cave was a Late Paleolithic foragers' camp. Here we report on the radiocarbon ages
of the sediments based on analyses of charcoal and bone collagen. The best-preserved charcoal and bone samples were identified
by prescreening in the field and laboratory. The dates range from around 21,000 to 13,800 cal BP. We show that the age of
the ancient pottery ranges between 18,300 and 15,430 cal BP. Charcoal and bone collagen samples located above and below one
of the fragments produced dates of around 18,000. These ceramic potsherds therefore provide some of the earliest evidence
for pottery making in China.
In 1998, geoarchaeological research was carried out at the Upper Paleolithic site of Studenoe in the Transbaikal Region of Russia. The site is divided into three loci situated on two terraces overlooking the Chikoi River. Alluvial sediments beneath the oldest terrace (T2) consist of two depositional units. Radiocarbon ages indicate that aggradation of the T2 fill began before 18,000 yr B.P. Alluvial sediments beneath the lower terrace (T1) range in age from 13,000 to 10,000 yr B.P. and are divided into three depositional units. Both terraces are overlain by Holocene colluvium. Archaeological materials at Studenoe 1/1, 1/2, and 2 include dwellings, hearths, and thousands of bone and stone artifacts assigned to the late Upper Paleolithic through the Bronze Age. Evidence of microblade technology is present in all components of the site. Material from recent excavations of Paleolithic levels in the T2 fill at Studenoe includes mobiliary art, bone needles, and a large dwelling with four hearth features. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The invention of pottery introduced fundamental shifts in human subsistence practices and sociosymbolic behaviors. Here, we
describe the dating of the early pottery from Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi Province, China, and the micromorphology of the stratigraphic
contexts of the pottery sherds and radiocarbon samples. The radiocarbon ages of the archaeological contexts of the earliest
sherds are 20,000 to 19,000 calendar years before the present, 2000 to 3000 years older than other pottery found in East Asia
and elsewhere. The occupations in the cave demonstrate that pottery was produced by mobile foragers who hunted and gathered
during the Late Glacial Maximum. These vessels may have served as cooking devices. The early date shows that pottery was first
made and used 10 millennia or more before the emergence of agriculture.
A typology was established for more than 5000 ceramic artifacts at Dolni Vestonice, Czechoslovakia. Conjectured methods of
manufacture were confirmed by radiography. The compositions and mineralogy of the artifacts were identical to those of the
local soil, loess. A firing temperature range of 500° to 800° C was measured and compared with those of hearths and kilns.
The mechanism of sintering was impurity-initiated, liquid-phase sintering. Many fracture sections show evidence of thermal
shock, although thermal expansion of the loess is low. The making, firing, and sometimes exploding of the figurines may have
been the prime function of the ceramics at this site rather than being manufactured as permanent, portable objects.
Over 4,500 entries
This dictionary is the most wide-ranging and comprehensive of its kind, covering the essential vocabulary for everyday archaeological work in the English language. There is coverage of principles, theories, techniques, artefacts, materials, people, places, monuments, equipment, and descriptive terms.
The dictionary focuses especially on Europe, the Old World, and the Americas, and covers legislation relating to the United Kingdom and the USA, though this third edition does add a fair number of entries relating to the Near East and Asia. These include Angara Style , Donghulin Culture , Hasanlu , Samarra Culture , and Tel Tsaf , as well as a new appendix listing Chinese rulers and dynasties.
Written by a leading authority, the dictionary’s detailed but clear entries provide an essential reference source for students, teachers, professionals, and enthusiasts alike.
The origin of pottery is among the most important questions in Old World archaeology. The author undertakes a critical review of radiocarbon dates associated with the earliest pottery-making and eliminates a number of them where the material or its context are unreliable. Using those that survive this process of 'chronometric hygiene', he proposes that food-containers made of burnt clay originated in East Asia in the Late Glacial, c. 13 700-13 300 BP, and appeared in three separate regions, in Japan, China and far eastern Russia, at about the same time.
This study reports radiocarbon dates of more than 30 samples of charred residues on pottery sherds of the Incipient Jomon period. The ages of Linear-relief (Ryukisenmon) pottery were 15,300–13,700 cal BP, with great differences among the samples. The pitted decoration (Enkomon), Nail-impressed (Tsumegatamon), and pressing and dragging (Oshibikimon) types date to 13,800–12,400 cal BP. For pottery of the same type, differences among sites were large. At the Unokiminami site, the impressed cord mark (Oatsu Jomon) is the main pottery type, including Nail-impressed. The latter shows a slightly older age. Stable isotope and elemental analyses were used to ascertain the origin of charred residues on the pottery. In the data set of Jomon pottery of the oldest type, residues consisting only of cooked nuts were found. However, Jomon people, even from early times, are thought to have cooked mixed plant and animal ingredients, including marine products.
The updated chronology of the earliest pottery-containing complexes in Siberia and the Russian Far East is presented herein. The appearance of pottery (i.e. the process of Neolithization) in this vast region of Eurasia is discussed based on a model that represents a simple approximation of calendar ages between key sites as isolines. No clear spatiotemporal patterns for the origin and spread of pottery in northern Asia can be observed because pottery-making (unlike agriculture) could have emerged in different parts of the Old World at various times. Before modeling of pottery dispersal is conducted, careful evaluation of typology and technology of ceramics and stone artifacts should be done, in order to avoid the confusing situation when the results of modeling contradict the basic archaeological information.
Significance
Pottery has had a central role in human society for many millennia, but the reasons for the emergence and spread of this technology are poorly understood. First invented by groups of hunter–gatherers living in East Asia during the last glacial period, production only began to flourish with rising global temperatures in the Holocene, but the reasons for its uptake and spread are unknown. Through chemical analysis of their contents, we herein provide, to our knowledge, the first direct evidence of pottery use across this climatic transition. Contrary to expectations, ceramic vessels had a remarkably consistent use, predominantly for processing aquatic resources, indicating that cultural rather than environmental factors were most important for their widespread uptake.
To study the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic period and its duration, samples of charcoal, bone, flowstone and shells excavated from Bailiandong and Miaoyan caves, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, South China were dated using the Peking University AMS facility and liquid scintillation counter. The remains excavated from these sites show typical characteristics of the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic. Radiocarbon dating results show a rapid transition from ca. 20 to 10 ka sp.
It has long been believed that the earliest ceramics in the central plain of China were produced by the Neolithic cultures of Jiahu 1 and Peiligang. Excavations at Lijiagou in Henan Province, dating to the ninth millennium BC, have, however, revealed evidence for the earlier production of pottery, probably on the eve of millet and wild rice cultivation in northern and southern China respectively. It is assumed that, as in other regions such as south-west Asia and South America, sedentism preceded incipient cultivation. Here evidence is presented that sedentary communities emerged among hunter-gatherer groups who were still producing microblades. Lijiagou demonstrates that the bearers of the microblade industry were producers of pottery, preceding the earliest Neolithic cultures in central China.
The ceramic technology used to construct and fire an image of a human figurine excavated from a 16,000 year old layer at the archaeological site of Maina on the Yenesei River in southern Siberia is reconstructed using x-radiography, x-ray diffraction, optical and scanning electron microscopy with simultaneous energy dispersive x-ray analysis, and electron beam microprobe analysis. Evidence is provided from the archaeological excavation as well as radiocarbon dating. Comparative studies of the clayey soils at the site add contextual and environmental evidence to establish this remarkable technology as having been carried out at the site using a local clay-loan resource.
This paper examines circumstances that led to the development of incipient cultivation on the Korean peninsula. Long-term changes in subsistence patterns from 8000 B.C. to circa 1500 B.C. (when there was an increase in the practice of cultivation) are examined. The nature of settlement patterns and subsistence practices of this period have been poorly understood. A review of data generated in the 1980s and 1990s suggests that two major regional subsistence patterns existed in Korea in 6000 B.C., leading toward the adoption of small-scale cultivation circa 3500 to 2000 B.C.
The traditional archaeological chronology in the Japanese Islands during the Jomon period was essentially based on the relative age given to cord-impressed patterns marked on pottery, as well as the shape of the pottery and the thickness of the cultural layers that were excavated. We aimed to correlate the classical archaeological chronology with calibrated radiocarbon dates, to posit a new chronology for the Jomon period in northeastern Japan. We calibrated 80 accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dates from NE Japan and reconstructed a chronological timetable for Hokkaido and the Tohoku District. We collected 43 samples from 5 shellmounds and 2 archaeological sites on Hokkaido Island and 4 shellmounds in the Tohoku District in order to determine the calibrated age of their sites. ΔR values used on Hokkaido Island and the Tohoku District were between 282 and -158 yr and between ±0 and -40 yr, respectively. The large ΔR value for the eastern part of Hokkaido Island indicates the influence of the Oyashio Current, while an anomalous ΔR value was obtained from northern Hokkaido Island. These figures show larger apparent ΔR values than those from southwest Japan (Nakamura et al. 2007). The calibrated Jomon period in the investigated area was from 2000 to 200 yr younger than the previous chronology. Calibrated 14C ages of the shellmounds investigated ranged between ~6000 and 3000 yr, correlating to the Early Jomon and Final Jomon periods as indicated by the former archaeological chronology of Honshu Island. © 2010 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona.
A critical evaluation of the existing data corpus on the earliest pottery in East Asia and its chronology as of early 2013 is presented here. Pottery in the Old World emerged in three regions within greater East Asia, namely South China, the Japanese Islands and the Russian Far East, at c. 14,800–13,300 bp (or c. 18,500–15,500 cal. bp). Most probably, pottery-making appeared in these places independently; no solid evidence exists about migrations and/or diffusion of this technology from a supposed single centre in South China. Because the Upper Palaeolithic humans in Eurasia were familiar with clay (as a raw material for making figurines), the most probable driving force for the origin of pottery was the necessity to produce in large amounts durable, light containers for the processing (including boiling) and storing of food.
Drastic climate fluctuations occurred during the Late Glacial (LG), around 15,000–11,500 cal BP also in the Japanese Archipelago. Although some studies have claimed that regional differences in the characteristics of lithic technology and human behavior became apparent at this period, recent studies have revealed that they were already apparent as early as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
Hence, it is important to discuss whether or not the regionality of the LGM had changed by the LG, and to understand the socioecologial processes of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. This paper aims to review lithic technological variation in the Japanese Archipelago before and during the LG, and to investigate behavioral diversity in detail, focusing on the Kyushu region in southwestern Japan.
As the result of the analysis, there are clear differences between northern and southern Kyushu in terms of lithic technology and behavioral strategy. The differences between the two regions continued from the LGM to LG.
Low lithic tool diversity in the northern Kyushu indicates high mobility frequency of humans who carried them. In addition, a high degree of curated reduction strategy, and non-local high quality lithic raw material use also implies a high magnitude of mobility. Curated microblade technology had long helped humans to transport and utilize obsidian lithic resources in a wide foraging territory. This supposition would be supported by the scarcity of archaeological feature there, as well.
By contrast, plenty of archaeological features including trap-pits and pit-dwellings in southern Kyushu implies, as many previous studies claimed, slightly early establishment of sedentary life-way of human groups who inhabited there. High lithic tool diversity in the southern Kyushu means low mobility frequency of humans who carried them, and moreover, the low degree of standardization of flake removal technique, low degree of curated reduction strategy, and the scarcity of use of exotic lithic raw materials all strongly denote that their mobility magnitude was also considerably low. They must have adopted fine-grained resource exploitation strategies in small foraging territories. It is supposed that above differences of behavioral strategy could be explained as different adaptations to different regional environmental settings. Future investigation would clarify more detailed regional adaptation strategy than ever.
This paper presents an updated radiocarbon chronology of the earliest pottery sites in the Old World. Ceramic production originated in the Late Glacial period in several regions of East Asia—the Japanese Islands, the Russian Far East, and southern China—at approximately the same time, about 13,700-13,300 BP (about 17,200-14,900 cal BP).
The human–environment interaction in the southern part of the Russian Far East is considered, based on current archaeological, chronological, palaeoenvironmental, zooarchaeological, and archaeobotanical data. The major branches of the economy and its dynamics throughout the final Late Pleistocene and the Holocene are reconstructed on the basis of primary indicators (animal and plant remains from cultural complexes). The main stages in the process of human–environment interaction are distinguished, with principal boundaries at ca. 4500 BP (appearance of hoed agriculture), ca. 3000 BP (beginning of animal breeding), and ca. 1500 BP (emergence of plough agriculture and intensive cattle breeding). In some regions, such as Sakhalin Island and the Kurile Islands, communities of hunter-fisher-gatherers continued to exist for a long time, up to the 17–18th centuries AD. The relationship between cultural (maritime adaptation and agriculture) and natural (climatic coolings and warmings, and sea level changes) processes was not direct, and the palaeoeconomy in the Russian Far East was not environmental-driven; migrations and exchange played a certain role in the introduction of productive economy. The history of human–environment interaction in the region under study is closely related to more general features of this process in greater East Asia.
Climatically driven Late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation changes were reconstructed based on pollen records from the sediments of Lake Kotokel and Cheremushka Bog, located on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. The described paleoenvironmental record has higher resolution than records collected from Lake Baikal and unites individual events identified in prior studies of bottom and onshore cores. Remarkable shifts in landscapes and expansions of index plants are as follows. Forest tundra and/or forest steppe landscape with birch, spruce, Artemisia, and Poaceae prevailed at ca. 50–25 14C kyrBP. Tundra and/or steppe vegetation dominated by Artemisia and Poaceae was typical for the Last Glacial Maximum. The expansion of shrub birch and willow occurred at ca. 15.5 14C kyrBP. Two peaks of spruce expansion at ca. 47.5–42.4 14C kyrBP (Karginian time) and at ca. 14.5–13ka (Bølling-Allerød warm intervals) suggest that the condition were more humid than today. A slight increase in Artemisia at ca. 11–10.5 14C kyrBP (13–12ka) was indicative of the Younger Dryas event. An expansion of birch forests with fir at ca. 12–6.4ka suggests higher humidity. The currently dominant Scots and Siberian pine forests with birch expanded since 6.4ka.
Recently obtained radiocarbon accelerator mass spectrometry dates from the Gasya and Khummi sites (lower Amur River basin, the Russian Far East), on charcoal associated with pottery, fall within the interval 10345 ± 110 to 13260 ± 100 radiocarbon yr BP. Now both Russian Far East and southern Japanese Islands present evidence of the earliest pottery-making technology in the world starting about 13 000 BP.
Recently, primitive-type pottery was discovered in the Russian Far East, China, and Japan. Radiocarbon ages of far earlier than 10,000 BP have been obtained, relating directly or indirectly to the pottery. As an example of these very o ld 14C ages for incipient pottery, we report here 14C ages of charred adhesions on five potsherds and three charred wood frag- ments that were collected with the archeological artifacts (stone tools from the Chojakubo Culture) in the loam layers at the Odai Yamamoto I site (41°03'44'' N, 140°33'20'' E) in Aomori prefecture, at the northern end of the Japanese main island. The carbonaceous remains on the surface of the potsherds could be ancient food residues or soot from fuel for cooking. These small carbon samples were dated at the Tandetron accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating facility at Nagoya Uni- versity, as well as by Beta Analytic Co. Ltd. Except for two charred wood 14C dates, 7070 ± 40 and 7710 ± 40 BP, all five charred-residue samples and one wood charcoal sample gave older 14C ages of 12,680-13,780 BP, corresponding to the period of the Chojakubo Culture in Japan. This culture marks the beginning of the Jomon Culture, which is characterized by pottery usage and bow-and-arrow hunting.
:Potsherds of thick walls with coarse inclusions have been found in several archaeological sites in South China, associated with flaked or ground stone tools and ground organic implements. This paper focuses on the natural and cultural contexts, the chronology, and the characteristics of the early pottery found in South China, as well as the impetus to the origin of pottery and several related issues. It is argued that the earliest potters in South China were affluent foragers, who lived on diversified natural resources and were members of egalitarian societies. The earliest pottery in this region is tentatively dated to approximately 12,000 years ago, characterized by thick, crumbled walls built by hand pinching and without decoration. Although potsherds found in South China may not be the earliest in terms of the absolute dates, they represent the very beginning of pottery manufacturing as a technological invention from the terminal Pleistocene to the early Holocene in southern East Asia. Based on current archaeological data and the results of multi-disciplinary analyses, it is argued that South China seems to have been an area for the origin of pottery, which might have been associated with subsistence strategy changes. Furthermore, there might have been cultural exchanges between the prehistoric potters in South China and those in adjacent areas.
Pottery was a hunter-gatherer innovation that first emerged in East Asia between 20,000 and 12,000 calibrated years before present (cal bp), towards the end of the Late Pleistocene epoch, a period of time when humans were adjusting to changing climates and new environments. Ceramic container technologies were one of a range of late glacial adaptations that were pivotal to structuring subsequent cultural trajectories in different regions of the world, but the reasons for their emergence and widespread uptake are poorly understood. The first ceramic containers must have provided prehistoric hunter-gatherers with attractive new strategies for processing and consuming foodstuffs, but virtually nothing is known of how early pots were used. Here we report the chemical analysis of food residues associated with Late Pleistocene pottery, focusing on one of the best-studied prehistoric ceramic sequences in the world, the Japanese Jōmon. We demonstrate that lipids can be recovered reliably from charred surface deposits adhering to pottery dating from about 15,000 to 11,800 cal bp (the Incipient Jōmon period), the oldest pottery so far investigated, and that in most cases these organic compounds are unequivocally derived from processing freshwater and marine organisms. Stable isotope data support the lipid evidence and suggest that most of the 101 charred deposits analysed, from across the major islands of Japan, were derived from high-trophic-level aquatic food. Productive aquatic ecotones were heavily exploited by late glacial foragers, perhaps providing an initial impetus for investment in ceramic container technology, and paving the way for further intensification of pottery use by hunter-gatherers in the early Holocene epoch. Now that we have shown that it is possible to analyse organic residues from some of the world's earliest ceramic vessels, the subsequent development of this critical technology can be clarified through further widespread testing of hunter-gatherer pottery from later periods.
The accumulated archaeological records have shown that hunter-gatherer societies turned from mobile to sedentary ways of life through the transition from the terminal Pleistocene to the initial Holocene (ca. 15–8 ka) in Japanese Archipelago. This paper discusses the historical processes seen among prehistoric human cultures, societies, subsistence and environmental changes in this transitional period, namely the shift to the ‘Jomon’ culture. After the AT eruption, which is a huge volcanic eruption in Southern Kyushu in ca. 25000 14C BP, population contraction of large mammals as well as a rapid shift to cold/dry condition and expansion of coniferous forest pushed hunter-gatherers to change their hunting target from large mammals by broad foraging to middle to small mammals in small areas, and formed ‘matured’ regional societies. The ‘Jomon’ culture is thought to have stemmed from these societies, but is more varied, regional, and sophisticated than the Palaeolithic one resulting from the complex environmental change of the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. The emergence of oceanic climate and fine-grained ecological settings shaped the unique culture. For example, the spread of broadleaf forests supplied plentiful nuts, and continental shelves formed through coastal transgression furnished ample marine resources. Because these new ecological settings were formed, the ‘Jomon’ population could have become dependent on gathering and fishing, and shifted to a sedentary subsistence strategy. Furthermore, increase of precipitation and diverse rainfall patterns encouraged diverse ecological settings, leading to the formation of various regional Jomon cultures. This paper presents such complex trajectories for the ‘Jomon’ culture.
Renewed research interest in the origins of pottery has illuminated an array of possible precipitating causes and environmental contexts in which pottery began to be made and used. This article is an attempt at synthesizing some of these data in hopes of stimulating further research into this intriguing topic. Following a review of theories on the origins of pottery, discussion proceeds to a survey of geographic and cultural contexts of low-fired or unfired pottery, highlighting the role(s) of pottery among contemporary hunter-gatherers and summarizing data pertaining to varied uses of pottery containers. It is argued that objects of unfired and low-fired clay were created as part of early prestige technologies of material representations beginning in the Upper Paleolithic and are part of an early software horizon. Clay began to be more widely manipulated by nonsedentary, complex hunter-gatherers in the very Late Pleistocene and early Holocene in areas of resource abundance, especially in tropical/subtropical coastal/riverine zones, as part of more general processes of resource and social intensification (such as competitive feasting or communal ritual). Knowledge of making and using pottery containers spread widely as prestige technology and as practical technology, the kind and timing of its adoption or reinvention varying from location to location depending on specific needs and circumstances.
A long-overdue advancement in ceramic studies, this volume sheds new light on the adoption and dispersal of pottery by non-agricultural societies of prehistoric Eurasia. Major contributions from Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia make this a truly international work that brings together different theories and material for the first time. Researchers and scholars studying the origins and dispersal of pottery, the prehistoric peoples or Eurasia, and flow of ancient technologies will all benefit from this book.
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