Earliest evidence for the use of pottery (2024)

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Subjects Abstract Access options Additional access options: Similar content being viewed by others Viral metagenome reveals microbial hosts and the associated antibiotic resistome on microplastics Conceptualizing soil fauna effects on labile and stabilized soil organic matter The time between Palaeolithic hearths References Acknowledgements Author information Authors and Affiliations Contributions Corresponding author Ethics declarations Competing interests Supplementary information Supplementary Information PowerPoint slides PowerPoint slide for Fig. 1 PowerPoint slide for Fig. 2 PowerPoint slide for Fig. 3 Rights and permissions About this article Cite this article This article is cited by Ceramic production and the transition to agriculture in Northeast China: Neolithic pottery technology in the f*ckin Region Culinary continuity in central Japan across the transition to agriculture A ‘Family of Wear’: Traceological Patterns on Pebbles Used for Burnishing Pots and Processing Other Plastic Mineral Matters Food, cooking and potteries in the Neolithic Mijiaya site, Guanzhong area, North China, revealed by multidisciplinary approach New insights into the use of Neolithic pottery in Guangxi of South China: organic residue analysis of experimental and archaeological pottery Comments FAQs References
  • Letter
  • Published:
  • O. E. Craig1,
  • H. Saul1,2,
  • A. Lucquin1,
  • Y. Nishida2,
  • K. Taché1,
  • L. Clarke3,4,
  • A. Thompson5,
  • D. T. Altoft1,
  • J. Uchiyama6,
  • M. Ajimoto7,
  • K. Gibbs8,
  • S. Isaksson9,10,
  • C. P. Heron3 &
  • …
  • P. Jordan11

Nature volume496,pages 351–354 (2013)Cite this article

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  • Archaeology

Abstract

Pottery was a hunter-gatherer innovation that first emerged in East Asia between 20,000 and 12,000 calibrated years before present1,2 (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 foragers3, 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.

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Earliest evidence for the use of pottery (1)
Earliest evidence for the use of pottery (2)
Earliest evidence for the use of pottery (3)

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Earliest evidence for the use of pottery (6)

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Leverhulme trust (F/00 152/AM) and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (PE 11560) for their support. We are grateful to K. Adachi, K. Higashi, Y. Kasai, H. Kato, K. Nagahama, H. Oguma, T. Tsuchiya, T. Watanabe and T. Yamahara for providing access to samples.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, BioArCh, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK,

    O. E. Craig,H. Saul,A. Lucquin,K. Taché&D. T. Altoft

  2. Niigata Prefectural Museum of History, Sekihara 1, Nagaoka, Niigata 940-2035, Japan,

    H. Saul&Y. Nishida

    See Also
    Potter's Wheel

  3. Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Richmond Road, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK,

    L. Clarke&C. P. Heron

  4. Division of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences, School of Science and Environmental Science, Manchester Metropolitan University, Chester Street, Manchester M1 5GD, UK,

    L. Clarke

  5. School of Environmental Sciences, Nicholson Building, 4 Brownlow Street, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GP, UK,

    A. Thompson

  6. Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, 457-4 Kamigamo-motoyama, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8047, Japan,

    J. Uchiyama

  7. Wakasa History and Folklore Museum, Onyu 2-104, Obama, f*ckui 917-0241, Japan,

    M. Ajimoto

  8. Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, UK,

    K. Gibbs

  9. Centre for the Study of Cultural Evolution, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden,

    S. Isaksson

  10. Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, The Archaeological Research Laboratory, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden,

    S. Isaksson

  11. Arctic Centre, University of Groningen, PO Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, Netherlands,

    P. Jordan

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  1. O. E. Craig

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Contributions

O.E.C., H.S., Y.N., S.I. and P.J. planned the project. O.E.C. wrote the paper with assistance from all other authors. P.J., H.S., Y.N. and K.G. carried out sampling with assistance of M.A. and J.U., who provided contextual data. O.E.C., H.S., A.L., K.T., D.A. and A.T. carried out the lipid analysis. C.P.H. and L.C. carried out the bulk stable isotope analyses. All authors commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to O. E. Craig.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Tables 1-4 and Supplementary References. Tables 1-4 contain contextual details (including radiocarbon dates) of each of the sites investigated, a summary of the lipid residue analysis results, bulk isotope characteristics of each sample analysed and a summary of the reference isotope values used to derive the fields in Figure 2B. (PDF 280 kb)

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Craig, O., Saul, H., Lucquin, A. et al. Earliest evidence for the use of pottery. Nature 496, 351–354 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12109

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Earliest evidence for the use of pottery (2024)

FAQs

Earliest evidence for the use of pottery? ›

It has been hypothesized that pottery was developed only after humans established agriculture, which led to permanent settlements. However, the oldest known pottery is from the Czech Republic and dates to 28,000 BC, at the height of the most recent ice age, long before the beginnings of agriculture.

Learn More Now ›
What is the earliest evidence for the use of pottery? ›

From radiocarbon dates of an archaeological sequence excavated at Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi Province, China, it has been proposed that ceramic container technology extends in age to about 20,000–19,000 cal bp1, some 10,000 yr before the earliest evidence of rice cultivation in that region.

Find Out More ›
What were the early uses of pottery? ›

Starting approximately in 9,000 BCE, clay-based ceramics became popular as containers for water and food, art objects, tiles and bricks, and their use spread from Asia to the Middle East and Europe.

View Details ›
When was the first evidence of man using pottery in cooking? ›

Ceramics are a relatively recent invention in the long arc of human history. Pottery shards appear in the archaeological record only 20,000 years ago, first in China and then many millennia later in the Near East and Europe. Metal cookware is an even more recent innovation.

Learn More ›
How was the invention of pottery useful to early man? ›

Early humans make pots because they needed pots to store grains water and food. The invention of the potter's wheel was boon for potters. They made pots of various shapes and sizes pots were often decorated with floral designs and geometrical patterns.

Get More Info ›
Where is the oldest pottery discovered in the archaeological record from? ›

Pottery fragments found in a south China cave have been confirmed to be 20,000 years old, making them the oldest known pottery in the world, archaeologists say.

Show Me More ›
Where is the oldest pottery found? ›

This year, archaeologists dated what is now thought to be the oldest known pottery in the world, from the site of Xianrendong Cave in the Jiangxi Province of southeastern China.

Know More ›
When did humans start using pottery? ›

Pottery has been around since the ancient people roamed the earth. As one of the oldest human inventions, the practice of pottery has developed alongside civilization. The earliest ceramic objects have been dated as far back as 29,000 BC.

Discover More Details ›
What is the first documented use of clay in human history? ›

Prehistoric humans discovered the useful properties of clay and used it for making pottery. Some of the earliest pottery shards have been dated to around 14,000 BCE, and clay tablets were the first known writing medium.

Show Me More ›
What is the human origin of pottery? ›

Early humans may have made bags from skin long ago. By around 26,000 years ago, they were weaving plant fibers to make cords and perhaps baskets. Some of the oldest known pottery from Japan's Jomon culture, seen here, is about 18,000 years old.

Discover More Details ›

Why did early men use the potter's wheel? ›

Potter's Wheel, Egypt, 2400 BCE

Pottery cannot be made by hand modeling or coiling without the potter either turning the pot or moving around it, and, as turning involves the least expenditure of human effort, it would obviously be preferred.

Get More Info ›
Was pottery invented in the Stone Age? ›

During the Neolithic period (New Stone Age) people began farming and making pottery for the first time. Clay was shaped into pots for storing and cooking food. This pot was made and decorated around 5000 years ago! It was excavated from an archaeological site in Heathrow.

Get More Info ›
What was pottery like in the early Iron Age? ›

Pottery during the Iron Age in Europe was made out of clay with burnt flint or other minerals and organic matter added in to prevent the pottery from shrinking while drying. Pottery could be coarse or smooth, have impressed designs from shells or other material, or plain.

View More ›
What is the earliest form of pottery that we know of? ›

Beginnings of pottery

The earliest-known ceramic objects are Gravettian figurines such as those discovered at Dolní Věstonice in the modern-day Czech Republic. The Venus of Dolní Věstonice is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BC (Gravettian industry).

See Details ›
What is the oldest known method for firing pottery? ›

Pit firing is the oldest known method for the firing of pottery. Examples have been dated as early as 29,000–25,000 BCE, while the earliest known kiln dates to around 6000 BCE, and was found at the Yarim Tepe site in modern Iraq.

Know More ›
How are archaeologists able to tell the origins of the pottery they find? ›

Ceramic analysis might study the specific decoration on pottery, to determine when it was made, and how it compares to other types of pottery. Different regions and different time periods will have different decorations on their pottery, and often use different kinds of temper or make vessels in different shapes.

Get More Info ›
Is pottery paleolithic or Neolithic? ›

During the Neolithic period (New Stone Age) people began farming and making pottery for the first time. Clay was shaped into pots for storing and cooking food.

See More ›

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