Up to now, pottery was believed to be a product of that "magical" period around 10,000 years ago when modern civilization began to spring up seemingly out of nowhere. But 20,000-year-old pottery fragments found in China have now upset that theory. (The findings are also causing me to rewrite a portion of my book.)
The pottery fragments were found in a cave called Xianrendong in the Jiangxi province located in south China. The cave was first excavated in the 1960s and further investigated in the 1990s. The fragments were actually dated by 2009, but researchers waited to announce their findings until they determined that the sediments in the cave had not been disturbed in a way that might have skewed the results. They also dated bone and charcoal samples from above and below the pottery fragments to further ensure that their findings were accurate.
Before this discovery and a few others, including simple clay pots found in the Middle East and dated to about 14,500 years ago, experts believed that pottery-making was part of the so-called Neolithic Revolution. Farming is thought to have begun around 11,000 to 13,000 years ago, but before then, people lived as hunter-gatherers. Pottery would have been cumbersome to nomadic peoples, partly because it is heavier than baskets, and partly because it is fragile and easily broken. Today’s surviving nomads, for example, rarely make use of clay pots.
Baked clay products actually date back to at least 30,000 years ago, however. People made small plaques and figurines out of clay which were baked in campfires. These could be easily transported as the people moved from place to place. Many of these little figurines were found in caves along with the famous cave paintings in France. There is no evidence yet, however, that anyone was making pots or other clay utensils that long ago.
For more information about the possible implications of this find and a few pictures of pottery fragments, visit here
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