Pottery Invention and Innovation in East Asia and the Near East

Gibbs, Kevin

doi:10.1017/s0959774314001139

Cited by 34 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…It is conceivable that other pottery vessels from early farming sites in Anatolia, the Near East, Europe and Africa, also had a much wider range of uses, beyond the processing of milk and meat as often suggested by their predominance in lipid analysis 1 , 46 , 47 , 50 . If so, the invention of pottery in the Near East at the end of the 8th millennium BC 51 and its subsequent diffusion with the expansion of the Neolithic after the mid 7th millennium 52 , which at Çatalhöyük corresponds to the intensification of agricultural practices 33 , 53 , may have also been driven by the need to process agricultural produce rather than simply animal products alone.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient proteins from ceramic vessels at Çatalhöyük West reveal the hidden cuisine of early farmers

et al. 2018

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The analysis of lipids (fats, oils and waxes) absorbed within archaeological pottery has revolutionized the study of past diets and culinary practices. However, this technique can lack taxonomic and tissue specificity and is often unable to disentangle signatures resulting from the mixing of different food products. Here, we extract ancient proteins from ceramic vessels from the West Mound of the key early farming site of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, revealing that this community processed mixes of cereals, pulses, dairy and meat products, and that particular vessels may have been reserved for specialized foods (e.g., cow milk and milk whey). Moreover, we demonstrate that dietary proteins can persist on archaeological artefacts for at least 8000 years, and that this approach can reveal past culinary practices with more taxonomic and tissue-specific clarity than has been possible with previous biomolecular techniques.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient proteins from ceramic vessels at Çatalhöyük West reveal the hidden cuisine of early farmers

et al. 2018

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“…Once linked exclusively to the development of farming and settled village life, it is now known that the origins of pottery are instead bound-up in a complex process of innovation that ultimately extends back as far as 20,000 y to groups of East Asian hunter-gatherers living during the Late Pleistocene (1)(2)(3). One of the earliest and beststudied centers for the innovation and development of ceramic containers is the Japanese archipelago.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient lipids document continuity in the use of early hunter–gatherer pottery through 9,000 years of Japanese prehistory

Lucquin

Gibbs

Uchiyama³

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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132

105

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The earliest pots in the world are from East Asia and date to the Late Pleistocene. However, ceramic vessels were only produced in large numbers during the warmer and more stable climatic conditions of the Holocene. It has long been assumed that the expansion of pottery was linked with increased sedentism and exploitation of new resources that became available with the ameliorated climate, but this hypothesis has never been tested. Through chemical analysis of their contents, we herein investigate the use of pottery across an exceptionally long 9,000-y sequence from the Jōmon site of Torihama in western Japan, intermittently occupied from the Late Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene. Molecular and isotopic analyses of lipids from 143 vessels provides clear evidence that pottery across this sequence was predominantly used for cooking marine and freshwater resources, with evidence for diversification in the range of aquatic products processed during the Holocene. Conversely, there is little indication that ruminant animals or plants were processed in pottery, although it is evident from the faunal and macrobotanical remains that these foods were heavily exploited. Supported by other residue analysis data from Japan, our results show that the link between pottery and fishing was established in the Late Paleolithic and lasted well into the Holocene, despite environmental and socio-economic change. Cooking aquatic products in pottery represents an enduring social aspect of East Asian hunter-gatherers, a tradition based on a dependable technology for exploiting a sustainable resource in an uncertain and changing world.archaeology | ceramic | residue analysis | isotope | plant microfossil

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“…Recent overviews on the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherers in East Asia and the neighbouring regions are used here as background (Dikshit, Hazarika 2012;Cohen 2013;Kuzmin 2013a;Gibbs 2015). The newly released data on the early pottery from the Transbaikal (southern part of Eastern Siberia) (Razgildeeva et al 2013) are incorporated into the existing dataset for this region (Kuzmin 2013a;Kuzmin, Vetrov 2007;McKenzie 2009) and interpreted.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of pottery in East Asia: updated analysis (the 2015 state-of-the-art)

Kuzmin

2015

Doc. praeh.

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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 isfrom 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.

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Pottery Invention and Innovation in East Asia and the Near East

Cited by 34 publications

References 45 publications

Ancient proteins from ceramic vessels at Çatalhöyük West reveal the hidden cuisine of early farmers

Ancient proteins from ceramic vessels at Çatalhöyük West reveal the hidden cuisine of early farmers

Ancient lipids document continuity in the use of early hunter–gatherer pottery through 9,000 years of Japanese prehistory

The origins of pottery in East Asia: updated analysis (the 2015 state-of-the-art)

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