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

Abstract

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.

Late Glacial hunter-gatherer pottery in the Russian Far East: Indications of diversity in origins and use

“…Radiocarbon dating has since demonstrated that the oldest pottery layers date to the Late Glacial (e.g. Kuzmin 2015Kuzmin , 2017. Sites with pre-Holocene pottery assemblages are widely scattered across the RFE, and are now defined as representing the onset of an 'Initial Neolithic' that is defined by the appearance of pottery and some other Neolithic novelties like polished axes, bifacially retouched or polished projectiles, new types of scrapers and art objects (e.g.…”

“…16,000-10,000 years ago; hereafter -cal BP, e.g. Kuzmin 2015Kuzmin , 2017. Together with southern China and Japan, the RFE represents one of the three main clusters of early pottery production in East Asia, and there is now clear evidence that pottery was already in use at a range of sites on the lower and middle reaches of the Amur River from ca.…”

Accurate compound-specific 14C dating of archaeological pottery vessels

“…The invention of pottery in the late Pleistocene was likely a significant driver for developments in food processing 19,20 . Pottery vessels can often be placed in robust relative chronological sequences using typology and seriation, although obtaining precise and accurate radiocarbon dates from pottery is extremely challenging 2, 3,21 .…”

Ceramics among Eurasian hunter-gatherers: 32 000 years of ceramic technology use and the perception of containment

“…Both types of firing produce irreversible changes in the clay body. The earliest invention of ceramic (pyro)technology in East Asia predates its appearance in the Near East by some ten millennia (Cohen 2013;Kuzmin 2015;Gibbs, Jordan 2016).…”