The first pots
Hunters make pottery 8,000 years before farming
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The sherds from Xianrendong Cave in Jiangxi are dated to around 20,000 years, and comparable early finds occur in Japan and Russia's Amur region. That inverts the classic sequence in which pottery follows farming: here it is tied to intensive use of aquatic resources by sedentary or semi-sedentary hunters. Lipid residues in Japanese Jōmon vessels show they were used to cook fish. Cooking vessels broaden the diet substantially because heat breaks down toxins and makes starch available.
For children
We tend to think pottery goes with farmers and villages. But the world's oldest pots were made by hunters in China, while ice still lay over northern Europe. With pots you can boil food — and boiling makes many plants and shellfish edible that otherwise are not.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org