Pottery was produced in China as early as 18,000 years ago

This study awarded the medal for the earliest use of pottery - at least for now - to the ancient inhabitants of the Hunin region of southern China

China gave the world porcelain, and is identified with these fragile vessels to such an extent that in English it is customary to call them by the name of the country - China. However, for the crown of preeminence in the use of pottery, China competes with two neighboring countries: Japan and Eastern Russia - without an unequivocal decision so far. Now, Dr. Elisabetta Buerto from the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and from Bar-Ilan University, and Prof. Steve Weiner, director of the Kimmel Center, in collaboration with an international team of researchers, have been able to determine with certainty the age of the oldest pottery that has been dated so far - About 18,000 years. This study awarded the medal for the earliest use of pottery - at least for now - to the ancient inhabitants of the Hunin region in southern China. The findings of the research published in the journal of the American National Science Association (PNAS) show that the beginning of the use of pottery was more than 1,000 years earlier than the estimate that was accepted until recently.

"Humans have been using fire for about a million years, but only a 'short time' ago - less than 20,000 years - they discovered that vessels that hold water can be made from clay-rich soil that undergoes heating," says Prof. Weiner. This technological discovery occurred at the same time as significant economic and social changes that took place with the transition to permanent agricultural settlements - in the late Paleolithic period. The cave sites in southern China were used as settlement centers at that time, hence the great interest in their investigation. However, all attempts to systematically and reliably date the caves in this region, and the tools discovered inside, have so far failed, and among researchers working in the field, an opinion has begun to be established that this is an impossible task. Tests based on measuring radioactive carbon went wrong due to the presence of calcite - a mineral containing carbon, which is, in many cases, older than the clays. Mixing between different layers in the cave floor and unsystematic taking of samples also caused inconsistent results.

To overcome these difficulties, Dr. Boarto and Prof. Weiner took a series of measures. First, they systematically studied the structure of the cave on all its layers, and collected a large number of charcoal and bone samples for testing - about 150. Since the pottery itself cannot be dated directly, special attention was paid to collecting samples from the layers where the pottery was found. "The accepted method is to look for as many samples as possible for dating, but we took a different approach," explains Dr. Boarto, who developed a strict and thorough "quality control" procedure for sorting the collected samples. Scanning the samples, using spectrometric methods, allowed her to identify the best-preserved samples: those that have interacted as little as possible with the environment, that contain original carbon, and are not contaminated with carbon from foreign sources (such as calcite).

In this way, about 40 clean and preserved samples were selected, which were dated based on radioactive carbon. At the same time, a comprehensive mapping of the layers in the cave and a micro-morphological analysis of the sediments in the cave were carried out - to reveal disturbances and to verify that the samples do indeed correspond, in terms of their age - to the pottery remains. In this way, the researchers were able to obtain a consistent and reliable sequence of dates for the layers of the cave, and provide a better understanding of the chronology of the settlement in the cave and the age of the pottery found inside it. The age of the earliest pottery in the cave is 18,300 years - the oldest found so far. It was also discovered that the sediments found in the cave are mostly man-made: the result of a fire that was lit in the cave, of clay that was brought to "plaster" its walls, and the like. Additional findings provide information about the food that the inhabitants of the cave ate: wild boars, turtles, fish, small mammals and rice. It can be assumed that these data are also valid for other caves in southern China, and that the Yangtze River basin served as the settlement center at that time.

These findings shed light on the beginning of the permanent settlement of humans in the caves in southern China, more than 20,000 years ago, and provide information on the beginning of the use of pottery, however, several questions still remain a mystery. For example, did the technology start in several centers independently, or did it start in China and from there spread in East Asia? Another intriguing question concerns the large gap between the beginning of the use of pottery in East Asia and that in the West. The inhabitants of the Middle East began to produce pottery about 10,000 years later than the inhabitants of southern China. In contrast, other technologies, such as the use of bronze and plant domestication, began earlier in Western Asia. According to Prof. Weiner, these data point to the disconnection that existed between the two sides of the continent.