The impact of environmental change on the use of early pottery by East Asian hunter-gatherers

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Alexandre LucquinOliver Edward Craig

Abstract

The invention of pottery was a fundamental technological advancement with far-reaching economic and cultural consequences. Pottery containers first emerged in East Asia during the Late Pleistocene in a wide range of environmental settings, but became particularly prominent and much more widely dispersed after climatic warming at the start of the Holocene. Some archaeologists argue that this increasing usage was driven by environmental factors, as warmer climates would have generated a wider range of terrestrial plant and animal resources that required processing in pottery. However, this hypothesis has never been directly tested. Here, in one of the largest studies of its kind, we conducted organic residue analysis of >800 pottery vessels selected from 46 Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites located across the Japanese archipelago to identify their contents. Our results demonstrate that pottery had a strong association with the processing of aquatic resources, irrespective of the ecological setting. Contrary to expectations, this association remained stable even after the onset of Holocene warming, including in more southerly areas, where expanding forests provided new opportunities for hunting and gathering. Nevertheless,...Continue Reading

References

Apr 12, 2013·Nature·O E CraigP Jordan
Oct 15, 2014·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Kurt LambeckMalcolm Sambridge
Mar 24, 2016·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Alexandre LucquinOliver E Craig

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