An report released today in Science details the dating efforts that have confirmed pottery fragments found in Jiangxi province’s Xianren Cave (仙人洞) to be the world’s oldest. Radiocarbon samples have proven the fragments to be 20,000 years old, at least 2,000 years older than shards found in Hunan, previously thought to be from the world’s oldest pots. The Guardian reports on the groundbreaking archaeological theory that this new evidence speaks to:
The findings, which appear in the journal Science on Friday, add to recent efforts that have dated pottery piles in east Asia to more than 15,000 years ago, refuting conventional theories that the invention of pottery correlates to the period about 10,000 years ago when humans moved from being hunter-gatherers to farmers.
The research by a team of Chinese and American scientists also pushes the emergence of pottery back to the last ice age, which might provide new explanations for the creation of pottery, said Gideon Shelach, chair of the Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies at The Hebrew University in Israel.
“The focus of research has to change,” Shelach, who is not involved in the research project in China, said by telephone.
An AP article further quotes Shelach on the significance of the confirmation, and talks to a leading researcher on the project:
In an accompanying Science article, Shelach wrote that such research efforts “are fundamental for a better understanding of socio-economic change (25,000 to 19,000 years ago) and the development that led to the emergency of sedentary agricultural societies.”
He said the disconnection between pottery and agriculture as shown in east Asia might shed light on specifics of human development in the region.
Wu Xiaohong, professor of archaeology and museology at Peking University and the lead author of the Science article that details the radiocarbon dating efforts, told The Associated Press that her team was eager to build on the research.
“We are very excited about the findings. The paper is the result of efforts done by generations of scholars,” Wu said. “Now we can explore why there was pottery in that particular time, what were the uses of the vessels, and what role they played in the survival of human beings.”
