Editing Pottery (section)

====Beginnings of pottery====
[[File:Xianrendong Cave Pottery - 2.jpg|thumb|[[Xianren Cave]] pottery fragments, radiocarbon dated to circa 18,000 BC, China<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bar-Yosef |first1=Ofer |last2=Arpin |first2=Trina |last3=Pan |first3=Yan |last4=Cohen |first4=David |last5=Goldberg |first5=Paul |last6=Zhang |first6=Chi |last7=Wu |first7=Xiaohong |title=Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China |journal=Science |date=29 June 2012 |volume=336 |issue=6089 |pages=1696–1700 |doi=10.1126/science.1218643 |pmid=22745428 |language=en |issn=0036-8075|bibcode=2012Sci...336.1696W |s2cid=37666548 }}</ref><!--
  --><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Marshall |first1=Michael |title=Oldest pottery hints at cooking's ice-age origins |journal=New Scientist |volume=215 |issue=2872 |pages=14 |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21985-oldest-pottery-hints-at-cookings-ice-age-origins/ |bibcode=2012NewSc.215Q..14M |year=2012 |doi=10.1016/S0262-4079(12)61728-X |access-date=2019-05-10 |archive-date=2019-10-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191020113934/https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21985-oldest-pottery-hints-at-cookings-ice-age-origins/ |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
[[File:Pottery bowl, 7100-5800 BCE, from Jarmo, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan.jpg|thumb|Pottery bowl from [[Jarmo]], [[Mesopotamia]], 7100–5800 BC.]]

Pottery may well have been discovered independently in various places, probably by accidentally creating it at the bottom of fires on a clay soil. The earliest-known ceramic objects are [[Gravettian]] figurines such as those discovered at Dolní Věstonice in the modern-day Czech Republic. The [[Venus of Dolní Věstonice]] is a Venus figurine, a statuette of a nude female figure dated to 29,000–25,000 BC (Gravettian industry).<ref name="Venus">{{cite web|url=http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi359.htm|title=No. 359: The Dolni Vestonice Ceramics|date=November 24, 1989|publisher=University of Houston|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100109213627/http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi359.htm|website=The Engines of Our Ingenuity|last1=Lienhard|first1=John H.|archive-date=January 9, 2010|access-date=September 4, 2010}}</ref> But there is no evidence of pottery vessels from this period. Weights [[loom weight|for looms]] or fishing-nets are a very common use for the earliest pottery. [[Sherd]]s have been found in China and Japan from a period between 12,000 and perhaps as long as 18,000 years ago.<ref name=fareastrussia/><ref name=cl/> As of 2012, the earliest pottery vessels found anywhere in the world,<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/science/oldest-known-pottery-found-in-china.html "Remnants of an Ancient Kitchen Are Found in China"]. ''[[The New York Times]]''. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170315202344/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/science/oldest-known-pottery-found-in-china.html|date=2017-03-15}}</ref> dating to 20,000 to 19,000 years before the present, was found at [[Xianren Cave]] in the Jiangxi province of China.<ref name=Xianren>{{cite journal|title=Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianren Cave, China|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|date=June 29, 2012|volume=336|issue=6089|pages=1696–700|doi=10.1126/science.1218643|pmid=22745428|last1=Wu|first1=X.|last2=Zhang|first2=C.|last3=Goldberg|first3=P.|last4=Cohen|first4=D.|last5=Pan|first5=Y.|last6=Arpin|first6=T.|last7=Bar-Yosef|first7=O.|bibcode=2012Sci...336.1696W|s2cid=37666548}}</ref><ref>[https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/science/2012/06/28/harvard-and-boston-university-researchers-find-evidence-year-old-pottery/eTrcMITspR9gPoxAcxQUZL/story.html "Harvard, BU researchers find evidence of 20,000-year-old pottery"]. ''[[The Boston Globe]]''. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170728174501/https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/science/2012/06/28/harvard-and-boston-university-researchers-find-evidence-year-old-pottery/eTrcMITspR9gPoxAcxQUZL/story.html|date=2017-07-28}}</ref>

Other early pottery vessels include those excavated from the [[Yuchanyan Cave]] in southern China, dated from 16,000 BC,<ref name=cl>[http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2009/06/chinese_pottery_may_be_earlies.html "Chinese pottery may be earliest discovered."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121006170740/http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2009/06/chinese_pottery_may_be_earlies.html |date=2012-10-06 }} [[Associated Press]]. 2009-06-01.</ref> and those found in the Amur River basin in the Russian Far East, dated from 14,000 BC.<ref name=fareastrussia>'AMS 14C Age Of The Earliest Pottery From The Russian Far East; 1996–2002.' Derevianko A.P., Kuzmin Y.V., Burr G.S., Jull A.J.T., Kim J.C. Nuclear Instruments And Methods In Physics Research. B223–224 (2004) 735–39.</ref><ref>'Radiocarbon Dating Of Charcoal And Bone Collagen Associated With Early Pottery At Yuchanyan Cave, Hunan Province, China.' Boaretto E., Wu X., Yuan J., Bar-Yosef O., Chu V., Pan Y., Liu K., Cohen D., Jiao T., Li S., Gu H., Goldberg P., Weiner S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. June 2009. 16;106(24): 9595–600.</ref>

The [[Odai Yamamoto I site]], belonging to the [[Jōmon period]], currently has the oldest pottery in Japan. Excavations in 1998 uncovered [[earthenware]] fragments which have been dated as early as 14,500 BC.<ref>{{cite news
 |first=Simon
 |last=Kainer
 |url=http://www.archaeology.co.uk/cwa/issues/cwa1/CWA_issue_1.pdf
 |title=The Oldest Pottery in the World
 |work=Current World Archaeology
 |publisher=Robert Selkirk
 |pages=44–49
 |date=September 2003
 |access-date=2016-09-27
 |url-status=bot: unknown
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060423001511/http://www.archaeology.co.uk/cwa/issues/cwa1/CWA_issue_1.pdf
 |archive-date=2006-04-23
}}</ref>
The term "Jōmon" means "cord-marked" in Japanese. This refers to the markings made on the vessels and figures using sticks with cords during their production. Recent research has elucidated how [[Jōmon pottery]] was used by its creators.<ref name="Earliest">{{cite journal |title=Earliest evidence for the use of pottery |author=O.E. Craig, H. Saul, A. Lucquin, Y. Nishida, K. Taché, L. Clarke, A. Thompson, D.T. Altoft, J. Uchiyama, M. Ajimoto, K. Gibbs, S. Isaksson, C.P. Heron P. Jordan |journal=Nature |volume=496 |date=18 April 2013 |issue=7445 |doi=10.1038/nature12109 |pmid=23575637 |pages=351–54 |hdl=10454/5947 |arxiv=1510.02343 |bibcode=2013Natur.496..351C |s2cid=3094491 }}</ref>

It appears that pottery was independently developed in Sub-Saharan Africa during the 10th millennium BC, with findings dating to at least 9,400 BC from central [[Mali]],<ref name=swissinfo/> and in South America during the 9,000s–7,000s BC.<ref>Barnett & Hoopes 1995:211</ref><ref name="Roosevelt 1996 264–349"/> The Malian finds date to the same period as similar finds from East Asia – the triangle between Siberia, China and Japan – and are associated in both regions to the same climatic changes (at the end of the ice age new grassland develops, enabling hunter-gatherers to expand their habitat), met independently by both cultures with similar developments: the creation of pottery for the storage of wild cereals ([[pearl millet]]), and that of small arrowheads for hunting small game typical of grassland.<ref name=swissinfo/> Alternatively, the creation of pottery in the case of the Incipient Jōmon civilisation could be due to the intensive exploitation of freshwater and marine organisms by late glacial foragers, who started developing ceramic containers for their catch.<ref name="Earliest"/>