Editing 10th millennium BC (section)

==Pottery==
Prehistoric chronology is almost entirely reliant upon the dating of material objects of which [[pottery]] is by far the most widespread and the most resistant to decay. All locations and generations developed their own shapes, sizes and styles of pottery, including methods and styles of decoration, but there was consistency among stratified deposits and even shards can be classified by time and place.{{sfn|Bury|Meiggs|1975|p=6}} Pottery is believed to have been discovered independently in various places, beginning with China c. 18,000 BC, and was probably created accidentally by fires lit on [[clay]] soil.{{sfn|Chazan|2017|p=197}}{{sfn|Richard|2004|p=244}}<ref name="PNAS09">{{cite journal |last1=Kuijt |first1=I. |last2=Finlayson |first2=B. |title=Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |date=June 2009 |volume=106 |issue=27 |pages=10,966–10,970 |issn=0027-8424 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0812764106 |pmc=2700141 |pmid=19549877 |bibcode=2009PNAS..10610966K |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/ozkaya/ |last=Ozkaya |first=Vecihi |title=Körtik Tepe, a new Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in south-eastern Anatolia |journal=Antiquity |date=June 2009 |volume=83 |issue=320 |access-date=18 October 2020 |archive-date=19 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170819014251/http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/ozkaya/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The main discovery of pottery dated to the 10th millennium has been at [[Bosumpra Cave]] (early tenth-millennium cal. BC) on the Kwahu Plateau in southeastern Ghana and [[Ounjougou]] (c.9400 BC) in Central Mali, providing evidence of an independent invention of pottery in Sub-Saharan Africa in different climatic zones.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Watson |first1=Derek J. |title=Bosumpra revisited: 12,500 years on the Kwahu Plateau, Ghana, as viewed from 'On top of the hill' |journal=Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa |date=2 October 2017 |volume=52 |issue=4 |pages=437–517 |doi=10.1080/0067270X.2017.1393925 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Swiss_archaeologist_digs_up_West_Africas_past.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306002155/http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Swiss_archaeologist_digs_up_West_Africas_past.html?cid=5675736 |last=Bradley |first=Simon |title=Swiss archaeologist digs up West Africa's past |date=18 January 2007 |archive-date=6 March 2012 |work=SwissInfo |publisher=Swiss Broadcasting Corporation |location=Berne |access-date=22 July 2020}}</ref>

The first chronological pottery system was the Early, Middle and Late Minoan framework devised in the early 20th century by Sir [[Arthur Evans]] for his findings at [[Knossos]]. This covered the [[Bronze Age]] in twelve phases from c. 2800 BC to c. 1050 BC and the principle was later extended to mainland Greece (Helladic) and the Aegean islands (Cycladic).{{sfn|Bury|Meiggs|1975|p=6}} Dame [[Kathleen Kenyon]] was the principal archaeologist at [[Tell es-Sultan]] (ancient Jericho) and she discovered that there was no pottery there.{{sfn|Mithen|2003|p=60}} The [[potter's wheel]] had not yet been invented and, where pottery as such was made, it was still hand-built, often by means of [[Coiling (pottery)|coiling]], and [[Pit fired pottery|pit fired]].{{sfn|Bellwood|2004|p=384}}

Kenyon discovered vessels such as bowls, cups, and plates at Jericho which were made from stone. She reasonably surmised that others made from wood or vegetable fibres would have long since decayed.{{sfn|Mithen|2003|p=60}} Using Evans' system as a benchmark, Kenyon divided the Near East Neolithic into phases called [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic A]] (PPNA), from c. 10,000 BC to c. 8800 BC; [[Pre-Pottery Neolithic B]] (PPNB), from c. 8800 BC to c. 6500 BC; and then [[Pottery Neolithic]] (PN), which had varied start-points from c. 6500 BC until the beginnings of the [[Bronze Age]] towards the end of the [[4th millennium BC|4th millennium]]. In the 10th millennium, the Natufian culture co-existed with the PPNA which prevailed in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian areas of the Fertile Crescent.{{sfn|Bellwood|2004|p=384}}{{sfn|Mithen|2003|p=60}}