I'll keep my eye out for further stories on this - who has the oldest pottery seems to be an area of some contention among archaeologists! Story from digitaljournal.com
Archaeologists Discover Oldest Pottery Remains in the World
Published 7 hours ago by Christopher Szabo.
The remnants of the oldest known pottery have been found in a cave in southern China’s Hunnan province. The pottery shards, estimated at being from about 18,000 years Before Present, or 16, 000 years B.C.
The Hungarian-language Mult Kor website said the oldest known rice grains were also found in the Yuchanyan cave site, which scientists say shows an important link between hunter-gatherer cave-dwellers and agriculturalists.
Associated Press (AP) reported that Elisabetta Boaretto of Bar Ilan University in Israel believed hunter-gatherers were able to make pottery, something not widely accepted. She added the discovery: Supports the proposal made in the past that pottery making by foragers began in south China.
An anthropologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tracey Lu, explained the significance of ancient pottery finds: Pottery initially serves as a cooking and storage facility. Later on, some pottery vessels become symbols of power and social status, as well as examples of art.
Lu said that ancient pottery making was likely spread over a wide area: I agree that pottery was made by foragers in South China, but I also think pottery was produced more or less contemporaneously in several places in East Asia ... from Russia, Japan to North and South China by foragers living in different environments.
Until now, the earliest pottery discoveries have come from Japan, at around 17,000 to 16,000 years ago. This form of pottery ware is known as Jomon pottery, and was found on the coast of the island of Kyushu. Like much ancient pottery, it was made of cords pressed into clay and then heated at relatively low temperatures. (600-900 degrees Celsius.)
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For information on Jomon pottery:
Japanese Pottery - Clay Figurines from the Jomon Period (some of these sure look like much later eye goddesses that were popular all over the Middle East)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History - Jomon Culture, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The image above is identified as "incipient" Jomon: [from] The Odai-Yamamoto site has yielded 46 pottery sherds that have been dated by the radiocarbon method to 16,500 BC (NUTA-6510) to14,920 BC (NUTA-6506).
Compare to the Naqada II black and red ware (second image), circa 3550 - 3400 BCE.
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