Technology & Medicine › Prehistory › Agriculture (the Neolithic Revolution)
Pottery
c. 20,000 years ago (China); widespread with farming· Invention or discovery· Tools, energy & materials
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Clay shaped and hardened by fire into waterproof containers for cooking, storage and trade.
See it on the Technology & Medicine map →How it works
Heating clay to about 600 °C (1,100 °F) or more changes it chemically into hard ceramic that no longer softens in water. The oldest known pots, from Xianrendong Cave in China, are about 20,000 years old and were made by hunter-gatherers. Japan's Jōmon pottery dates from about 16,000 years ago. Pottery spread widely with farming, for storing grain, brewing and cooking stews. Styles change quickly, so broken pieces, called sherds, are archaeologists' main tool for dating sites.
Why it mattered
Pots allowed boiling, safe storage of grain and liquids, and trade in oil and wine, and their sherds became the timeline archaeologists rely on.
How we know
Radiocarbon dates on bone and charcoal around the Xianrendong sherds, published in 2012; early Jōmon finds; chemical residues showing what was cooked.
Still unknown or debated
Why ice-age hunter-gatherers made pots long before farming, perhaps to cook fish, nuts or bone grease, is debated.
Connections (4)
▸Control of fire made possible the firing of PotteryWell documented
The connection
Clay becomes durable ceramic only when heated to about 600 °C or more, which takes a controlled fire. Early potters fired pots in open bonfires; later, enclosed kilns reached higher, more even temperatures and made stronger, less porous ware. That mastery of high heat later fed into metal smelting.
When and how
Xianrendong Cave, China, about 20,000 years ago; fired clay figurines at Dolní Věstonice, Czech Republic, are older still, about 26,000 years.
How we know
Laboratory tests on ancient sherds reveal the temperatures they were fired at, and early kilns are excavated at Near Eastern and Chinese sites.
Debates and open questions
How people discovered that heat hardens clay, perhaps from clay-lined hearths, is unknown.
▸Agriculture (the Neolithic Revolution) spread the use of PotteryWell documented
The connection
Pottery existed before farming in East Asia, but farming made it common everywhere. Settled farmers needed jars for grain, oil and beer, and pots for boiling cereals and beans. Heavy pots suit people who stay put. In the Near East, though, farming began about 2,500 years before pottery appeared there.
When and how
The Near East from about 7000 BC, after the 'Pre-Pottery Neolithic'; then Europe, Africa and South Asia with farming villages.
How we know
Excavated village layers show pottery becoming abundant as farming settled in, and residues show cereals, milk and meat cooked inside.
Debates and open questions
Why some early farmers did without pottery for many centuries, while some hunters made it, is debated.
▸Pottery shared kiln skills with GlassmakingMostly agreed
The connection
Glass grew out of the hot-material crafts. Potters learned to glaze surfaces and to make faience, a glazed quartz paste using the same sand and flux as glass. Their kilns and skill at controlling firing gave early glassmakers the know-how and equipment to melt glass.
When and how
Mesopotamia and Egypt; faience from about 4000 BC or earlier, glass beads by about 2500 BC.
How sure are we?
Faience and early glass share ingredients, and Mesopotamian glass recipes describe kiln-style furnaces and firing steps familiar from pottery.
Debates and open questions
Some scholars credit metalworking, whose slag can be glassy, rather than pottery glazing as glass's main ancestor.
▸Pottery may have led, via the potter's wheel, to The wheelDebated
The connection
Mesopotamian potters used slow turntables, then fast potter's wheels, to shape clay. The idea of a disc spinning on a fixed axle may have inspired cart wheels, which appear several centuries later. But a cart wheel also needs a strong, well-fitted axle under load, a separate engineering problem.
When and how
Mesopotamia, potters' turntables from about 4500 BC; wheeled vehicles across the Near East and Europe by about 3500 BC.
How sure are we?
The potter's wheel is older in the archaeological record, but no find or document shows that one inspired the other.
Debates and open questions
Some scholars think cart wheels grew from log rollers or arose in Europe or the steppe, independent of pottery.