Earliest evidence for the use of pottery

Nature:496,351–354(18 April 2013)

Received31 January 2013 ,Accepted20 March 2013 ,Published online10 April 2013


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

 Pottery was a hunter-gatherer innovation that first emerged in East Asia between 20,000 and 12,000 calibrated years before present (cal bp), towards the end of the Late Pleistocene epoch, a period of time when humans were adjusting to changing climates and new environments. Ceramic container technologies were one of a range of late glacial adaptations that were pivotal to structuring subsequent cultural trajectories in different regions of the world, but the reasons for their emergence and widespread uptake are poorly understood. The first ceramic containers must have provided prehistoric hunter-gatherers with attractive new strategies for processing and consuming foodstuffs, but virtually nothing is known of how early pots were used. Here we report the chemical analysis of food residues associated with Late Pleistocene pottery, focusing on one of the best-studied prehistoric ceramic sequences in the world, the Japanese Jōmon. We   demonstrate that lipids can be recovered reliably from charred surface deposits adhering to pottery dating from about 15,000 to 11,800calbp (the Incipient Jōmon period), the oldest pottery so far investigated, and that in most cases these organic compounds are unequivocally derived from processing freshwater and marine organisms. Stable isotope data support the lipid evidence and suggest that most of the 101 charred deposits analysed, from across the major islands of Japan, were derived from high-trophic-level aquatic food. Productive aquatic ecotones were heavily exploited by late glacial foragers, perhaps providing an initial impetus for investment in ceramic container technology, and paving the way for further intensification of pottery use by hunter-gatherers in the early Holocene epoch. Now that we have shown that it is possible to analyse organic residues from some of the world’s earliest ceramic vessels, the subsequent development of this critical technology can be clarified through further widespread testing of hunter-gatherer pottery from later periods.


1万5千年前の煮魚? 縄文土器に痕跡、世界最古級
                           (朝日新聞:2013年04月11日07時23分)

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 【冨岡史穂】縄文時代の草創期に当たる1万5千年前の土器で魚を煮炊きした痕跡を、日英の研究者らが土器の破片から見つけ、11日付英科学誌ネイチャーで発表した。世界最古級の土器の使い方を示す初の発見で、土器作りの発祥と発展の経緯を知る手がかりになるという。

 英ヨーク大や新潟県立歴史博物館などの研究チームが、1万1200年から1万5300年前の土器の破片を北海道、新潟、鹿児島など国内13の遺跡から101個集め、表面や付着物に含まれる炭素や窒素の同位体、脂質などを分析した。

 大半から、海の魚を高温で調理した際に出るのに近い成分が見つかった。土器の外側からは同じ成分が出ず、煮炊きした痕跡と結論づけた。遺跡の多くは内陸にあるため、サケのように海と川を行き来する魚の可能性があるという。

 日々の食事のために使われた新しい時代の縄文土器に比べると、この時代の土器は出土が少ないことなどから、チームの内山純蔵・総合地球環境学研究所客員准教授は「儀礼に使われた可能性がある」とみる。

 土器作りは一般に、人類が定住して農耕を始める過程で、食料を調理、貯蔵するために発達したと考えられているが、中国で2万年前の土器が見つかるなど、東アジアでは、はるかに古い土器が多く見つかっており、内山さんは「世界最古級の土器の使われ方を調べれば、土器の誕生と技術の発展の謎に迫れる」と話す。