Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China
Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China
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DOI：
10.1126/science.1218643
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发表时间：
2012-06
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
Xiaohong Wu;Chi Zhang;P. Goldberg;D. Cohen;Yan Pan;T. Arpin;O. Bar‐Yosef
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Xiaohong Wu;Chi Zhang;P. Goldberg;D. Cohen;Yan Pan;T. Arpin;O. Bar‐Yosef
陶器的发明使得储存食物比篮子或皮袋更安全，而且这些容器也可以用于烹饪。据推测，最早的陶器出现在距今18000年前的中国和日本，比农业的出现还要早几千年。Wu et al. (p. 1696)；（参见Shelach的观点）现在已经确定了中国一个洞穴中陶器碎片的年代，其中最早的陶器可以追溯到2万年前，也就是末次盛冰期。许多陶器碎片上的烧焦痕迹表明这些陶器曾用于烹饪。从中国的一个洞穴中发现的碎片表明，人类在大约2万年前就发明了陶器并将其用于烹饪。陶器的发明带来了人类生存实践和社会象征行为的根本转变。本文描述了中国江西省仙人洞早期陶器的年代，以及陶器碎片和放射性碳样品的地层背景的微观形态。最早的碎片在考古背景下的放射性碳年代是距今2万到1.9万年，比在东亚和其他地方发现的其他陶器早2000到3000年。洞穴中的职业表明，陶器是由移动的觅食者生产的，他们在晚冰期高峰期狩猎和采集。这些器皿可能曾用作烹饪器具。早期的日期表明，陶器是在农业出现之前的一万年或更早的时候制造和使用的。
Pots and Crocks The invention of pottery allowed for more secure storage of food than was provided by baskets or hide pouches, and the vessels could also be used in cooking. The earliest pottery has been thought to have appeared in China and Japan ∼18,000 years ago, several thousands of years before the advent of agriculture. Wu et al. (p. 1696); see the Perspective by Shelach) have now dated broken pieces of pottery from a cave in China, the earliest of which date to ∼20,000 years ago, the time of the Last Glacial Maximum. Scorch marks on many pieces imply that the pottery was used in cooking. Shards from a cave in China imply that humans had invented pottery and used it for cooking by about 20,000 years ago. The invention of pottery introduced fundamental shifts in human subsistence practices and sociosymbolic behaviors. Here, we describe the dating of the early pottery from Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi Province, China, and the micromorphology of the stratigraphic contexts of the pottery sherds and radiocarbon samples. The radiocarbon ages of the archaeological contexts of the earliest sherds are 20,000 to 19,000 calendar years before the present, 2000 to 3000 years older than other pottery found in East Asia and elsewhere. The occupations in the cave demonstrate that pottery was produced by mobile foragers who hunted and gathered during the Late Glacial Maximum. These vessels may have served as cooking devices. The early date shows that pottery was first made and used 10 millennia or more before the emergence of agriculture.