Kevin Gibbs

Ancient lipids document continuity in the use of early hunter-gatherer pottery through 9,000 years of Japanese prehistory.

Significance Pottery has had a central role in human society for many millennia, but the reasons for the emergence and spread of this technology are poorly understood. First invented by groups of hunter–gatherers living in East Asia during the last glacial period, production only began to flourish with rising global temperatures in the Holocene, but the reasons for its uptake and spread are unknown. Through chemical analysis of their contents, we herein provide, to our knowledge, the first direct evidence of pottery use across this climatic transition. Contrary to expectations, ceramic vessels had a remarkably consistent use, predominantly for processing aquatic resources, indicating that cultural rather than environmental factors were most important for their widespread uptake. The earliest pots in the world are from East Asia and date to the Late Pleistocene. However, ceramic vessels were only produced in large numbers during the warmer and more stable climatic conditions of the Holocene. It has long been assumed that the expansion of pottery was linked with increased sedentism and exploitation of new resources that became available with the ameliorated climate, but this hypothesis has never been tested. Through chemical analysis of their contents, we herein investigate the use of pottery across an exceptionally long 9,000-y sequence from the Jōmon site of Torihama in western Japan, intermittently occupied from the Late Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene. Molecular and isotopic analyses of lipids from 143 vessels provides clear evidence that pottery across this sequence was predominantly used for cooking marine and freshwater resources, with evidence for diversification in the range of aquatic products processed during the Holocene. Conversely, there is little indication that ruminant animals or plants were processed in pottery, although it is evident from the faunal and macrobotanical remains that these foods were heavily exploited. Supported by other residue analysis data from Japan, our results show that the link between pottery and fishing was established in the Late Paleolithic and lasted well into the Holocene, despite environmental and socio-economic change. Cooking aquatic products in pottery represents an enduring social aspect of East Asian hunter–gatherers, a tradition based on a dependable technology for exploiting a sustainable resource in an uncertain and changing world.

Modelling the diffusion of pottery technologies across Afro-Eurasia: Emerging insights and future research

Abstract Where did pottery first appear in the Old World? Statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates suggests that ceramic vessel technology had independent origins in two different hunter-gatherer societies. Regression models were used to estimate average rates of spread and geographic dispersal of the new technology. The models confirm independent origins in East Asia (c. 16000 cal BP) and North Africa (c. 12000 cal BP). The North African tradition may have later influenced the emergence of Near Eastern pottery, which then flowed west into Mediterranean Europe as part of a Western Neolithic, closely associated with the uptake of farming.

Specialized Processing of Aquatic Resources in Prehistoric Alaskan Pottery?: A Lipid-Residue Analysis of Ceramic Sherds from the Thule‐Period Site of Nunalleq, Alaska

Largely missing from the debate surrounding the use of pottery among arctic and subarctic hunter-gatherers are site-based biomolecular studies of vessel contents. This study used lipid-residue analysis to elucidate vessel function at Nunalleq (GDN-248), a late Thule-period coastal village site in the Yup’ik area of Western Alaska. In total, 31 pottery sherds and five soil samples were analyzed using gas chromatography and/or gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The ubiquitous presence of aquatic biomarkers in all the pottery sherds suggests that pottery function at the site was directly linked to the use of aquatic resources. This indication of relatively specialized use of pottery at Nunalleq is particularly interesting when considered within the context of the site’s broader subsistence strategies, which included use of both aquatic and terrestrial resources. These findings appear to support a more general association between higher-latitude pottery traditions and the use of aquatic resources, though this topic requires further research.

Exploring the emergence of an 'Aquatic' Neolithic in the Russian Far East: organic residue analysis of early hunter-gatherer pottery from Sakhalin Island

Abstract The Neolithic in north-east Asia is defined by the presence of ceramic containers, rather than agriculture, among hunter-gatherer communities. The role of pottery in such groups has, however, hitherto been unclear. This article presents the results of organic residue analysis of Neolithic pottery from Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. Results indicate that early pottery on Sakhalin was used for the processing of aquatic species, and that its adoption formed part of a wider Neolithic transition involving the reorientation of local lifeways towards the exploitation of marine resources.

The impact of environmental change on the use of early pottery by East Asian hunter-gatherers

Significance The motivations for the widespread adoption of pottery is a key theme in world prehistory and is often linked to climate warming at the start of the Holocene. Through organic residue analysis, we investigated the contents of >800 ceramic samples from across the Japanese archipelago, a unique assemblage that transcends the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary. Against our expectations, we found that pottery use did not fundamentally change in the Early Holocene. Instead, aquatic resources dominated in both periods regardless of the environmental setting. Nevertheless, we found that a broader range of aquatic foods was processed in Early Holocene vessels, corresponding to increased ceramic production, reduced mobility, intensified fishing, and the start of significant shellfish gathering at this time. The invention of pottery was a fundamental technological advancement with far-reaching economic and cultural consequences. Pottery containers first emerged in East Asia during the Late Pleistocene in a wide range of environmental settings, but became particularly prominent and much more widely dispersed after climatic warming at the start of the Holocene. Some archaeologists argue that this increasing usage was driven by environmental factors, as warmer climates would have generated a wider range of terrestrial plant and animal resources that required processing in pottery. However, this hypothesis has never been directly tested. Here, in one of the largest studies of its kind, we conducted organic residue analysis of >800 pottery vessels selected from 46 Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites located across the Japanese archipelago to identify their contents. Our results demonstrate that pottery had a strong association with the processing of aquatic resources, irrespective of the ecological setting. Contrary to expectations, this association remained stable even after the onset of Holocene warming, including in more southerly areas, where expanding forests provided new opportunities for hunting and gathering. Nevertheless, the results indicate that a broader array of aquatic resources was processed in pottery after the start of the Holocene. We suggest this marks a significant change in the role of pottery of hunter-gatherers, corresponding to an increased volume of production, greater variation in forms and sizes, the rise of intensified fishing, the onset of shellfish exploitation, and reduced residential mobility.