Posted on 06/06/2009 2:05:09 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Chinese and Israeli archaeologists have discovered the oldest known pottery, remains of an 18,000-year-old cone-shaped vase excavated from a cave in southern China. The shards are about 1,000 years older than the previous record-holder, found in Japan.
After flint tools, pottery is one of the oldest human-made materials, and tracing its development provides insight into the evolution of culture.
The shards were discovered four years ago in Yuchanyan Cave in the Yangzi River basin by a team led by Elisabetto Boaretto of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. The cave shows signs of human occupation from about 21,000 to 13,800 years ago.
The problem with caves is that, over time, remains from fires and other artifacts get scrambled by the activities of humans and burrowing animals, mixing layers of artifacts and making dating difficult.
Boaretto, Xiaohong Wu of Peking University in Beijing and their colleagues circumvented this problem by focusing on excavating a small area, only a quarter of a yard square, and carefully analyzing each layer of sediment.
They reported Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that radiocarbon dating of charcoal and bone fragments from the excavation produced dates that were consistently older with increasing depth.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I’m not buying this. No where on it does it mention, *Made In China*
I was wondering about the shape as well. Could it be as simple an explaination that it was easier to make than other shapes?
maybe it was before the invention of the table and just pressed it into the earth to keep it upright.
Hmm... I wonder if that means descendants of these cave people have more ancient and prior rights to Chinese territory than the Chinese. According to Chinese expansionists prior claim is good enough to merit aggressive attempts at possession.
The Chinese are aggressive cultural imperialists too. Even when it’s pointed out that they aren’t really a homogenous population they shrug it off; the culture they say is continuous and unique. That seems to be a motive behind much of their archeaology. It’s also what makes me suspicious of finds like this.
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