This basic technology has been known since prehistoric times: the kilning of limestone is older than pottery, much older than metalworking, and possibly older than agriculture.
This seems to refer to lime floors in the mideast “Pre-Pottery Neolithic” (Göbekli Tepe, Jericho) but that doesn’t mean that it predated pottery. Some ceramics are very old, much older than agriculture. All around the world pottery is seen before agriculture, but it seems to appear and disappear.
According to Concrete Planet, by Robert Courland, the archaeological site at Göbleki Tepe, c. 9600 BC, shows evidence of lime products (plaster, mortar, and/or concrete). Fired-clay figures (not even pottery) don’t show up until Nevali Çori, c. 8600 BC. At least, according to the table on p. 48. On that same page he says that “fired ceramics make an appearance soon after the invention of the limekiln.”
The Venus figurine you linked to is interesting. I knew there were carved figurines that old but not fired ceramic. Maybe Courland is wrong, or maybe he’s just talking about kilning (presumably this figurine, dating from over 27 kya, would have been fired on a campfire, not in kiln).
In any case, I wouldn’t call the figurine pottery, so maybe what I wrote is still technically correct?
Courland (and the many others who say the same thing) probably means that there weren’t ceramics in the mideast before lime. But there were ceramics elsewhere.
What is your technical criterion? That it isn’t a pot? Maybe that is what people mean by “Pottery Neolithic,” but this seems to me a stupid criterion. Anyhow, there were ceramic pots in many places in East Asia before this. The general world-wide trend is that ceramic pots predate local agriculture, with the odd exception of the mideast. Here is pot from China, dated there 20-10kya, together with a fragment said to have a more precise dating of 20kya. Here is a Japanese pot. Here is a Siberian potsherd. I think South American pottery was pots, but I’m not sure. It’s pretty recent, but I think it predated Andean agriculture, although not Mexican. African bowls predate agriculture and seem contemporaneous with Çatalhöyük, perhaps Göbekli Tepe. [This is list is simply the second paragraph of wikipedia on pottery, which was the basis for my previous claim about “all around the world,” but now I’ve tracked down the individual examples.]
The Venus figurine might be uniquely old, but Croatia had a bunch of paleolithic ceramic figurines.
This seems to refer to lime floors in the mideast “Pre-Pottery Neolithic” (Göbekli Tepe, Jericho) but that doesn’t mean that it predated pottery. Some ceramics are very old, much older than agriculture. All around the world pottery is seen before agriculture, but it seems to appear and disappear.
According to Concrete Planet, by Robert Courland, the archaeological site at Göbleki Tepe, c. 9600 BC, shows evidence of lime products (plaster, mortar, and/or concrete). Fired-clay figures (not even pottery) don’t show up until Nevali Çori, c. 8600 BC. At least, according to the table on p. 48. On that same page he says that “fired ceramics make an appearance soon after the invention of the limekiln.”
The Venus figurine you linked to is interesting. I knew there were carved figurines that old but not fired ceramic. Maybe Courland is wrong, or maybe he’s just talking about kilning (presumably this figurine, dating from over 27 kya, would have been fired on a campfire, not in kiln).
In any case, I wouldn’t call the figurine pottery, so maybe what I wrote is still technically correct?
Courland (and the many others who say the same thing) probably means that there weren’t ceramics in the mideast before lime. But there were ceramics elsewhere.
What is your technical criterion? That it isn’t a pot? Maybe that is what people mean by “Pottery Neolithic,” but this seems to me a stupid criterion. Anyhow, there were ceramic pots in many places in East Asia before this. The general world-wide trend is that ceramic pots predate local agriculture, with the odd exception of the mideast. Here is pot from China, dated there 20-10kya, together with a fragment said to have a more precise dating of 20kya. Here is a Japanese pot. Here is a Siberian potsherd. I think South American pottery was pots, but I’m not sure. It’s pretty recent, but I think it predated Andean agriculture, although not Mexican. African bowls predate agriculture and seem contemporaneous with Çatalhöyük, perhaps Göbekli Tepe. [This is list is simply the second paragraph of wikipedia on pottery, which was the basis for my previous claim about “all around the world,” but now I’ve tracked down the individual examples.]
The Venus figurine might be uniquely old, but Croatia had a bunch of paleolithic ceramic figurines.