The Invention of Pottery - China & Czechia (Prehistory Documentary)
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- Опубліковано 8 чер 2024
- Pottery is the most important prehistoric technological invention, according to Grandmas everywhere. So where and when did we first start making it?
/ stefanmilo
Disclaimer: Use my videos as a rough guide to a topic. I am not an expert, I may get things wrong. This is why I always post my sources so you can critique my work and verify things for yourselves. Of course I aim to be as accurate as possible which is why you will only find reputable sources in my videos. Secondly, information is always subject to changes as new information is uncovered by archaeologists.
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Sources:
1 - Kuijt, I., and B. Finlayson. “Evidence for Food Storage and Predomestication Granaries 11,000 Years Ago in the Jordan Valley.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 106, no. 27, 2009, pp. 10966-10970., doi:10.1073/pnas.0812764106.
2 - Shennan, Stephen. The First Farmers of Europe: an Evolutionary Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
3 - Vandiver, P. B., et al. “The Origins of Ceramic Technology at Dolni Vecaronstonice, Czechoslovakia.” Science, vol. 246, no. 4933, 1989, pp. 1002-1008., doi:10.1126/science.246.4933.1002.
4 - Wu, Xiaohong, et al. “Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China.” Science, vol. 336, no. 6089, 2012, pp. 1696-1700., doi:10.1126/science.1218643.
5 - www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-tele...
6 - Shoda, Shinya, et al. “Late Glacial Hunter-Gatherer Pottery in the Russian Far East: Indications of Diversity in Origins and Use.” Quaternary Science Reviews, vol. 229, 2020, p. 106124., doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106124.
Forgot to add this at the end. Big thanks to my top tier patreons!
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I don't hear much of the
Ancient Germaic and
Mongolian history.
I'd like to see you break down
those regions and how
Asian technology merged with
European countries.
Interestingly, there is also evidence of an independent invention of pottery in sub-Saharan Africa, in/around Mali, around 9,400 BC (around 11,400 years ago) before it was invented in the Middle East. (Pottery was also invented by Native Americans probably ca 7-8,000 BC in Central and/or South America). See: web.archive.org/web/20120306002155/www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Swiss_archaeologist_digs_up_West_Africas_past.html?cid=5675736
And search (study on early Malian ceramics): "Archaeology of the Ounjougou Site Complex" by E. Huysecom (2014)
It seems like pottery was independently invented in several places.
You really czeched your research for this one!
...
I'll step out now.
Now i'm going to spend all night thinking of a pun to go with Xianrendong
😂😂😂👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Stefan's czechnological research is first-rate.
Huhuhuh Stefan thinks of xianrendong all night 〠
@@Raventooth my very rudimentary (and fairly random) Chinese vernacular makes me chuckle, i know xian as first and ren as person or people but I have no idea what dong means which leaves me with a dong of the first man >
I think weaving would give pottery a run for its money. That gave us fish nets, baskets and advanced clothing. The sling, which allows women to use both hands while carrying young might be right up there.
That's a good point, although I'd point out that one needn't necessarily have weaving in order to have baby slings, which could also be made of first, just like clothing- or indeed, you could just go the route of many Indigenous American cultures and opt for a cradleboard, instead. Furthermore, you can have perfectly complex clothing with just furs and the ability to sew.
bouldersoundguy
I would have gone with weaving myself, if you hadn’t beaten me to it !
@@GotPotatoes24 I saw an article about a sherd with imprinted crude knitted sling for carrying fire, apparently by nomadic hunter gatherers, who took fire from one encampment to the next in shallow mud bowls. But I cannot remember where I saw that. I was surprised at how early knitting was invented.
AFAIK oldest pottery has imprints of weaving (straw maybe?) and since pottery wheel was invented much, MUCH later, there was only two options for clay forming - free 'kneading' and pressing into baskets/woven bags before firing.
Yep. Weaving.
3:00 haha, the lengths arecheologists go to just to get a date...
I'll show myself out.
Another good video, my wife studies Bronze Age Greek pottery and Serbian Neolithic pottery, so I am bloody surrounded by the stuff...
Serbian neolithic pottery you say...???
@@StefanMilo that's right. I'll ask her which site if you like?
Definitely!
@@StefanMilo She's going to email you, if your email address hasn't changed?
@@StefanMilo Starčevo or good old Vinča, I doubt it's something else... 😅
Thanks Stefan!!! I started pottery in 1963 as a sophomore in high school in California. I was totally into it for 8 years! I've mined clay in Spain in 1974 and had a small studio there, and shared studios in Norway and elsewhere. We were taught in college that 2/3rds of the surface of our earth is made up of clay.....so no wonder that prehistoric peoples started discovering that there were hard bits of clay at the bottom of their fire pits....and BOOM.....off goes the history making stuff from clay! Making figurines.....is clay work man......no telling if the children of figurine makers started playing with clay and discovered "pinch pots" the easiest thing anyone can make with this wonderful material!!! Thanks for your video!!! D
I think it is worth mentioning that pottery was invented independently in America. The oldest dating is from Brazil 5630 BCE. In some areas there was a phase where they made baskets with clay and then burned the whole thing leaving a piece of pottery. Only later they started making pottery without first making a basket.
Cough cough. 23,000 years old pottery passing by.
pottery was developed independently in most parts of the world lol
5630 BCE from Brazilian pottery ? What region, Peter ?
@@sandroschmitt5660 The oldest know pottery in the Americas is from Caverna da Pedra Pintada.
@@PeterHarremoes Pará State ?
"I'm sure you're lovely."
Me: "Now let's not jump to conclusions."
Amazing that you are still finding the time to make these videos as a parent to a newborn baby! Massive respect and thanks 👊
I am glad you mentioned The Venus of Vestonice. I learnt about it at school long ago but only when I visited Vestonice did I realize how old it was and that it was actually made by the people who completely disappeared from the area which was unihabited for a few thousand years. The whole thing is a way more interesting than I could have ever realised at school.
Congrats man your channel has been blowing up!
According to Asterix in Britain, brits were drinking boiled water at 5 o'clock before tea was available.
Thanks for the video Stefan, I would like to add that like the use of fire made it easier to digest food the development of pottery made it easier to cook foods rather like stews or soups which helped the very young and old survive longer - as it made food more tender and easier to digest. Also I came across a theory that basket making might have been a transition to pottery in that it is only a step to line a basket with clay to make it waterproof and if ends up in a fire and the clay hardens it is just one more step to making a clay pot or bowl. Some cultures did cook soups or stews even without clay, such as the indigenous people on the Northwest Coast - who made cedar boxes that were watertight and would cook with fire heated stones dropped into the boxes.
"Use pottery to produce alcohol"
Oh that's why czechs are in this video!
also explains why pottery suddenly exploded across Eastern and Central Europe.
I love the way you present all of your videos. Never change!
One of my hobbies is studying World History, and this channel is really amazing, I can get tons of great information, thank you, nice video, hope you enjoy your tea💕☺️
The only good video on my UA-cam subscription feed this morning!
This video was great for my 7th and 8th grade students- fast-paced, but not too fast, lots of visuals, a bit of humor- very well done! Thank you!
Great video--fun to watch, info I was actually wondering about recently! So I finally hit the subscribe. Keep'em coming!
great vid to enjoy with my cup of tea, thanks again Stefan Milo!
Great video. I'm hoping that because of the quarantine more of my favorite small UA-camrs will make more videos 😛
Congrats to you and your wife!
Absolutely phenomenal content as always!
I find your definition of civilization intriguingly worthy of debate during tea time.
Also I missed mate! Glad to see you're still I'll around. Also also congrats on the baby (again). Sounds like you're an involved dad and that's awesome!
I feel confident that basketry predated pottery, and as you might see in the Pacific Northwest, well-made baskets might double as cooking pots. I think there was one pottery figurine that had the impression of a woven mat on its base. Scooby-doo to you too.
I never knew the pottery first came from prehistoric China but I do now! Also, the figurines in Czechia were cool too.
Cheers!
Correction, the oldest pottery FOUND...
2:56 Statues of a woman interrogator punching a suspect in the face to get him to talk?
Great video!!! We love your channel. Very educational👍👍👍👍👍
My guess is that they first used clay mud to cover meat before throwing it in the fire to stop it from burning while cooking. And found out baked clay hardens and can hold liquids. And you have the beginnings of pottery.
And then there only has to be a society sufficiently free from "conservatives" to actually allow progress to be made 😉
@@Nicholas_Bonato You're welcome. Why do you think did anatomically modern humans take 100.000 years to get out of the stone age?
@@Breakfast_of_Champions they needed a global warning (continuing the political thread^^)
@@Breakfast_of_Champions On an unrelated note why doesnt youtube let you dislike comments anymore?
And metals were discovered when malachite was used to adorn a clay pot. It melted in the kiln, to reveal copper.
Yesss finaly New video!! Thank you!
You look great as a Dad! I thoroughly enjoy ALL your videos! Thank you so much for educating and entertaining us!
Interesting topic and great video 👍
Love your videos, thank you very much. I did want to mention that figurines could be used to make tea just as rocks have been used to heat water. Seems experimental archeology has found this method of quick heating water works quite well, and it could imbue the water with the mother spirit (just a side thought). Keep up the great work.
Oh man... I really miss this old style of your videos bro... 🥹
You're really an amazing person.
Pottery is one of the finest art forms along with painting, drawing, sketching, coloring, sculpturing, sewing, tailoring, quilting, croacheing, knitting, rug hooking, latch hooking, and laniarding
I've just finished a year in college doing ceramics, metalwork, weaving, drawing and metalwork.
Mostly the techniques used thousands of years ago are still used, but much more crudely than they once were. Weaving seems to have lost the most. There are textiles in India and in South America that were very fine that just can't be produced now.
You’re wrong and a bad person. The plastic spoon was the greatest invention. It is known.
Keep up the great videos and stay safe in this crazy new world!
How can you blaspheme like that, you curr?
SPORK.
Good pronunciation of Dolni Vestonice my friend. Also, thanks for the videos.
Thanks Stefan. There are guys on youtube who seem to be able to stand naked in the wilderness and construct a battleship from scratch, but I'm going for Fire as the most important. Still pottery is pretty big deal too. Very informative as always.
Thanks nice to see you again. Congrats on the new baby.
Your kid is so lucky to have an interesting dad ! Good luck, being tired is part of the job. Oh and thanks for the video!
I’m guessing someone in deep time realised that the mud around the fire pit was hardened and could hold water, so eureka! First bowl made.. Just my 3 cents worth :)
I think you're right. I also think it was probably women, busy with children, preparing food, scraping hides, tending the fire, who first fashioned makeshift bowls to catch precious fat from dripping into the fire. They probably didn't think much of it, it just made life easier. Bored men, I think, would have then started tinkering, making ever fancier pots.
@@TheCaptaininsaino No.
Really it was baskets. The first pots were baskets covered in clay and fired in an oven. This can be seen with the earliest pots showing the texture of the basket they were made from.
Great video!
2:47 xianrendong means Sage Cave or Wizard Cave, 'Dong' is cave
hehehehe... DONG
Love your videos...❤
checkout that paper from some years back, that was talking about how light coloured skin is a recent trait, like post agriculture trait.
That makes sense, since even the whitest of white people will generally get pretty dark if you leave them out long enough, and people didnt have the buildings or firewood stores to spend much time inside before agriculture was invented. My family are about as white as wonder bread but my parents used to look Mediterranean (people thought my parents were Sicilian or Greek) because they both worked outdoors and spent alot of time either at the beach or on a boat during their down time, but once they got older, started working indoors, and spent less time on the water they reverted back to their wonder bread complexion.
If I remember right there were some early hominids like Neanderthals that were blonde or red haired and described as fair skinned based on bodies recovered (such as ice mummies). Really pale skin is thought to have developed as an adaptation for the last ice age, when humans went north into Europe where there was less sunlight and thicker clothes were needed to survive, so paler skin would allow more sunlight in and boost vitamin D production. I've heard similar theories about blue eyes, which helped people see in places wiht lower light in places like the arctic as well as helping people to do things like hunt at night and see better in dimly lit buildings. Both traits evolved earlier but really took off right around the time agriculture popped up.
Stefan,
Great videos!
I feel like my history education throughout middle school and high school (in the US) only focused on western ancient cultures. I really would love to learn more about the rise of ancient cultures in India and China
Great video Stefan, though for me clay will always be related to ashtrays. Probably due to a prominent blue one on my parents table the size of a soup plate. I would think though that main the prerequisite for pottery beats it. Fire makes us human, pottery is the ritual built around it. But it is great to find out about insights in the field I wasn't aware of. Pre-dynastic science in China is pretty solid if it doesn't fit into any narrative of political importance. Pottery lacks mobility, so those people must have had localised resources. I am curious what is known about the habitats of those people.
Thank you for your wisdom on this lonely night
Very great video, you didn't talk about the skeuomorphic patterns on the primitive pottery you shown, I personally found interesting how this patterns imitate the basketry
Great presentation as usual. 💛
Clay, pottery, & ceramics are a wonderful topic. A more detailed follow up would not hurt.... : such as storage vs cooking vs ornament. Then trade item vs personal consumption. Then, different ways to fire the clay. Ways to decorate. & paint: because sealing with a glaze is important !
Thanks 💚💚💚
Great channel 👍
Before pottery there were wooden boxes and woven wicker type baskets made from wood, wicker, and grasses as well as collected animal fur from muflon and Ibex. To store water they usedanimal stomachs and bladders.
I guess it’s way more difficult to find them because they don’t preserve as well as clay and stone.
Very cool! Can you do a video about the discovery of fishing as well
I think writing is the most important invention. Great video!
When you look at how much knowledge was transmitted and built on without writing... I think agriculture changed everything and is bringing about the devastation of the planet. Not so sure about writing. People used to have much greater powers of retention. Some Travellers today can sing hundreds of songs with in some cases dozens of verses. I struggle to remember one or two lyrics.
The legend strikes again
Love your channel and very interesting. I’ve been learning flintknapping and recreating southeastern us native material culture Iike bows or weaving for a lot of my life and have been getting into pottery recently. It’s interesting to learn of the many things ancient peoples created and I love learning about the old world as well. Ancient austronesian and middle eastern cultures have been particularly interesting. Would love to maybe talk sometime but you must be a busy man. Much respect for your good work✊🏼
Your channel has talked about many of the random topics I’ve craved more info for. Like Paleolithic and older hominids and underrepresented topics like African history
Hey Buff, how is your southern cult study progressing?
I have my father's and uncles bows on the mantle. 'uncle emmitt' made them for them as children in the 1950s.... in Oklahoma.
Supposedly Choctaw, but that's possibly myth.
Have you followed any of the work connecting modern tribal recognition of southern cult motifs?
@@stripeytawney822 are you speaking of modern southeastern-descendent tribes becoming more aware of an embracing old symbolism from the “southeastern death cult” then yes I am aware lol. Many people I know now have traditional tattoos or ad the style to their artwork like shell carving or painting
@@PigeonDumplins I think so. It was an article in archaeology mag if i remember right. Want to say it was winnebago myths and inktomi?
I just am happy that there is some cultural continuity!
Really like this video mate, guess u can say it was my cup of tea lol
it's great that you keep posting despite your new full time job of parenting. An idea now that you're a dad: take a look at prehistoric parenting. earliest signs of giving cow milk to infants, possible toys, different burial practices...
I’m glad I’m not the only one drinking my liquor in tea mugs :)
FIRE without a doubt.
So, it was all about the cooking of food hugh? Makes total sense. Love your videos by the way!
Dam it,,,, where's your plastic spoon microphone holder? Excellent content by the way and as someone living in the commonwealth I agree completely regarding tea,,, can't live without it.
Excellent. Thanks.
Not that you're going to go back and fix an old video, but the Arabic at 1:48 is backwards, which is also why the script is separate letters instead of well...a script. But that's not all--it's also mis-transliterated from English. If you reverse the Arabic there, you get "baab ad-dihra", but the actual name for the place in Arabic is باب الذراع (baab ad-diraa3). The D sound is different, there's no H at all, and the final A is longer. It's pretty clear that someone just typed the English into google translate and pasted the result into photoshop (which will reverse the direction if it's set to LtR/English.
Just figured I'd mention it in case you got the image from a source that you still trust. Great vid as always!
Hi Stefan, I do appreciate your videos. At 2:01 is the bottom side part of the rock as well? If so, is the box still attached to the bedrock or it's a free standing object?
I dig the stroll through the neighborhoods of Portland.
Great video, you look absolutely exhausted, and a bit more roundy lol
I have always maintained that beer was mankind's greatest invention, but pottery had to come first. This is why I watch for Stefan Milo videos.
One thing I think that's important to point out is that while the rest of the world probably was behind when it came to pottery......it doesn't mean they didn't have cooking and storage vessels. They did, they were probably just made of much easier and plentiful to source materials like wood/bark/leaves/skins. Things that could be made while moving from place to place quickly and easily. Pottery is a time and resource intense project that would make little sense to a lot of humanity at that point in time. Context is everything. Heck we've even begun replacing it a lot in modern society because it breaks easily and it's expensive. In many cases (like a tea pot) there are far better alternatives.
Hey Stefan, I enjoy your videos. A suggestion: Drop the patriarchal term "hunter/gatherer" (devised by 19th century male anthropologists) for the more accurate "forager/hunter." In most climes, most calories were obtained through foraging, which does include chasing predators off of their prey, stealing eggs and honey, and eating insects. Bringing home a deer was a stroke of good fortune. Animals run away. Plants do not. Be brave. Set the trend, my friend.
I'll definitely give this some thought. No promises but will sincerely look into it.
@@StefanMilo Thank you and keep up the good work, mate.
So if I go forage in the fridge hunting something to snack on....
Am I trending up or down?
Seriously, I remember the lecture on who supplied the calories to the group in an anthropology class.
Eye opening stuff!
It's so interesting to ponder on what they must've used them for.
The same things we use them for most likely.
They put their weed in it.
Excellent.
There is a mistake in the name of the article in the references - it seems that Czech "ě" turned to "ecaron" for some reason. Should be Věstonice or Vestonice I guess.
Greetings from Czechia 😊
Eye opener (generally) and funny context for Věstonice 😆
Could pottery making diffuse to the West from the Far East over the Eons?
These early sculptures must’ve been able to see in the future........ I swear that Venus figure is of me 😂🤣
I've always said the greatest human invention ever is the backpack. My life would be hell without it! Considering how it frees up our hands, which are arguably our most defining and useful feature.....i'll stick with that for now. Containers or fire you can scavenge but try finding a nice backpack in nature...nope. Some folks believe the wheel is more important but that's just sillyness. You can challenge me to a 10 km race carrying stuff in a backpack and i'll let you use handcarts or wheels however you please. You'll be eating my dust and would not even finish :)
Great video, thanks for easing my covid19 boredom! I just knew the sheep would entertain us!
Mastery of fire allowed almost EVERYTHING to progress.
I love your stuff. I agree ceramics changed everything! The original Tupperware! But control , mastery, enhancing heating of EVERYTHING advanced all well-established tech.
This stuff had developed all over ...it's only when we all said "oooh, cool, I Have to HAVE that THAT!"
Like I said...love your stuff...top notch...but I believethe ability to use hot temperatures to affect another process is pre industrial. People did a LOT of things locally and independently LONG before the "discovery"..
And I'm betting on bread and beer as our instigator in progress.
Just me thoughts....thsnks
Great vid! You discuss uses; how about pottery for rendering fats from flesh that then can be used in pottery oil lamps to see when dark? Any thoughts?
Making bread. Processing grains by cooking makes them more digestible and thus more efficient. A very simple bread can be mixed, formed and cooked on the same flat rock. Not exactly Pepperidge Farm but effective.
You should make a video about the mystery behind the tartessian people
I have another theory about Xianrendong cave mystery. Considering how good Chinese at counterfeiting.
Thanks
Basket weaving was a big deal. Imagine only gathering things with the limitations of what you could hold with your hands 🙌🏽
I dont know, I remember seeing a historical documentary called the Flintstones and they seemed pretty capable of storing things inside pelicans and dinosaurs.
Leather bags mate, animal skins and guts can also be used to bind stuff for carrying. Basket making is extremely useful, but it isn't necessary.
the most interesting part of this video is how neolythic farmers in the middle east went so long without pottery. What did they store their water in?
Stone containers also.
@2manynegativewaves Please tell this to Graham Hancock. The 'gotcha' I keep hearing from the Hancock-ites about Gobekli Tepe is 'How could they have made it without drinking water???' I always say exactly what you have said -- skins and bladders.
00:05 - Actually Stefan, I do see it. Congratulations on starting a family - I have five daughters and they are absolutely the most important part of life for me. You will have many happy times. :-)
It's kinda strange that pottery was invented that late. Technically, you can discover pottery by accident. When you burn a camp fire for an extended time ( e.g. for heating in winter) on soil that mostly consists of clay, you will create an upper layer that doesn't dissolve in water anymore. As soon as somebody discovered a possible connection between heat and waterproof, hardened clay, it only takes a bit of experimentation to get to the first, basic pottery. And once that initial success is achieved, there is a huge motivation to improve the method and to make more and more different items out of pottery. Pottery is just way too useful in way too many ways.
Pottery led to kilns, which led to furnaces and metal smelting.
The evolution of fire ie getting it hotter and hotter to do more stuff, would be a really interesting topic to cover.
Cool!
I have many artifacts from central North Carolina. I was checking my points and axes with a magnet, and was surprised when a piece of old pottery stuck. I'm thinking they were using the stone powders from making other tools for material to enhance the clay.
The splinter, fidureing out how to take a stick, some lengths of cord or leather, and rapping that around a broken leg and taking care of that person long enough for that leg to heal fully
🤣🤣🤣 everyone has to take a shot each time Stefan says alcohol 😂😂😂🥂
How did people carry around or store bulk goods before this? Hide bags, woven containers, wooden bowls? Or did they just pick up everything in their hands and make several trips?
Nice one...........Pops
When you have a random burning question and the search bar does you justice…
Ah yes, the brew benchmark, not referred to enough when discussing early ceramic for my liking.
I'm not sure I want to see the video you made after that cup of tea.
Your comment so far is appreciated. Wish palaeontologists and archeologists would use it
First choice, The Eyed Needle. Second, textiles. Third, the spear thrower. Fourth, The Means to Preserve Food.
This game is one that the player will never win. It will always devolve into "yah, but what if". The needle was required for fitted clothing required for humanity's expansion beyond our home range in Africa. Textiles which probably began as interwoven branches or foliage used for shelters meant that people no longer needed to rely on skins alone for clothing or to carry needed items. The Spear Thrower extended man's ability to kill game or deliver the same thrown shaft harder at a given distance. Preserving food. Drying foods in the sun. Salting etc. Pottery while critical IMO is only really useful once a band has a reasonably settled life. Pottery was not required to provide watertight containers for fluids. Skin bags and hollowed out gourds will suffice. Skin bags/pots can be used for cooking.
The hafted axe or spear is a reasonable choice. Only spears do not absolutely require stone tips. Bone can work perfectly well. Besides how far back does the hafted tool go? 100KY? 200KY? More?
The lazer aya sheep... hahahahhaa
...
btw.. great video.. ;)