Chronology of the earliest pottery in East Asia: progress and pitfalls

The origin of pottery is among the most important questions in Old World archaeology. The author undertakes a critical review of radiocarbon dates associated with the earliest pottery-making and eliminates a number of them where the material or its context are unreliable. Using those that survive this process of ‘chronometric hygiene’, he proposes that food-containers made of burnt clay originated in East Asia in the Late Glacial, c . 13 700-13 300 BP, and appeared in three separate regions, in Japan, China and far eastern Russia, at about the same time.