The Story

During the Last Glacial Maximum, nomadic hunters in what is now Jiangxi Province faced harsh cold and scarce resources. They started shaping and firing clay into pots as tall as 20 cm to survive the extreme conditions.

Radiocarbon dating of sherds from Xianrendong Cave in China shows that humans were making ceramic containers 20,000–19,000 years ago, about 10,000 years before agriculture. The pots bear scorch marks and soot, indicating they were used for cooking.

These vessels allowed them to cook starchy foods, extract marrow, ferment alcohol and perhaps brew warm bone broth — calorie-dense options that were otherwise inaccessible. In other words, pottery was not an agricultural luxury but a survival technology for Ice-Age foragers.

Why It’s Interesting

These early pots pre-date sedentism by millennia and highlight how the drive to adapt to climate extremes spurred technological invention. The story also challenges the narrative that complex material culture only emerges with farming.

This discovery completely rewrites our understanding of when and why humans developed ceramic technology. It shows that innovation often comes from necessity and survival, not comfort and leisure.

The fact that nomadic hunter-gatherers were sophisticated enough to master fire control and clay chemistry during the Ice Age reveals the ingenuity of our ancestors in the face of environmental challenges.