Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-8cg97 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-11T19:05:01.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Modelling the diffusion of pottery technologies across Afro-Eurasia: emerging insights and future research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Peter Jordan ,
Kevin Gibbs ,
Peter Hommel ,
Henny Piezonka ,
Fabio Silva  and
James Steele
Peter Jordan*
Affiliation:
Arctic Centre, University of Groningen, PO Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, the Netherlands
Kevin Gibbs
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Box 455003, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA
Peter Hommel
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PG, UK
Henny Piezonka
Affiliation:
Eurasia Department, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Im Dol 2–6, Berlin 14195, Germany
Fabio Silva
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK
James Steele
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Jan Smuts Avenue, Braamfontein, Johannesberg 2000, South Africa
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Where did pottery first appear in the Old World? Statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates suggests that ceramic vessel technology had independent origins in two different hunter-gatherer societies. Regression models were used to estimate average rates of spread and geographic dispersal of the new technology. The models confirm independent origins in East Asia (c. 16000 cal BP) and North Africa (c. 12000 cal BP). The North African tradition may have later influenced the emergence of Near Eastern pottery, which then flowed west into Mediterranean Europe as part of a Western Neolithic, closely associated with the uptake of farming.

Keywords

Neolithic transitionhunter-gatherersagriculturepotterystatistical modelradiocarbon datingdiffusion
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 351 , June 2016 , pp. 590 - 603
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Barker, G. 2006. The agricultural revolution in prehistory: why did foragers become farmers? Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51: 337–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caneva, I. (ed.). 1983. Pottery-using gatherers and hunters at Saggai (Sudan): preconditions for food production. Rome: Origini XII.Google Scholar
Close, A.E. 1995. Few and far between: early ceramics in North Africa, in Barnett, W.K. & Hoopes, J.W. (ed.) The emergence of pottery: technology and innovation in ancient societies: 23–37. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Craig, O.E., Saul, H., Lucquin, A., Nishida, Y., Taché, K., Clarke, L., Thompson, A., Altoft, D.T., Uchiyama, J., Ajimoto, M., Gibbs, K., Isaksson, S., Heron, C.P. & Jordan, P.. 2013. Earliest evidence for the use of pottery. Nature 496: 351–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12109 Google Scholar
Davison, K., Dolukhanov, P.M., Sarson, G.R., Shukurov, A. & Zaitseva, G.I.. 2009. Multiple sources of the European Neolithic: mathematical modelling constrained by radiocarbon dates. Quaternary International 203: 10–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2008.04.013 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evershed, R.P., Payne, S., Sherratt, A.G., Copley, M.S., Coolidge, J., Urem-Kotsu, D., Kotsakis, K., Özdoğan, M., Özdoğan, A.E., Nieuwenhuyse, O., Akkermans, P.M.M.G., Bailey, D., Andeescu, R.-R., Campbell, S., Farid, S., Hodder, I., Yalman, N., Özbaşaran, M., Bıçakcı, E., Garfinkel, Y., Levy, T. & Burton, M.M.. 2008. Earliest date for milk use in the Near East and southeastern Europe linked to cattle herding. Nature 455: 528–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature07180 Google Scholar
Fuller, D.Q & Rowlands, M.. 2011. Ingestion and food technologies: maintaining differences over the long-term in West, South and East Asia, in Wilkinson, T., Sherratt, S. & Bennet, J. (ed.) Interweaving worlds: systematic interactions in Eurasia, 7th to 1st millennia BC: 36–60. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Graf, K.E. 2009. ‘The good, the bad, and the ugly’: evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 694–707. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2008.10.014 Google Scholar
GRASS Development Team. 2012. Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) software. Available at: http://grass.osgeo.org (accessed 23 February 2016).Google Scholar
Gronenborn, D. 2009. Transregional culture contacts and the Neolithization process in northern Central Europe, in Jordan, P. & Zvelebil, M. (ed.) Ceramics before farming: the dispersal of pottery among prehistoric Eurasian hunter-gatherers: 527–50. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Hallgren, F. 2004. The introduction of ceramic technology around the Baltic Sea in the 6th millennium, in Knutsson, H. (ed.) Coast to coast—arrival: results and reflections: 123–42. Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Hommel, P. 2009. Hunter-gatherer pottery: an emerging 14C chronology, in Jordan, P. & Zvelebil, M. (ed.) Ceramics before farming: the dispersal of pottery among prehistoric Eurasian hunter-gatherers: 561–69. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Huysecom, E., Rasse, M., Lespez, L., Neumann, K., Fahmy, A., Ballouche, A., Ozainne, S., Maggetti, M., Tribolo, Ch. & Soriano, S.. 2009. The emergence of pottery in Africa during the tenth millennium cal BC: new evidence from Ounjougou (Mali). Antiquity 83: 905–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00099245 Google Scholar
Jesse, F. 2003. Early ceramics in the Sahara and the Nile Valley, in Krzyżaniak, L., Kroeper, K. & Kobusiewicz, M. (ed.) Cultural markers in the later prehistory of northeastern Africa and recent research (Studies in African Archaeology 8): 35–50. Poznań: Poznań Archaeological Museum.Google Scholar
Jordan, P. & Zvelebil, M.. 2009. Ex oriente lux: the prehistory of hunter-gatherer ceramic dispersals, in Jordan, P. & Zvelebil, M. (ed.) Ceramics before farming: the dispersal of pottery among prehistoric Eurasian hunter-gatherers: 33–89. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Kuzmin, Y.V. 2006. Chronology of the earliest pottery in East Asia: progress and pitfalls. Antiquity 80: 362–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00093686 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuzmin, Y.V. & Vetrov, V.M.. 2007. The earliest Neolithic complex in Siberia: the Ust’-Karenga 12 site and its significance for the Neolithisation process in Eurasia. Documenta Praehistorica 34: 9–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, K., Gatto, M.C., Jesse, F. & Zedeño, M.N.. 2002. Holocene settlement of the Egyptian Sahara, volume 2: the pottery of Nabta Playa. New York & London: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.Google Scholar
Olson, D.M., Dinerstein, E., Wikramanayake, E.D., Burgess, N.D., Powell, G.V., Underwood, E.C. & Kassem, K.R.. 2001. Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on earth. BioScience 51: 933–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1641/0006- 3568(2001)051[0933:TEOTWA]2.0.CO;2Google Scholar
Piezonka, H. 2015. Jäger, Fischer, Töpfer. Wildbeutergruppen mit früher Keramik in Nordosteuropa im 6. und 5. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Archäologie in Eurasien 30). Bonn: Habelt.Google Scholar
Reimer, P.J., Baillie, M.G.L., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J.W., Blackwell, P.G., Bronk Ramsey, C., Buck, C.E., Burr, G.S., Edwards, R.L., Friedrich, M., Grootes, P.M., Guilderson, T.P., Hajdas, I., Heaton, T.J., Hogg, A.G., Hughen, K.A., Kaiser, K.F., Kromer, B., McCormac, F.G., Manning, S.W., Reimer, R.W., Richards, D.A., Southon, J.R., Talamo, S., Turney, C.S.M., van der Plicht, J. & Weyhenmeyer, C.E.. 2009. Intcal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51: 1111–50.Google Scholar
Russell, T., Silva, F. & Steele, J.. 2014. Modelling the spread of farming in the Bantu-speaking regions of Africa: an archaeology-based phylogeography. PLoS ONE 9 (1): e87854. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087854 Google Scholar
Silva, F. & Steele, J.. 2014. New methods for reconstructing geographical effects on dispersal rates and routes from large-scale radiocarbon databases. Journal of Archaeological Science 52: 609–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2014.04.021 Google Scholar
Silva, F., Steele, J., Gibbs, K. & Jordan, P.. 2014. Modeling spatial innovation diffusion from radiocarbon dates and regression residuals: the case of early Old World pottery. Radiocarbon 56: 723–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.2458/56.16937 Google Scholar
Steele, J. 2010. Radiocarbon dates as data: quantitative strategies for estimating colonization front speeds and event densities. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 2017–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.03.007 Google Scholar
Usacheva, I.V. 2001. Stratigraficheskie Pozitsii Neoliticheskikh Tipov Keramiki Poseleniya “VIII Punkt” na Andreevskoe Ozero I Nekotorye Obshchie Voprosy Neolita Zaural'ya, in Tsibul'skij, V.R., Bagashev, A.N. & Valeeva, E.I. (ed.) Problemy Izucheniya Neolita Zapadnoj Sibiri: 116–33. Tyumen: Institute problem osvoeniya Severa SO RAN.Google Scholar
Wu, X., Zhang, C., Goldberg, P., Cohen, D., Pan, Y., Arpin, T. & Bar-Yosef, O.. 2012. Early pottery at 20,000 years ago in Xianrendong Cave, China. Science 336: 1696–700. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1218643 Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Jordan supplementary material

Jordan supplementary material

Download Jordan supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 1.9 MB