Near Eastern Neolithic pottery
Cerámica agrícola del Próximo Oriente
- Date
- c. 6900 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Tell Sabi Abyad and Tell Seker al-Aheimar, Jazira, Syria
- Credited to
- Pottery Neolithic communities (Proto-Hassuna)
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Adoption of fired clay vessels for cooking, storage and fermentation in already mature farming villages, after two millennia of Pre-Pottery Neolithic. It opens the ceramic sequence that serves as a clock for all Near Eastern archaeology.
Independent emergence of pottery in East Asia (18,000 BCE), the Sahara (9400 BCE), the Near East (7000 BCE) and the Americas (Amazonia, c. 5500 BCE).
What it led to
- Slow cooking of cereals and pulses: porridge and stews, earlier weaning and greater fertility
- Airtight storage of liquids: oil, wine, beer, milk
- Decorative styles as markers of identity and exchange networks
Built on
- Basketryc. 27 ka
- Lime-plaster vessels (vaisselle blanche)
- Saharan pottery