| Pottery fragments found in a south China cave have been confirmed to be
20,000 years old, making them the oldest known pottery in the world,
archaeologists say.
The findings add to recent efforts that have dated pottery piles in east
Asia to more than 15,000 years ago, refuting conventional theories that
the invention of pottery correlates to the period about 10,000 years ago
when humans moved from being hunter-gathers to farmers.
The research by a team of Chinese and American scientists also pushes
the emergence of pottery back to the last ice age, which might provide
new explanations for the creation of pottery.
The ancient fragments were discovered in the Xianrendong cave in south
China's Jiangxi province. |