Details
Over the past fifty years or so early pottery complexes in the wider region of West Asia have hardly ever been investigated in their own right. Early ceramics have often been unexpected by-products of projects focusing upon much earlier aceramic or later prehistoric periods. In recent years, however, there has been a tremendous increase in research in various parts of West Asia focusing explicitly on this theme. It has generally become accepted that the adoption of pottery in West Asia happened relatively late in the history of ceramics. Several regions are now believed to have developed pottery significantly earlier. Thus, pottery occurs in Eastern Russia, in China and Japan by 16,500 cal. BC and in north Africa it is known in the 10th millennium cal. BC.However, while the East Asian examples in particular do mark chronologically earlier instances, the picture in West Asia is actually rather more complex, in part because of the tyranny of the Aceramic/Ceramic Neolithic chronological divide. For the first time, The Emergence of Pottery in West Asia examines in detail the when, where, how and why of the arrival of the first pottery in the region. A key insight that emerges is that we must not confuse the reasons for pottery adoption with the long-term consequences. Neolithic peoples in West Asia did not adopt pottery because of the many uses and functions it would gain many centuries later and the development of ceramic technology needs to be examined in the context of its original cultural and social milieu.
Table of Contents
PREFACE
Chapter 1
The significance of Research on the Emergence of Pottery in West Asia
Akira Tsuneki
Chapter 2
The Earliest Pottery of West Asia: Questions Concerning Causes and Consequences
Marie Le Mière
Chapter 3
The Initial Pottery Neolithic at Tell Sabi Abyad, Northern Syria
Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse
Chapter 4
Akarҫay Tepe and Tell Halula in the Context of the Earlies Production of Ceramics in West Asia
Walter Cruells, Josep M. Faura and Miquel Molist
Chapter 5
The Oldest Neolithic Pottery from Tell Seker al-Aheimar, Upper Khabur, Northeastern Syria
Yoshihiro Nishiaki and Maria le Mière
Chapter 6
The Earliest Pottery of Salat Camii Yani
Yutaka Miyake
Chapter 7
The Emergence of Pottery in the Nothern Levant: A Recent View from Tell el-Kerkh
Takahiro Odaka
Chapter 8
The Early Pottery from Shir, Northern Levant
Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse
Chapter 9
Yumuktepe Early Ceramic Productions: Dark versus Light Coloured Wares and the Construction of Social Identity
Francesca Balossi Restelli
Chapter 10
Merging Clay and Fire: Earliest Evidence from the Zagros Mountains
Reinhard Bernbeck
Chapter 11
The Emergence of Pottery in Northeast Iran: The Case Study of Tappeh Sang-e Chakhmaq
Akira Tsuneki
Chapter 12
Absolute Dating and the Early Pottery of South-west Asia
Stuart Campbell
Chapter 13
The Beginning of Pottery Technology in Japan: The Dating and Function of Incipient Jomon Pottery
Yasuhiro Taniguchi
Chapter 14
Synthesis: The Emergence of Pottery in West Asia
Olivier P. Niuwenhuyse and Stuart Campbell
Reviews & Quotes
"The conference and subsequent book are indeed invaluable in their contribution to their re-understanding of both the traditional dual Aceramic/Ceramic chronological construction of the Neolithic in West Asia, as well as to our understanding of the reasons for and uses of the earliest pottery."
Reviews Editor
Bibliotheca Orientalis
(03/08/2021)
