Early pottery in Afroeurasia - Origins and possible routes of dispersal

Written from a Central European perspective, this chapter will present a coarse overview of recent developments in studies on early container pottery emergence in Afroeur-asia. In order to understand the wider implications of the technological innovation and its spread to Europe, it is necessary to take a broad view and to investigate the current status of knowledge for the various centres of origin for pottery. It appears that early container pottery emerged independently in two broad zones, eastern Asia and West- and northern Africa, towards the end of the Pleistocene and during the earlier Holocene. Such container pottery was manufactured by small bands of sedentary or semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer-fishers. The new technology spread from these centres, but it is at present unclear whether pottery reached Europe from these distant source areas, as chronological and spatial gaps rupture the proposed routes of diffusion. A third centre of origin is the northern "Fertile Crescent", where container pottery emerges in the course of the 6 th millennium cal BC among farming societies, possibly independently of the other regions. The spread of pottery into Europe itself appears to follow long-term communication routes across western Afroeurasia which are also reflected in the three different neolithisation streams.