Ancient Pottery Reveals How Ice Age Hunter-Gatherer Groups Lived for Fish

About 15,000 years ago, hunters and gatherers lived among glacial conditions. They created pottery, built structures and eked out a living in weather conditions that were frigid during the winter months. Now, researchers have discovered some of the pottery they created, and have discovered exactly what the pots were used for. The findings could lend insight into how our early ancestors lived.

The ceramic vessels were first discovered Japan, a country that's recognized as being one of the first centers for ceramic innovation. It dates to the Late Pleistocene, when humans were adjusting to changing climates and new environments. Before now, these types of containers were associated with the arrival of farming, when populations of people became stationary and pots could be stored and used on a daily basis.

In order to find out exactly what these hunter-gatherer pots were used for, researchers used chemical analysis to examine the organic compounds extracted from charred surface deposits on the pottery. They found that the lipids from the deposits on the pottery came from freshwater or marine organisms. In fact, the researchers noted that these organisms were probably high up on the food chain.

"Foragers first used pottery as a revolutionary new strategy for the processing of marine and freshwater fish, but perhaps most interesting is that this fundamental adaptation emerged over a period of severe climate change," said Oliver Craig, who led the research, in a press release. "The reliability of high abundance food along shorelines and river-banks may well have provided the initial impetus for an investment in producing ceramic containers, perhaps to make the most of seasonal gluts or as part of elaborate celebratory feasts and could be linked to a reduction in mobility."

It's this reduction in movement that is most interesting. It could mean that the hunters and gatherers began to settle down and become less mobile. That said, further research needs to be conducted before any conclusions are drawn.

What the study does show, though, is the fact that people took advantage of the warming climate by creating this pottery. In addition, it shows that it's possible to analyze organic residues from some of the world's earliest ceramic vessels. This could open up whole new paths for future study of hunter-gatherer pottery, and could reveal how these early groups of people lived.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.