Ancient Pottery Timeline

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Pottery Timeline (from 34,000 BC)

Ancient pottery used to be associated exclusively with Neolithic culture. Today, it is recognized as an important feature of Stone Age culture as a whole, dating back to the hunter-gatherers of the Gravettian or even the Aurignacian period.

Clay-fired ceramics (pots and figures) were invented at different times, in different locations, becoming the predominant ancient art in the process.

But it was China who established itself as the master of pottery technology. Only in China was pottery practiced continuously, from the beginning. See: Ancient Chinese Pottery (from 18,000 BC).

• 34,000-23,000 BC
  The earliest evidence of clay firing known to archaeology, comes from Klisoura Cave, at Klisoura Gorge, in the Eastern Peloponnese, Greece. Here, archaeologists found clay shaped into shallow basins. However, it is believed these basins were clay hearths used for cooking, including the roasting of wild grasses. No fragments of actual pottery were discovered, but the basins do suggest the emergence of an independent ceramic technology in Greece, during the early Upper Palaeolithic.
• 29,000
  The Venus of Dolní Věstonice, the world's oldest known clay-fired sculpture. Made by modern humans in the Moravian Basin (Czech Republic), it is one of the venus figurines from the Gravettian era. The Dolní Věstonice archaeological site - an area which includes a group of sites, such as Dolní Věstonice, Pavlov, Předmosti and Petřkovice - is also the location of the first known pottery kiln, which has been indirectly dated to between 29,000 and 26,000 BC.
• 29,000
  Ceramic figures from Krems-Wachtberg in Lower Austria - likely associated with Dolní Věstonice.
• 23,000
  Fragments of ancient pottery with cordage impressions found in layers 1–2 at Kostenki-1 in southern Russia, radiocarbon dated to 23,000 BC. Unfortunately, few details of these potsherds seem to be available.
• 20,000
  Start of Solutrean culture in Europe (ends 15,000).
• 18,000
  Xianren Cave pottery produced in Jiangxi. Oldest pottery in Asia.
• 16,300
  Yuchanyan Cave pottery is created in Hunan. China's second oldest ceramics.
• 15,500
  Vela Spila pottery (animal figures), made by Cro-Magnons on Korčula Island, Croatia.
• 15,000
  Start of Magdalenian culture in Europe (ends 10,000).
• 14,540
  Earliest known Japanese Jōmon pottery - found at Odaiyamamoto I site, Aomori Prefecture. Named after the rope (jo) patterns (mon) on earthenware vessels.
• 14,500
  The oldest ceramic in European Russia is a bowl-shaped lamp (or mixing bowl) found at Kapova Cave in the Shulgan-Tash Nature Reserve.
• 14,500
  Start of Incipient Jōmon style: mostly deep cooking containers with pointed bottoms, and cord marks. (Ends 8,000 BC)
• 14,200
  Amur River Basin pottery in Russia's Far East. Osipovka culture, the oldest pottery culture of the Lower Amur region, is found at three sites: Khummi (14,200), Gasya (14,050), and Goncharka-1 (13,400). Osipovka vessels usually have flat bottoms and thick walls. Their clay paste is mixed with various materials, including gravel, crushed potsherds, and plant fibre. Pots are often combed for decoration.
• 14,000
  The oldest ceramic figure in Russia is the clay-fired anthropomorph recovered from the site of Maina on the Yenesei River in southern Siberia.
• 14,000
  Beginning of the re-dated Gromatukha culture - the oldest pottery culture of the Middle Amur region, in the Russian Far East. Gromatukha pots have a conical shape, with either flat and round bottoms. They have thick walls, tempered with plant fibre. Some vessels have cord marks on their surfaces.
• 13,900
  Fukui Cave ceramics, Nagasaki, Japan. Example of Incipient Jōmon.
• 11,900
  Clay-fired pots found in the Trans-Baikal province in southern Siberia, Russia: at Ust-Kyakhta (11,900 BC), Ust-Karenga (11,800 BC) and Studenoye 11,250 BC.

See also: Dating Methods in Archaeology.

• 10,000
  Paleolithic culture ends. Replaced by Mesolithic culture in Europe. For an explanation of important archaeological terms relating to the Stone Age, see: Archaeology Glossary.
• 9,500-9,000
  Chinese Nanzhuangtou pottery based in southern Hebei. Associated with primitive ceramic ware.
• 9,400
  Pottery-making begins in sub-Saharan Africa, namely at Ounjougou, in Central Mali.
• 8,000
  Early Persian pottery centres include Ganj Dareh, Teppe Sarab, Susa and Chogha Mish.
• 8,000
  Pottery-making begins in the Middle Nile Valley, Sudan. Neolithic funerary vessels recovered from burial pits at Khartoum Hospital, Esh Shaheinab, and El Qoz, by archaeologist A.J.Arkell (1898-1980), who identified two main cultural phases - the 'Wavy Line culture' or 'Early Khartoum' (or 'Khartoum Mesolithic') and the 'Gouge culture' (or 'Khartoum Neolithic').
• 8,000
  Start of Initial Jōmon pottery (ends 5000 BC): vessels increase in size and become more decorated, reflecting a more settled style of life. Introduction of undulating rims and flat bottoms.
• 7,570-1,900
  Bhirran pottery, one of the oldest pre-Harappan traditions of Neolithic India, is noted for chocolate coloured slipware, brown-on-buff ware, bichrome ware, black-on-red vessels and plain red pottery.
• 7,510
  Earliest pottery at Sesklo in Thessaly, Greece. Known as proto-Sesklo and pre-Sesklo pottery.
• 7,500
  Earliest known Korean pottery - from the Jeulmun period.
• 7,500-6,100
  Chinese Pengtoushan pottery, Northwest Hunan, noted for cord-marked pots.
• 7,000
  Start of Neolithic Culture in Europe.
• 7,000-5,900
  Mesopotamian Hassuna pottery, characterized by a distinctive cream slip with reddish paint and linear patterns.
• 7,000-5,000
  Chinese Peiligang pottery in Henan, noted for thick red-coloured pots, with round bottoms, ear-shaped handles, and thick necks.
• 7,000-3,500
  Mehrgarh culture from Balochistan, divides into Mehrgarh I, (7,000–5,500 BC) (largely aceramic); Mehrgarh Period II (5,500-4,800 BC), and Mehrgarh III (4,800-3,500 BC). Mehrgarh pottery produced a wide range of ceramic material, including decorated ceramic female figures, button seals, and a style of geometric decoration known as Togau ceramics. During the fourth millennium BC, the culture migrated into the Indus Valley and became the Indus Valley civilization of the Bronze Age (from 3,300 BC).
• 6,500-5,500
  Chinese Houli pottery, centred on Shandong, noted for reddish-brown vessels, including fu-cauldrons with a folded edge.
• 6,500-5,500
  Halaf pottery from northern Mesopotamia and Syria introduced more colours embellished with geometric and animal motifs in orange, red, brown and black.
• 6,500-5,000
  Chinese Cishan pottery in southern Hebei. Produced a diverse range of pots including basins, serving stands, and ornate drinking cups.
• 6,500-4,500
  Pottery spread from Greece across Eastern, Central and Western Europe via the Danube, Rhine, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula rivers, or along the Mediterranean coastline. Known as Linear Pottery culture (LBK), Linearbandkeramik, Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, this wave of ceramic technology was a major phenomenon of the European Neolithic period.
• 6,200-5,400
  Chinese Xinglongwa pottery in Inner Mongolia. Characterized by cylindrical vessels, baked at low temperatures.
• 6,000
  Enthroned Goddess figurine from Çatalhöyük, Anatolia.
• 6,000-4,000
  Primorie Region pottery. The Primorie (maritime) in the Russian Far East, lies between the Lower Amur and the Pacific and contains several Neolithic pottery complexes at Almazinka, Ustinovka-3, Chernigovka-1 and Sakhalin Island.
• 5,800-5,400
  Chinese Dadiwan culture found in Gansu and Shaanxi, noted for thin-walled, cord-marked vessels.
• 5,500
  Egyptian faience - a non-clay-based ceramic with a brightly coloured, glassy finish - first found in the holy Egyptian city of Abydos. Faience was made by combining sand crystals with calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and copper oxide.
• 5,500
  Earliest Brazilian pottery from Pedra Pintada Cave, near the town of Monte Alegre.
• 5,500-4,800
  Chinese Xinle pottery around the lower Liao River around the lower Liao River on the Liaodong. Produced sand-tempered pots, including basket-shaped jars and bo-bowls with high feet.
• 5,500-4,800
  Samarra pottery of central Mesopotamia. noted for its dynamic style of figurative decoration, featuring paintings of dancing girls, goats, scorpions, and other creatures.
• 5,500-4,500
  Cardium pottery culture spreads from Greece westwards into the Mediterranean and Adriatic, into the Balkans, Italy, the French Rhone Valley, and Eastern Spain.
• 5,500-4,000
  Ubaid pottery of the early Sumerian culture, predominates in Mesopotamia. Due to lack of stone and wood, Ubaid people had to learn to bake clay to make bricks for their homes. Pottery followed. In general, Ubaid ceramic ware is decorated in a more subdued way than Halaf pottery, with very little of the latter's glossiness and colour. Instead it is renowned for a more restrained style of buff/green coloured ware decorated with chevrons, zigzags, parallel lines and other abstract patterns. Also noted for strange terracottas of people with lizard-like features.
• 5,400-4,500
  Chinese Zhaobaogou pottery found in the Luan River valley in Inner Mongolia and northern Hebei. Associated with engraved pots with geometric and zoomorphic patterns.
• 5,300-4,100
  Chinese Beixin pottery centred on Shandong. Beixin vessels are more diverse in shape, and usually decorated. The characteristic Beixin clay-fired pot is the ding, a tripod with three small legs.
• 5,500-3,300
  Chinese Hemudu culture, found around Zhejiang. Known for a thick, porous type of pottery, usually black and painted with plant and geometric designs.
• 5,000-3,300
  Chinese Daxi culture from the Middle Yangtze River region, known for its red pottery, eggshell-thin drinking cups, orange/black decorations, and double-waisted bowls.
• 5,000-3,000
  Chinese Yangshao pottery based along the Yellow River. Renowned for its white, red, and black vessels, decorated with bird, fish, deer, and plant motifs. Also for its funerary storage jars decorated with spiral scrolls and sawtooth patternwork, painted in sweeping brush strokes of black and red pigment.
• 5,200
  Pots made at Takarkori rock shelter located on Wadi Takarkori in southern Libya.
• 5,000
  The extraordinary ceramic sculpture known as the Thinker of Cernavoda produced by the Hamangia in Romania.
• 5,000
  Start of Early Jōmon Japanese pottery: noted for cord-marked earthenware cooking & storage vessels. (Ends 2,500 BC)
• 5,000
  Start of Eastern Linear Pottery culture which spreads into Bulgaria, Hungary, Ukraine.
• 4,700
  Chinese Hongshan pottery develops in Inner Mongolia and northeastern China - ends 2,900 BC. Associated with mostly red ware, in the forms of bowls, basins, jars and pots, etc., most of which have small flat bottoms. Most are decorated with black or purple stripes.
• 4,500
  Tourneys/tournettes (primitive types of potter's wheels) first used in the Middle East. Western Linear Pottery Culture spreads into Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, and France.
• 4,500
  San Jacinto culture - first ceramics in Colombia.
• 4,300-2,500
  Chinese Dawenkou culture centred on Shandong, Henan, and Jiangsu. Noted for red pottery decorated with geometric motifs, including jars with ear-shaped handles and jugs in the shape of a pig.
• 4,000-3,100
  Uruk pottery, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, is associated with urban civilization across Mesopotamia. During this period, ceramic pottery became the second most important medium of Mesopotamian art (after architecture), as potter's wheels became faster, and potters achieved tighter control of the firing process. Kiln designs also advanced. Uruk pottery is noted for its beveled rim bowls, and highly polished monochrome pots, made with red or grey slips. Uruk jars have large mouths, short necks and fat bodies. For later pottery from the Mesopotamian region - little of which was exceptional - see Babylonian Art (1830-539 BC), Hittite Art (2000-750 BC) and Assyrian Art (911-609 BC).
• 4,000
  Alaka pottery made in Guyana.
• 4,000
  Start of Painted Pottery Culture in China (ends 2000 BC).
• 4,000
  Neolithic cultures along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River valley start to produce eggshell-thin clay-fired goblets and bowls decorated in black and orange designs.
• 3,800
  Puerto Hormiga pots made in Colombia.
• 3,500-1,300
  The Indus Valley Civilization grew up along the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra rivers in India. It is also known as the Harappan Civilization after the type site Harappa, in the Punjab. The Civilization is divided into three phases: Early Harappan (3,500-2,600 BC), Mature Harappan (2,600-1,900 BC), and Late Harappan (1,900-1,300 BC). It yielded five phases of pottery production, including very fine wheel-made vessels left largely undecorated.
• 3,500
  Pit-Comb Ware tradition in Korea; start of the Middle Jeulmun pottery culture.
• 3,200
  Valdivia ceramic culture begins in Ecuador - first pottery in Ecuador.
• 3,200
  The centre of Greek pottery shifts from Thessaly on the mainland, to the Aegean civilization.
• 3,200-1,100
  Cycladic Pottery of the Aegean Civilization. Early Cycladic ware includes Grotta-Pelos (crude containers & collared jars), Keros-Syros (Frying-pan ceramics) and Phylacopi styles (with dark coloured geometric motifs). This is followed by Middle and Late Cycladic periods.
• 3,129
  Earliest stone potter's wheel found in the ancient city of Ur.
• 3,000
  The influential Longshan culture - based around the central and lower Yellow River region - is characterized by eggshell-thin black pottery with added spouts, legs, and handles. Many of its vessels are created specifically for ceremonial rites linked with the worship of ancestral spirits.
• 3,000
  Egyptian potters produce the first turntable shaft for a potter's wheel.
• 3,000-1,400
  Era of Minoan Pottery from the Island of Crete. The period of Early Minoan Pottery (3,000-2,000) is noted for its 'Incised Ware' (patterns of parallel lines), Aghios Onouphrios ware (patterns of diagonal lines), and Vasilike ware, (spotted surfaces).
• 2,890
  Earliest pottery in North America. Ceramic ware discovered in the Savannah River valley, in Georgia and South Carolina.
• 2,500
  Start of Middle Jōmon Japanese pottery. (Ends 1,500 BC)
• 2,450
  First pottery in Peru, made during the Pandanche culture.
• 2,140-1,600
  Pottery-making spreads into Central America, reaching Panama (2,140 BC), Costa Rica (1,890 BC), southern Mexico (1,805 BC), Guatemala (1,680 BC), and northern Mexico (1,600 BC).
• 2,000-1,800
  Minyan ware (Orchomenos ware), pottery of the Tiryns culture, from the southern Greek mainland, which precedes the Mycenaean civilization.
• 2,000
  Pottery wheel used by Minoan potters on Crete. Coincides with the flowering of Minoan pottery (noted for its bold vivid designs and all-over decoration) during the Protopalatial period (2000-1800 BC), when the great palaces of Knossos and Phaistos were built. An example is Kamares ware, from Phaistos.
• 1,700-1,050
  Beginning of Shang Dynasty culture. The Shang dynasty introduced several advances in pottery technology, including advanced stoneware and pottery glazes, using a thin, yellowish green glaze painted onto the vessel. It also produced a form of ceremonial white ware, containing kaolin (a material later used in porcelain), and decorated with geometric imagery.
• 1,600-1,425
  Crete's Neopalatial period, the high point of Minoan civilization. Noted for Floral and Marine styles of pottery.
• 1,500
  Korean Mumun pottery period begins.
• 1,500
  Start of Late Jōmon pottery: noted for high quality ceremonial vessels. (Ends 1,000 BC)
• 1,450-1,100
  Advent of Mycenaean pottery, though strongly influenced by Minoan traditions, lacks the finesse of Minoan ceramics. Mycenaean potters favour hunting scenes and pictorial arrangements of riders in chariots with birds and animals drawn in outline.
• 1,300
  During the era of Iron Age art, the Indus Valley Civilization in India is succeeded by the Indo-Gangetic traditions of 'northern black polished ware' and 'painted grey ware'.
• 1,100
  Dogū figurines - small hollow female ceramic figures - appear in Japan, during the Late and Final Jōmon cultures.
• 1,100-900
  'Dark Age' of Ancient Greek pottery. During this period pottery was centred in Athens and consisted largely of recycled Mycenaean ceramics, such as Submycenaean ware.
• 1,000
  Start of Final Jōmon pottery: plain style of pottery influenced by Korean art and Mumun pottery. (Ends 300 BC)
• 1,000
  Nok culture of Nigeria develops terracotta sculpture and pottery.
• 1,000-500
  Terracotta art becomes a feature of Pre-Columbian Olmec culture 1000-500.
• 1,000
  Start of Classical Antiquity: the first Ancient Greek pottery emerges, known as the Proto-geometric style.
• 900-700
  Geometric style of Greek pottery emerges. Early Geometric runs 900-850 BC; Middle Geometric 850-770; Late Geometric 770-725.
• 800
  Shift away from Proto-Geometric decoration, driven by a growing interest in animal figures like deer, goats, birds, geese and horses, and in stylized human figures.
• 700-600
  Orientalizing Period of Greek pottery, characterized by the assimilation of a large number of ideas, myths and motifs of Near Eastern or Egyptian origin.
• 700-545
  Period of Proto-Corinthian pottery. The new 'Orientalizing' idiom was first embraced by potters in Corinth, who replaced the rigid Geometric style with exciting curvilinear designs of real and fantastic animals, as well as curvaceous motifs of plants and flowers. To depict these details on their famous miniature jars, Corinthian potters developed the black-figure technique of vase painting (700-530), becoming the leading pottery centre in the process. By about 545 BC, the Athenians had mastered black figure pottery so completely, they overcame the dominance of Corinth.
• 660
  Etruscans start producing a black, glossy ware called bucchero.
• 530-480
  Greek Red-Figure pottery.
• 500
  Development of White Ground Technique, the last important style of Greek pottery.
• 480-330
  Greek ceramic art declines during the Classical Period.
• 330-30
  Greek ceramics during the Hellenistic Period include two noteworthy styles: Megarian hemispherical bowls; and West-Slope pottery.
• 320
  Greek artists begin making Tanagra Figurines (mold-cast terracotta figurines, coated with white slip) in Boeotia, central Greece.
• 300
  Japanese Yayoi pottery culture begins (ends 300 AD). Technically superior, but less advanced artistically than Jōmon pottery.
• 246-208
  Creation of Chinese Terracotta Army, the greatest ever collection of life-size terracotta statues. The apogee of Qin Dynasty Art (221-206 BC).
• 108
  China establishes first colonies in northern Korea, including Nangnang, near Pyongyang, which becomes an important centre of Chinese ceramics.
• 100 BC
  Start of Neo-Jōmon Japanese pottery. (Ends 500 AD)

For the chronology of cave painting and prehistoric sculpture, please see: Prehistoric Art Timeline (from 540,000 BC).