Pottery
Crafting vessels from fired clay for storage, cooking, and ritual, a key technology for settled life.
Core metadata
- ID: pottery
- Era: Ancient
- First known date: -18000 (millennium)
- Region: Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi Province, China; later multiple regions
- Review status: source_checked
- Maturity: established
Prerequisites
- Clay Gathering and Preparation (clay_gathering_and_preparation)
- Fire Control (fire_control)
- Water Carrying Techniques (water_carrying_techniques)
Dependents
- Advanced Ceramics (advanced_ceramics)
- Beekeeping (apis_mellifera_domestication_beekeeping)
- Basic Chemistry (Early Forms) (basic_chemistry_early_forms)
- Bronze Casting Molds (bronze_casting_molds)
- Casting and Molding (casting_and_molding)
- Charcoal Production (charcoal_production)
- Cheese and Yogurt Making (cheese_and_yogurt_making)
- Advanced Distillation (distillation_advanced)
- Distillation for Alcoholic Spirits (distillation_for_alcoholic_spirits)
- Drop Spindles (drop_spindles)
- Basic Fermentation (fermentation_basic)
- Fermented Dairy Products (fermented_dairy_products)
- Fired Bricks & Early Kilns (fired_bricks_early_kilns)
- Glassmaking (glassmaking)
- Granaries (granaries)
- Herbal Medicine Preparation (herbal_medicine_preparation)
- Hydraulics (hydraulics)
- Hypocaust (Underfloor Heating) (hypocaust_underfloor_heating)
- Labor Specialization (labor_specialization)
- Lead Working (lead_working)
- Loom Weights (loom_weights)
- Mortar & Pestle (mortar_and_pestle)
- Net Sinker Weights (net_sinker_weights)
- Oil Lamps (oil_lamps)
- Oil Wick Lamps (oil_wick_lamps)
- Plumbing (plumbing)
- Pottery Wheel (pottery_wheel)
- Rainwater Harvesting (rainwater_harvesting)
- Record Keeping (record_keeping)
- Basic Smelting (smelting_basic)
- Terra Sigillata Pottery (terra_sigillata_pottery)
- Water Clock Timekeeping (water_clock_timekeeping)
- Sand & Charcoal Water Filtration (water_filtration_sand_charcoal)
- Wheel and Axle (wheel_and_axle)
- Wicked Oil Lamps (wicked_oil_lamps)
Fields
Field lanes
- Materials Science & Manufacturing: Ceramics & Glass
Node sources
- Early pottery at 20,000 years ago in Xianrendong Cave, China (Science / PubMed, 2012, primary_paper) • Supports: node, maturity
- Materials (NIST, 2026, generic_overview) • Supports: node, maturity
Prerequisite edge evidence
Edge/source evidence summary:
- Prerequisite edges: 3
- Average edge confidence: 70%
- Prerequisite sources: 3
- expert_inference: 3
| Prerequisite | Type | Confidence | Evidence level | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clay Gathering and Preparation (clay_gathering_and_preparation) | enabling | 68% | expert_inference | Clay Gathering and Preparation provides a capability that enables this technology without being the only possible path. |
|
| Fire Control (fire_control) | historical_predecessor | 75% | expert_inference | Fire Control is an earlier historical predecessor or foundation, not a one-to-one engineering dependency. |
|
| Water Carrying Techniques (water_carrying_techniques) | enabling | 68% | expert_inference | Water Carrying Techniques provides a capability that enables this technology without being the only possible path. |
|
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