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The social context of early pottery in the Lingnan region of south China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Richard Pearson
Richard Pearson*
Affiliation:
1890 West 17th Avenue, Vancouver V6J 2M9 BC Canada (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

Late Pleistocene and early post-Pleistocene communities in East Asia experimented with pottery production and the domestication of plants and animals. What was the nature of the social organisation of these early small-scale societies? Some North American writers consider pottery making to be a ‘prestige technology’ sponsored by aggrandising individuals. However, examples from south of the Nanling Mountains and other areas have simple tool assemblages and site plans showing very little evidence of social differences. Judging from recent debates about social agency, there are more appropriate explanations for the earliest pottery making, which focus on the collective rather than the individual.

Keywords

early HoloceneSouth Chinapotteryprestige technologyagency
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 79 , Issue 306 , December 2005 , pp. 819 - 828
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2005

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