Ancient Fires and Floods Inspired Pottery Invention, Study Suggests

Dramatic environmental changes in the southern Levant, including widespread fires and massive soil erosion, may have inadvertently inspired the invention of pottery thousands of years ago, according to research by Professor Amos Frumkin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Earth Sciences. The study, published in Geomorphology, posits that these destructive events exposed early human communities to new materials and processes, ultimately leading to technological innovation.

Frumkin's research integrates findings from ancient sediments, caves, charcoal remnants, and archaeological sites to reconstruct the landscape transformations during two distinct periods: the last interglacial period (approximately 129,000 to 116,000 years ago) and the early Holocene (around 11,000 to 7,000 years ago). During the early Holocene, peak fires and erosion occurred about 8,200 to 9,500 years ago, coinciding with the establishment of agricultural communities.

The fires cleared mountain slopes, causing significant erosion of clay-rich terra rossa soil into valleys like the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea Basin. Frumkin suggests that Neolithic communities living in these valleys observed how intense heat from natural fires transformed the soft, muddy clay into hard, durable, and waterproof material. This observation, he hypothesizes, sparked the idea of intentionally firing clay to create pottery.

This theory is supported by petrographic studies showing that the earliest pottery found in the region, the Yarmukian pottery from the Jordan Valley, was made from the same eroded terra rossa soil that accumulated around settlements. Frumkin notes that while humans used fire, the scale and timing of these natural fires suggest climatic causes rather than increased human activity.

Interestingly, similar environmental conditions occurred during the preceding interglacial period, but pottery was not invented then. Frumkin calls this a "natural control experiment," suggesting that while nature provided the materials and conditions, the earlier humans lacked the cognitive abilities, social structures, and technological knowledge of the later Neolithic communities to recognize and exploit the opportunity. The invention of pottery revolutionized early human life, enabling easier cooking, food storage, fermentation, and supporting larger, permanent settlements, demonstrating how environmental catastrophes can accelerate human innovation.