The Early Use of Sediments for Pottery Production in Neolithic Southeast China

ABSTRACT Sediments were commonly used for erecting houses, building dams, and making pottery in Neolithic China, but the question how early people understood and utilized them has not been adequately investigated. This study, by analyzing pottery shards from the Neolithic site of Dongshancun in a wetland of southeast China with wavelength‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence, X‐ray diffraction, petrography, and grain size analysis, aims to examine the properties of sediments available in the vicinity of the site and the choice of ancient inhabitants for pottery production. It finds that the Dongshancun potters had a sound knowledge of the various sediments around them and selected lacustrine‐palustrine black clayey silt for producing black pottery, red silt, and yellowish‐gray silt for red fine pottery and gully sand for producing sand‐tempered pottery.