The History and Invention of Pottery

The History and Invention of Pottery Of all the kinds of artifacts which may be found at archaeological sites, ceramicsobjects made from fired clayare surely one of the most useful. Ceramic artifacts are extremely durable and may last thousands of years virtually unchanged from the date of manufacture. And, ceramic artifacts, unlike stone tools, are completely person-made, shaped of clay and purposely fired. Clay figurines are known from the earliest human occupations; but clay vessels, pottery vessels used for storing, cooking and serving food, and carrying water were first manufactured in China at least 20,000 years ago. Yuchanyan and Xianrendong Caves Recently redated ceramic sherds from the Paleolithic/Neolithic cave site of Xianrendong in the Yangtse Basin of central China in Jiangxi province hold the earliest established dates, at 19,200-20,900 cal BP years ago. These pots were bag-shaped and coarse-pasted, made of local clay with inclusions of quartz and feldspar, with plain or simply decorated walls. The second oldest pottery in the world is from Hunan Province, at the karst cave of Yuchanyan. In sediments dated between 15,430 and 18,300 calendar years before the present (cal BP) were found sherds from at least two pots. One was partially constructed, and it was a wide-mouthed jar with a pointed bottom that looks very much like the Incipient Jomon pot illustrated in the photograph and about 5,000 years younger. The Yuchanyan sherds are thick (up to 2 cm) and coarsely pasted, and decorated with cord-marks on the interior and exterior walls. The Kamino Site in Japan The next earliest sherds are from the Kamino site in southwestern Japan. This site has a stone tool assemblage which appears to classify it as late Paleolithic, called Pre-ceramic in Japanese archaeology to separate it from the Lower Paleolithic cultures of Europe and the mainland. At the Kamino site in addition to a handful of potsherds were found micro blades, wedge-shaped microcores, spearheads and other artifacts similar to assemblages at Pre-ceramic sites in Japan dated between 14,000 and 16,000 years before the present (BP). This layer is stratigraphically below a securely dated Initial Jomon culture occupation of 12,000 BP. The ceramic sherds are not decorated and are very small and fragmentary. Recent thermoluminescence dating of the sherds themselves returned a 13,000-12,000 BP date. Jomon Culture Sites Ceramic sherds are also found, also in small quantities, but with a bean-impression decoration, in a half-dozen sites of the Mikoshiba-Chojukado sites of southwestern Japan, also dated to the late Pre-ceramic period. These pots are bag-shaped but somewhat pointed at the bottom, and sites with these sherds include the Odaiyamamoto and Ushirono sites, and Senpukuji Cave. Like those of the Kamino site, these sherds are also quite rare, suggesting that although the technology was known to the Late Pre-ceramic cultures, it just was not terribly useful to their nomadic lifestyle. In contrast, ceramics were very useful indeed to the Jomon peoples. In Japanese, the word Jomon means cord-mark, as in cord-marked decoration on pottery. The Jomon tradition is the name given to hunter-gatherer cultures in Japan from about 13,000 to 2500 BP, when migrating populations from the mainland brought full-time wet rice agriculture. For the entire ten millennia, the Jomon peoples used ceramic vessels for storage and cooking. Incipient Jomon ceramics are identified by patterns of lines applied onto a bag-shaped vessel. Later, as on the mainland, highly decorated vessels were also manufactured by the Jomon peoples. By 10,000 BP, the use of ceramics is found throughout mainland China, and by 5,000 BP ceramic vessels are found throughout the world, both independently invented in the Americas or spread by diffusion into the middle eastern Neolithic cultures. Porcelain and High-Fired Ceramics The first high-fired glazed ceramics were produced in China, during the  Shang  (1700-1027 BC) dynasty period. At sites such as Yinxu and Erligang, high-fired ceramics appear in the 13th-17th centuries BC. These pots were made from a local clay, washed with wood ash and fired in kilns to temperatures of between 1200 and 1225 degrees Centigrade to produce a high fired lime-based glaze. Shang and Zhou dynasty potters continued to refine the technique, testing different clays and washes, eventually leading to the development of true porcelain. See Yin, Rehren and Zheng 2011. By the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), the first mass pottery manufacturing kilns were begun at the imperial  Jingdezhen  site, and the beginning of export trade of Chinese porcelain to the rest of the world opened up.   Sources Boaretto E, Wu X, Yuan J, Bar-Yosef O, Chu V, Pan Y, Liu K, Cohen D, Jiao T, Li S et al. 2009. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and bone collagen associated with early pottery at Yuchanyan Cave, Hunan Province, China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(24):9595-9600. Chi Z, and Hung H-C. 2008. The Neolithic of Southern China–Origin, Development, and Dispersal. Asian Perspectives 47(2):299-329. Cui J, Rehren T, Lei Y, Cheng X, Jiang J, and Wu X. 2010. Western technical traditions of pottery making in Tang Dynasty China: chemical evidence from the Liquanfang Kiln site, Xian city. Journal of Archaeological Science 37(7):1502-1509. Cui JF, Lei Y, Jin ZB, Huang BL, and Wu XH. 2009. Lead Isotope Analysis Of Tang Sancai Pottery Glazes From Gongyi Kiln, Henan Province And Huangbao Kiln, Shaanxi Province. Archaeometry 52(4):597-604. Demeter F, Sayavongkhamdy T, Patole-Edoumba E, Coupey A-S, Bacon A-M, De Vos J, Tougard C, Bouasisengpaseuth B, Sichanthongtip P, and Duringer P. 2009. Tam Hang Rockshelter: Preliminary Study of a Prehistoric Site in Northern Laos. Asian Perspectives 48(2):291-308. Liu L, Chen X, and Li B. 2007. Non-state crafts in the early Chinese state: an archaeological view from the Erlitou hinterland. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 27:93-102. Lu TL-D. 2011. Early pottery in south China. Asian Perspectives 49(1):1-42. Mà ©ry S, Anderson P, Inizan M-L, Lechevallier, Monique, and Pelegrin J. 2007. A pottery workshop with flint tools on blades knapped with copper at Nausharo (Indus Journal of Archaeological Science 34:1098-1116.civilisation, ca. 2500 BC). Prendergast ME, Yuan J, and Bar-Yosef O. 2009. Resource intensification in the Late Upper Paleolithic: a view from southern China. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(4):1027-1037. Shennan SJ, and Wilkinson JR. 2001. Ceramic Style Change and Neutral Evolution: A Case Study from Neolithic Europe. American Antiquity 66(4):5477-5594. Wang W-M, Ding J-L, Shu J-W, and Chen W. 2010. Exploration of early rice farming in China. Quaternary International 227(1):22-28. Yang X-Y, Kadereit A, Wagner GA, Wagner I, and Zhang J-Z. 2005. TL and IRSL dating of Jiahu relics and sediments: clue of 7th millennium BC civilization in central China. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(7):1045-1051. Yin M, Rehren T, and Zheng J. 2011. The earliest high-fired glazed ceramics in China: the composition of the proto-porcelain from Zhejiang during the Shang and Zhou periods (c. 1700-221 BC). Journal of Archaeological Science 38(9):2352-2365.

Definition and Examples of Adages in English

Definition and Examples of Adages in English An adage is an ancient saying or maxim, brief and sometimes mysterious, that has become accepted as conventional wisdom. In classical rhetoric, an adage is also known as a rhetorical proverb or  paroemia. An adage- such as The early bird gets the worm- is a condensed and memorable expression. Often its a type of metaphor.It is sometimes claimed that the  expression old adage  is redundant, say the editors of the American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style,inasmuch as a saying must have a certain tradition behind it to count as an adage in the first place. But the word adage  [from the Latin for I say] is first recorded in the phrase old adage, showing that this redundancy is itself very old. Pronunciation:  AD-ij Examples Know thyself.Alls well that ends well.Out of nothing, nothing can come.Art lies in concealing the art.From flowers, bees make honey and spiders poison.A stitch in time saves nine.Not quantity, but quality.Make haste slowly.Physician, heal thyself.Respect thyself, if thou wouldst be respected by others.The people reign, the elite rule.Knowledge equals power.Love conquers all.If you want peace, prepare for war.Who will guard the guards?What hurts us instructs us.Whom the gods destroy they first make mad.Give your child to a slave, and instead of one slave you will have two.A great city is a great solitude.Carpe diem. (Seize the day.)Be mindful of dying.Better late than never.The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Adages and Cultural Values [C]onsider the cultural values that adages, or common sayings, express. What is meant by the American saying, Every man for himself? Does it reflect the idea that men, and not women, are the standard? Does it reflect individualism as a value? What is meant by The early bird catches the worm?Distinct values are expressed in adages from other cultures. What values are expressed in the Mexican proverb, He who lives a hurried life will soon die? How is this view of time different from dominant views of time in the United States? In Africa, two popular adages are The child has no owner and It takes a whole village to raise a child, and in China a common saying is No need to know the person, only the family (Samovar Porter, 2000). A Japanese adage states that it is the nail that sticks out that gets hammered down (Gudykunst Lee, 2002). What values are expressed by these sayings? How are they different from mainstream Western values and the language that embodies them?(Julia T. Wood, Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters, 7th ed. Wadsworth, 2013) Tools of Persuasion As indirect tools of persuasion, adages are understandably attractive to people who judge direct confrontation and criticism inappropriate in many contexts.(Ann Fienup-Riordan, Wise Words of the Yupik People. University of Nebraska Press, 2005) Age as a Part of Adage Dictionaries (with a single exception) affirm in one way or another that an adage is a long-established saying; therefore the old [in the expression old adage] is redundant. Incidentally, an expression that someone thought up yesterday is not an adage. To put it another wayand this is obviousage is a part of adage. (Theodore M. Bernstein, The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage. Simon Schuster, 1965) Safire on Adages Those of us who enjoy living in synonymy know that an adage is not quite as graven in collective wisdom as a proverb or a maxim; it is not as legalistic as a dictum or as scientific as an axiom or as sentimental as a homily or as corny as a saw, nor as formalized as a motto, but it is more rooted in tradition than an observation. (William Safire, Spread the Word. Times Books, 1999) The Adagia (Adages) of Desiderius Erasmus (1500; rev. 1508 and 1536) Erasmus was an avid collector of proverbs and aphorisms. He compiled all the expressions he could find in the works of the classical Greek and Latin authors he loved, and provided a brief history and explication for each one. When I considered the important contributions made to elegance and richness of style by brilliant aphorisms, apt metaphors, proverbs, and similar figures of speech, I made up my mind to collect the largest possible supply of such things. he wrote. So in addition to Know thyself, readers of Erasmuss Adages are treated to pithy accounts of the origins of such expressions as to leave no stone unturned, to cry crocodile tears, no sooner said than done, clothes make the man, and everyone thinks his own fart smells sweet. Erasmus added to and revised the book throughout his life, and by the time he died in 1536 he had collected and explained 4,151 proverbs. Erasmus intended the book to be a Bartletts Familiar Quotations for 16th-century after-dinner speakers: a resource for writers and public orators who wanted to spice up their speeches with well-placed quotes from the classics. (James Geary, The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism. Bloomsbury USA, 2005) Many hands make light work.Put the cart before the horseWalk the tightropeCall a spade a spadeBetween friends all is common.To die laughingLike father, like sonThe project of the Adages, like many manuals published in the 16th century, was to harvest all possible vestiges of antiquity and put them at the disposal of scholars. In this particular case, Erasmus sought to collect and explain proverbs, aphorisms, ï ¬ gurative expressions, all sorts of more or less enigmatic sayings. . . . An adage is like a bud that contains the latent promise of a flower, an enigmatic expression, a mystery to unravel. The ancients veiled their messages, deposited clues to their culture in their language; they wrote in code. The modern reader breaks the code, opens the coffers, takes out the secrets and publishes them, even at the risk of altering their force. The author of Adages [Erasmus] acted as an intermediary, made a profession of displaying and multiplying. So it was normal that his book, both cornucopia and organ of distribution, would operate with centrifugal dynamics. (Michel Jeanneret, Perpetual Motion: Transforming Shapes in the Renaissance from Da Vinci to Montaigne, 1997. Translated by Nidra Poller. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) The Lighter Side of Adages: George Burns and Gracie Allen Special Agent Timothy McGee: I think its time you get back on that horse.Special Agent Ziva David: Youre getting a pony?Special Agent Timothy McGee: Its an adage.Special Agent Ziva David: I am not familiar with that breed.(Sean Murray and Cote de Pablo in Identity Crisis. NCIS, 2007)