The Xianren Cave (, ''Xiānréndòng''), together with the nearby Diaotonghuan (, ''Diàotǒnghuán'')

rock shelter A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long or wide, rock shelters are alm ...

, is an archaeological site in Dayuan Township (),

Wannian County Wannian () is a County (People's Republic of China), county in the northeast of Jiangxi province, China. It is under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Shangrao. Its total area is . Its 2003 population was . Wannian County comprise ...

in the

Jiangxi province ; Gan: ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = , translit_lang1_type3 = , translit_lang1_info3 = , image_map = Jiangxi in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_caption = Location ...

, China and a location of historically important discoveries of prehistoric

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

sherds that bears evidence of early

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

cultivation. The cave's name refers to the legendary Chinese enlightened people, the

Xian Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

"immortals". The cave is high, wide, and deep. A 2012 publication in the ''

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

'' journal announced that the earliest pottery yet known anywhere in the world was found at this site dating by radiocarbon to between 20,000 and 19,000 years

before present Before Present (BP) or "years before present (YBP)" is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Because ...

, at the end of the Last Glacial Period. The carbon 14 datation was established by carefully dating surrounding sediments. Many of the pottery fragments had scorch marks, suggesting that the pottery was used for cooking. These early pottery containers were made well before the invention of agriculture (dated to 10,000 to 8,000 BC), by mobile foragers who hunted and gathered their food during the Late Glacial Maximum. File:Wannian Xianrendong yizhi 8805.jpg, Inside the cave File:National Museum of China 2014.02.01 14-43-38.jpg, 20,000–10,000-year-old pottery found in the cave, with re-construction repairs. File:Xianrendong Cave Pottery - 2.jpg, Xianrendong cave pottery fragment, radiocarbon dated to

References

Caves of Jiangxi Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Jiangxi Archaeological sites in China Shangrao Paleolithic sites in China {{Jiangxi-geo-stub

See also

References