The discovery of early pottery in China

During the transitional period from the Upper Pleistocene to the onset of the Holocene, there were two different cultural traditions in southern and northern China. The pottery appeared in both cultures. The earliest pottery in southern China might be dated back to 16 000 b.p. The early pottery found in the North is later than the earliest pottery in southern China, the Russian Far East, and Japan, but its character bears some similarity with the early pottery from other areas, especi- ally from the Russian Far East and Japan.