Oldest Reported Pottery Remains

Early Xianrendong pottery sherds

Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi, China

Pottery fragments from Xianrendong Cave in Jiangxi, China, were dated to approximately 20,000–19,000 calendar years before present in a 2012 study, making them an important candidate for the oldest known pottery. A 2017 reassessment challenged this early chronology.