Hot Pots Kept Ancient Siberian Hunters Alive And Warm

History evidence has proven that ancient Siberian hunters would not have survived without heat-resistant pots. A recent study has shed a light on how these ancient hunters could survive thanks to the help of hot pots. To achieve the conclusion, scientists analyzed and extracted lipids and fats from a few ancient pieces of pottery around the world, as well as fragments that originated from several areas in Russia.

Published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews last week, the research has reached a conclusion that Siberian hunters were relying on clay pots resistant to heating roughly 16,000 years ago. Scientists assumed that such a hot-pot technique could support the hunters to absorb plenty of nutritional food at that time.

It could be seen also that through the preservation of lipids and fats in the clay fragments originated from dig sites surrounding Amur River of Russia, ancient hunters from Siberia were likely to use vessels to cook fish such as migratory salmon. Experiments also revealed such biochemicals in clay fragments collected from nearby islands in Japan.

In addition to the study, heat-resistant pots actually did not come from one single source. But such clay technology was designed in an independent way by unrelated groups, showing a parallel innovation process.

In fact, only some of those Siberian hunters made use of the technology to cook migratory fish. Lipids and fats in fragments showed that some of the groups used the heat-resistant clay vessels to extract marrow and grease from the meat, bones, and cartilage of ruminant species.

Through the usage of different methods to design and develop clay pots in different groups, the timing of pottery arrival showed that it played a considerably important role in supporting hunters’ survival through severe environment conditions. It is known that the glacial maximum in the ice age happened around 26,000 or 20,000 years ago. Roughly 19,000 years ago, the temperatures started to rise and the ice began to melt, gradually opening up Siberian inhospitable areas to the habitation. The ability for dietary through the usage of heat-resistant vessels had assisted ancient groups of nomadic hunters in repopulating the newly discovered areas of Siberia.