Intense wildfires that swept the southern Levant thousands of years ago may have played a decisive role in the invention of pottery, according to a new hypothesis put forward by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The study, published in the journal Geomorphology, suggests that early Neolithic farmers, who lived in valleys where clay-rich soils accumulated after severe erosion, may have discovered naturally baked clay and learned to replicate the process.
Amos Frumkin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his colleagues reconstructed the region's ancient fire history using evidence preserved in lake sediments and cave formations. Their data, spanning two distinct periods — roughly 129,000 to 116,000 years ago and again from about 11,000 to 7,000 years ago — revealed signs of extensive wildfires and severe erosion. The most intense burning occurred between approximately 9,500 and 8,200 years ago, Frumkin said.
That period of intense burning had profound consequences for the landscape. Deprived of vegetation, soils became vulnerable to erosion and were washed away by rain and runoff. Clay-rich sediments carried from hillsides were deposited in valleys and depressions, creating pockets of fertile soil where early farming communities settled. Pottery first appeared in the region around this same time, Frumkin noted.
The researchers propose that farmers living in these valleys may have encountered patches of clay that had already been baked hard by the heat of wildfires. Such encounters could have provided a natural model for one of humanity's most transformative technologies. «One of humanity's most important technologies may have emerged partly from people learning to imitate what they had already seen nature do,» Frumkin said.
The hypothesis, which the researchers describe as the «natural kiln hypothesis,» offers a new perspective on the origins of pottery in the southern Levant, a region that includes modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Syria. Pottery production is widely regarded as a milestone in human history, enabling storage, cooking, and transport of goods, and often associated with the shift to settled agricultural life.
Frumkin suggested that future research could test the idea by investigating whether ancient wildfires were hot enough to bake clay and by searching for layers of naturally baked clay in the archaeological and geological record. Such evidence would help determine whether the natural kiln hypothesis holds up under scrutiny.
The study adds to a growing body of research on the relationship between environmental change and early human innovation. Wildfires, often triggered by lightning or human activity, would have dramatically altered the landscapes that Neolithic communities inhabited, forcing adaptations that may have included new uses for fire-altered materials.
The research was published in the journal Geomorphology. The findings do not claim to prove that wildfires directly caused the invention of pottery, but rather propose a plausible mechanism by which early farmers could have observed and then reproduced a natural process. Further field and laboratory work will be needed to evaluate the hypothesis.
