Developments in Brief : Burial-Chamber Pots Found in India Are Believed to Be Oldest in the World

The oldest pottery in the world, dating back to 9000 B.C., has been found at a human burial site in a village in the Ganges valley of northern India.

Scientists at the Anthropology Survey of India told the Press Trust of India last week that handmade pots found in a Mesolithic human burial site at Sarai Nahar Rai village in Uttar Pradesh state dated back to the first half of the ninth century before Christ. Previously, the earliest specimens of pottery known in the world, dating back to about 7000 B.C., had been found at a neolithic site in southern Anatolia, the part of modern Turkey that is in Asia.

The light gray clay pots were thought to have been used as part of a burial ritual and, along with other items recovered from the site, suggested a belief in life after death, said Dr. P. C. Dutta.

Earlier excavations at Sarai Nahar Rai uncovered fossilized human skeletons found to be more than 10,000 years old. These were said to be the oldest remains of Homo sapiens discovered so far in south Asia and named Sarai Nahar Rai man after the village.