The earliest lacquerwares of China were discovered at Jingtoushan site in the Yangtze River Delta

Abstract

AbstractIn the Yangtze River Delta, natural lacquer has been used as coating and adhesive since the Neolithic. At Jingtoushan Neolithic site, the earliest, deepest buried prehistoric shell mound site discovered in China's coastal areas, where stratigraphic age lies between 7,800–8,300 cal BP, we discovered the earliest lacquerwares of China. The relics are a piece of dowelled wood and an oblate wooden stick. The black coatings on the two relics were studied by using non‐destructive infrared analysis, pyrolysis‐gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py‐GC/MS), and enzyme‐linked immune sorbent assay (ELISA), and the analysis determined that black coating on the two relics is natural lacquer. This discovery refreshes the history of natural lacquer used by humans in the Yangtze River Delta to more than 8,000 years ago and also complements the history of organic coatings used during the Neolithic period in China.