Peter Jordan is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. Merek Zvelebil is a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield.

• List of IllustrationsForeword, Brian Hayden Preface Part 1 Introduction1. Ex Oriente Lux: The Prehistory of Hunter Gatherer Ceramic Dispersals - Peter Jordan and Marek Zvelebil Part 2 Early Ceramic Innovations And Dispersals 2. Long-Term Innovation: The Appearance and Spread of Pottery in the Japanese Archipelago - Simon Kaner3. Pottery-making in Prehistoric Cultures of the Russian Far East - Irina S. Zhushchikhovskaya4. The Hunter-Gatherer Ceramics of Neolithic Korea - Daeyoun Cho and Ilhong Ko5. Review of Early Hunter-Gatherer Pottery in Eastern Siberia - Hugh McKenzie6. Early Hunter Gatherer Ceramics in the Urals and Western Siberia - Natalia Chairkina and Lubov Kosinskaya7. Early Pottery Makers in Eastern Europe: Centres of Origins, Subsistence and Dispersal - Pavel Dolukhanov, Andrei Mazurkevich and Anvar Shukurov8. Early Hunter-Gatherer Ceramics in Karelia - Konstantin German9. Ceramic Anthropomorphic Sculptures of the East European Forest Zone - Ekaterina Kashina10. Pottery of the Stone Age Hunter-Gatherers in Finland - Petro Pesonen and Sirpa Leskinen11. Ceramics as a Novelty in Northern and Southern Sweden - Ole Stilborg and Lena Holm12. All Change: Exploring the Role of Technological Choice in the Early Northern Comb Ware of Finnmark, Arctic Norway - Marianne Skandfer13. Tiny Islands in a Far Sea: On the Seal Hunters of Aland, and the North-Western Limit in the Spread of Early Pottery - Fredrik Hallgren14. The Pitted Ware Culture in Eastern Middle Sweden: Material Culture and Human Agency - Mats Larsson15. Pitted Ware Culture Ceramics: Aspects of Pottery Production and Use at Ottenby Royal Manor, Oland, Sweden - Ludvig Papmehl-DufayPart 3 Early Pottery In Forager-Farmer Interaction Zones 16. Hunter-Gatherers and Early Ceramics in Poland - Marek Nowak17. Early Pottery in Hunter-Gatherer Societies of Western Europe - Philippe Crombe18. Ceramic Trajectories: from Figurines to Vessels - Mihael Budja19. Transregional Culture Contacts and the Neolithization Process in Northern Central Europe - Detlef GronenerPart 4 Ceramic Dispersals In World Perspective 20. Discussion: Living at the Edge - William K. Barnett21. Hunter Gatherer Pottery: an Emerging 14C Chronology - Peter HommelIndex

"Readers will welcome this major advance in solving the enduring question of why pottery emerged in various parts of the world only towards the end of the prehistoric period It has been a great pleasure to peruse the contributions of this volume and become acquainted with the most recent developments in the quest to understand the origins of pottery--a phenomenon, as Jordan and Zvelebil note, too long equated with the Neolithic revolution."--From the Foreword by Brian Hayden, Simon Fraser University