Dirty dishes show Ice Age hunters’ taste for fish

Hunters and gatherers who lived during the Ice Age made pottery vessels for cooking fish, according to a new international study, published today in Nature. Researchers have analysed food residues found in pottery vessels, up to 15,000 years old. This has resulted in the hitherto oldest direct evidence of prehistoric vessel use. The study is the first of its kind to directly tackle the frequently asked question of why humans began to produce cooking vessels.