The oldest pottery fragments in the world come from the Jomon people of Japan. Archaeologists believe that the Jomon people settled down into villages more the 15,000 years ago, and the humble clay pot improved their lives in many ways. Now people had a cooking container that wouldn’t leak and could be used over the fire! All kinds of new food sources were mad accessible by cooking. Food could be stored in pots for seasons when fresh food was scarce. The Jomon also made clay pots and clay figurines for religious ceremonies, and even sometimes used clay burial pots as caskets for the dead.