A quiet history

01 / 14Yangshao Neolithic pottery · c. 5000 BCE

The first knot.

At Yuan-shan in Taiwan, Neolithic potters pressed twisted hemp cord into wet clay before firing. Across the strait in the Yellow River valley, the same cord-marking surfaces on Yangshao ceramics. Before pottery decoration, before weaving, hemp was a knot — a way of holding things together.