At https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/09/8500-year-old-fingerprints-clay-turkey/ …. archaeologists discovered fingerprints in lumps of clay dated roughly around 8500 years ago. This date hovers around the 6200BC event so it is worth looking at how this occurred. The site is known as Yesilova Hayugu and has been under annual excavation since 2005. The site was occupied prior to 8500 years ago. Layers of archaeology are being peeled back each excavation year. It seems the site was reoccupied at some stage after the relevant layer – but only following a period of abandonment. The lumps of clay, and fragments of finished pottery, were preserved as a result of fire. How much heat was generated to turn raw clay into solid lumps?
The fingerprints come from hands kneading the clay with additives in order to prepare the clay for pottery making. It had not been fired in a kiln. It was the raw product. It is assumed the inhabitants of the settlement fled from the fire as no human remains have been found. Or so it would seem. Have other avenues been explored?
One might make a comparison, of sorts, with another story at https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/09/66-million-year-old-vomit-fossil-denmark/… and another date close to a catastrophic event, the end of the Cretaceous. The discovery of fossil vomit in chalk rock in Denmark is actually the hard bits of sea lilies, regurgitated after the softer tissue was consumed by an unknown animal. The authors suggest a fish. Chalk is of course the remains of organisms living on the bottom of a sea that is thought to have covered large parts of western Europe during the Cretaceous period. So, a marine creature of some kind is the most likely predator. It had consumed at least two different species of sea lily before discarding the hard bits. Yet, the vomit was preserved. In the same way sponges are often found in chalk.