"Although the creation of functional pottery vessels began around 10,000 B.C, people began fashioning clay figurines as early as 24,000 B.C. This makes ceramics perhaps the oldest, most elemental art form: earth, plus water, hardened by fire."
https://artswestchester.org/art-matters/the-clay-art-center-...

"Making figures out of clay is an almost universal human activity – so much so that in many creation myths, it is the metaphor for how God made mankind,” writes British Museum director Neil MacGregor in the catalogue for a compelling new exhibition of ancient Japanese clay figures, or dogū . “But the Jōmon ceramic tradition…is possibly the oldest in the world.” While elsewhere men were stalking woolly mammoths and giant beavers, the people of Jōmon era Japan (roughly 14,000–400BC), were sitting around fashioning clay into exquisite human figurines, which even now have the ring of great art."
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1iJKQx...