POTTERY IN ARCHEOLOGY: overview

 POTTERY

Pottery is the art of making containers and other objects out of clay and other ceramic materials, then firing them to make them hard and durable. Earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain are the most common varieties. A pottery is also the location where a potter creates such items (plural "potteries"). "All fired vessles wares that contain clay when manufactured, save technical, structural, and refractory items," according to the American Society for Testing and Materials .

In archaeology, "pottery" usually refers to vessels exclusively, while "terracottas" refers to figures and other objects made of the same material. Some definitions of pottery include clay as a component of the materials used, but this is debatable.

Pottery from Romania's Székely Land is for sale in Budapest.

Ceramic artefacts such as the Gravettian culture Venus of Doln Vstonice figure discovered in the Czech Republic dating back to 29,000–25,000 BC, and pottery vessels unearthed in Jiangxi, China dating back to 18,000 BC, are among the oldest human innovations, dating back before the Neolithic period. Jmon, Japan (10,500 BC), the Russian Far East (14,000 BC), Sub-Saharan Africa, and South America have all yielded early Neolithic pottery objects.

Pottery manufactured by shaping a ceramic (typically clay) body into things of a desired shape and firing them at high temperatures (1000-1600°C) in a kiln, which causes permanent changes such as improving the object's strength and solidity. Although much pottery is essentially functional, it can also be considered ceramic art. Before or after firing, a clay body can be ornamented.

Earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain are the three basic types of clay-based pottery. These necessitate the use of increasingly specialized clay materials and higher firing temperatures.

For various uses, all three are available in both glazed and unglazed forms. Various ways can be used to adorn each. Although the group to which a piece belongs is often obvious visually, this is not always the case. Because Islamic fritware is made without clay, it falls outside of these categories. All of these types of historic pottery are often classified as "fine" wares, which are relatively expensive and well-made and reflect the aesthetic taste of the culture in question, or "coarse," "popular," "folk," or "village" wares, which are mostly undecorated or simply so, and are often less well-made.

Pottery's early stages

Pottery may have been discovered in numerous locations independently, most likely by accident at the bottom of fires on clay soil. Pit firing and coiling were used to create the earliest vessel forms, which is a simple process to learn. Gravettian figurines, such as those discovered at Doln Vstonice in modern-day Czech Republic, are the earliest known ceramic items. The Venus of Doln Vstonice is a statuette of a naked female figure dating from 29,000–25,000 BC (Gravettian industry).

Sherds dating from between 12,000 and 18,000 years ago have been discovered in China and Japan. The earliest pottery discovered anywhere on the planet, dated from 20,000 to 19,000 years ago, was discovered in 2012 at Xianrendong Cave in China's Jiangxi province.

Other early ceramic vessels discovered include those from the Yuchanyan Cave in southern China, which date from 16,000 BC, and those from the Amur River region in Russia's Far East, which date from 14,000 BC.

The oldest pottery in Japan is found at the Odai Yamamoto I site, which dates from the Jmon period. Earthenware fragments dating back to 14,500 BC were discovered during excavations in 1998. In Japanese, the phrase "Jmon" means "cord-marked." During the construction of the vessels and figurines, this refers to the markings made on them using sticks and cords. Recent research has shed light on how the designers of Jmon pottery employed it.

Pottery appears to have emerged independently in Sub-Saharan Africa and South America during the 10th millennium BC, with finds going back to at least 9,400 BC in Sub-Saharan Africa and the 10,000s BC in South America.

The Malian finds are from the same period of time as similar finds from East Asia – the triangle between Siberia, China, and Japan – and are linked to the same climatic changes in both regions (new grassland emerges at the end of the ice age, allowing hunter-gatherers to expand their habitat), which were met independently by both cultures with similar developments: the creation of pottery for storing wild cereals (pearl millet), and the creation of small arrowheads for hunting.

Alternatively, the Incipient Jmon civilisation may have developed pottery as a result of heavy exploitation of freshwater and marine creatures by late glacial foragers, who began making ceramic vessels for their catch.

Summary

The study of pottery can aid in the understanding of past cultures. Pottery is a long-lasting substance, and shards of it can often be found long after artefacts made of less durable materials have degraded beyond recognition. The study of ceramic artefacts, when combined with other data, aids in the formulation of theories about the organization, economic status, and cultural development of societies that made or acquired pottery. Inferences about a civilization's everyday life, religion, social interactions, attitudes toward neighbors, attitudes about their own environment, and even the way the culture interpreted the universe can be inferred from the study of pottery.