Prehistoric pottery

The general descriptive study of prehistoric ceramics described in this article covers clay works with a utilitarian and creative spirit made on our planet and transferred between 10,000 BC. C. and 3300 BC. C. Likewise, an exhibition approach by continents has been chosen based on the archaeological sites studied until the beginning of the 21st century< /span>.

Scientifically, clay work has helped archaeologists date sites and give names to many prehistoric cultures.

Origins and generalities

The first molded clay objects date back to the Gravettian period (Upper Paleolithic) and are small representations of maternal divinities and fertility cults such as the so-called Venus of Dolní Věstonice dated between 29000-25000 BC. C.

In the Amur River basin on the Russian-Chinese border, traces of ceramics dating back to 14000-13000 BC have been found. C.

These and other premises allow us to conclude that "modeled clay" It is one of the techniques that characterize Neolithic cultures, and is also considered data for chronological ordering. Small baked clay figures were already found in the Upper Paleolithic, although it is in the Neolithic when the interior space or void appears that gave rise to the first vessels, used doubly for cooking over fires and for store food.

It is also worth comparing the fact that, in the Near East, ceramics have been found two thousand years before the appearance of cereal cultivation, so this association of the birth of pottery with agricultural and culinary practice is is still in question.

Africa

On the African continent there is evidence of clay work dating back more than 8,000 years BC. C. Thus, for example, in the Hasi Uenzga site, in the eastern Rif (Morocco), where materials dated to the 9th century BC have been found. C., or those found in excavations at Iwo Eleru, in Ondo State (Nigeria), of similar antiquity.

Archaeological discoveries in Upper Egypt, from the Naqada I phase, allow us to assume that from 4500 to 3500 BC. C. agriculture was practiced. The dead were also buried in tombs, where the use of funerary goods was common, among which it was normal to find red terracotta vessels with motifs painted in white; The decorations that predominated were geometric: triangles, semicircles and spikes.

African cultures and focuses

• Chapter culture (10000-6000 BC)
• Sub-Saharan ceramics (8000 BC)

Gallery of prehistoric African pottery

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  Egyptian vessels of the Naqada-I period (4000 a. C.). Leipzig Museum.

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  Prehistoric ceramic remains of Sierra Leone. The piece at the bottom left is part of a ceramic pipe.

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  Country type suit made in the Congo and exhibited at the Washington D.C. National Museum of African Art.

Asia

There are remains of pottery found in southern China, dated by carbon-14 in the late 1990s and located between 9000 and 14000 BC. C. In new excavations carried out in Jiangxi province, finds date back to 20,000 BC. C.

A vessel from the Jōmon period—prehistory of Japan (10,000 BC/8000 BC)—exhibited in the Tokyo National Museum, is considered one of the oldest.

Asian cultures and focuses

• Jōmon Period (14500-300 BC)
• North polished black ceramic culture (800-200 BC)
• Culture of black and red ceramics (1200-900 BC)

Asian prehistoric ceramics gallery

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  Peiligang culture (6000-5200 BC), Shanghai Museum.

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  Black Literacy of Hemudu Culture (5000-3000 BC), coming from Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, China.

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  Cuenco de la cultura Yangshao, del tipo Banpo (4800-4300 a.C.), desde Shaanxi. Beijing Museum.

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  Iraqi vessel of the late Ubaid period (4500-4000 BC).

Central and Eastern Europe

Numerous outbreaks have been recorded and studied. The Balkan-Danubian culture Hamangia, from 6000 BC. C.; and advancing in the middle Neolithic (3500 BC and 2500 BC), the Dímini culture, in Greece, which left ceramics with a great variety of shapes and polychrome ornamentation (especially spirals and fretwork). At the beginning of the final Neolithic, burnished black pottery of Anatolic influence stands out. From the so-called Central-European Danubian Neolithic, the culture of "band" ceramics emerges, with extremely simple shapes of vessels without handles and wide necks.

At the end of the European Neolithic period, domestic pottery is an archaeological constant in almost all sites and cultures: Gumelnitsa and Salcutsa in Romania, Boian, in Bulgaria, Tripilia and Cucuteni in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine, and even Hacilar, west of Turkey.

European cultures and focuses I

• Hamangia culture (6000 BC)
• Culture of ceramic bands (5500-4500 BC)
• Culture of Cucuteni (4500 BC-3000 BC)
• Culture of Boian (4300-3500 BC)
• Culture of Gulmenite (3500-2000 a. C.)
• Culture of funnel vessels (4200-2800 BC)
• Culture of laced ceramic (3000 BC)
• Culture of the country cup (2000 BC)

Gallery of prehistoric European ceramics I

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  Neolytic vessel of the sixth millennium BC. Stara Zagora Museum, Bulgaria.

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  Taphar Ceramics (siglos XIII-VIII a. C.) Ermitage Museum, Russia.

Western Europe

In Mediterranean Europe the oldest pieces are probably those found at the site of Camprafaud (Lenguadoc) and Verdelpino (Cuenca), pieces dated to the 6th millennium BC. C.; They do not present any type of decoration. There are also pieces from the 3rd millennium BC. C. found in Catalonia, Provence, Corsica and Dalmatia, whose decoration is based on printing with seashells, also known as cardial ceramics.

Two other important cultures are the Campaniform Ceramics, or bell-shaped glass, in the Chalcolithic, and the Argaric Ceramics of the Middle Ages. of the Bronze.

Already in the Mycenaean civilization, most of the vessels are made in the initial period of the Bronze Age, they are made by hand, without the help of a wheel.

Iberian Peninsula

According to the latest dating, the most primitive ceramics in this geographical area were of the cardial type.

Around 2000 BC. C., eastern migrations spread across the Iberian Peninsula from the southern coasts to the interior, developing the Almerian culture, the origin of the Beaker glass culture that would later spread to France and Germany. Shortly after, around 1700 BC. C., the El Argar culture appeared, also in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, where graves made in jars located in the basement of the homes have been found, with a large number of objects, including, large amount of ceramics.

Between 1300 and 750 BC. C. the so-called culture of the urn fields is located. The rite of cremation is introduced into the peninsula through the Pyrenees towards the northeast, in the valleys of the Segre rivers in Lleida. and Cinca; The objects bear a great similarity to those from lower Aragon and the Ebro valley. The representative ceramics are "grooved" with stripes of striated grooves.

One of the most studied necropolises is that of "La Punta del Pi" in the Puerto de la Selva which contains about seventy burials; More than two hundred urns have been found in the Espolla necropolis. Incineration spread throughout the rest of the peninsula, as can be seen in the necropolis of the Peña Negra in Crevillente, or in the Central Plateau in the findings of Las Cogotas (Cardeñosa, Ávila) and La Osera (Chamartín, Ávila), with more than two thousand burials, and many of whose vessels have white clay inlays that form decorations. In western Andalusia the urns have a dotted decoration while in the eastern part they are smooth and burnished. In all these centers and cultures, black ceramics are mandatory.

European cultures and focuses II

• Cardial ceramics (6000-5000 BC)
• Culture of the country cup (2900-2000 a. C.)
• Arganic culture (2000 BC)
• Culture of the Urn Fields (1250-750 BC)

Archaeological gallery of Mediterranean Europe

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  Vessel Cardial ceramics. Neolytic site of La Sarsa in Bocairente (Valencian Community, Spain).

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  Vaso de la cultura campaniforme de Ciempozuelos (Comunidad de Madrid, Spain).

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  Ceramics of 'boquique', vessel from San Román de Hornija, province of Valladolid (Bronce final, Culture of Cogotas-I, 1100-800 a. C.). It is preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Valladolid.

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  Ceramic painting of the Iron Age (Medina del Campo, Valladolid, Spain).

America

San Jacinto, Colombia, place where 8000 years ago a group of hunters and gatherers produced the first recorded ceramics in America, In Ecuador around 3200 BC. C. Studies carried out by North American and Ecuadorian archaeologists have tried to demonstrate the similarities of this ceramic with that of the Japanese culture of the Jōmon period. In both countries, the forms and techniques were related to their economies, preferably maritime. In Colombia, ceramics have been found dating back to the year 2925 BC. C., very rough utensils and hemispherical bowls, also in cancana. Pots of reddish and black color appear in Peru already in the slightly later period, around 1800 BC. C. In North America, one of the ceramics that can be called prehistoric is the so-called "forest", dated around 2000 BC. C. in the eastern United States, a ceramic with impressions based on ropes or fabrics, a technique that was carried out by patting the surface of the utensils with wooden paddles where ropes or fabrics had previously been wound.

American cultures and foci

• Mesoamerican Preclassic Period (2500 BC-200 AD)
• Usulután Ceramics (800 BC)

Prehistoric American Pottery Gallery

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  Protoneolytic vessel of Mexico (7000/5000 — 2500 BC). National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico.

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  Capacha culture vessel comes from Acatitan, Colima.