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Not going to lie, I have never even thought about putting clay over a basket to make pottery. Now that you mention it, it makes complete sense to me. Thanks again for the great content and making me think about different ways ancient humans were surviving harsh climates.
sure you already got the shape you want so press the clay in there and fire the basket away in the fire. We used to do that to create hollow forms for metalworking. Craft techniques are nifty!
I paused the video to take a screenshot of the graphic that goes from "First Pottery" to "My House" because it made me laugh out loud. Nicely done. Great channel
Great job as usual. I have learned so much from your videos and I appreciate that you are careful about not going beyond data and artifacts when you speculate on the past. The hallmark of true science is often to suspend judgment rather than theorizing haphazardly (overreaching really). Thanks again for your efforts. JimF Fairfax, VA USA
I see someone else mentioned it below, but a fascinating idea about the evolution of pottery. Used to initialy waterproof woven containers. Brilliant, but so simple. Makes me wonder about cordedware pottery. It may not have been fired the same way, but just continuing the traditional aesthetic. Reminds me of the idea stone pillars copy the look of pillars made from reeds. Another great, eye opening, and thought provoking, video. Thanks.
Considering how brittle and fragmentary were the shards found, we are lucky to have even that much evidence. Amazing detective work is needed to piece together the evidence [this looks like an intentional pun, but I'll leave it for readers to wonder if it is or isn't]. Thanks, Matt, for yet another glimpse into the far distant in time lives of our ancestors.
Pottery is actually reasonably indestructible, it is why we have such an extensive artefact record and why it is used as the primary source for dating.
You forgot the fact that it was found in southern China. Hot weather severely degrades artifacts and fossils. The oldest fossil DNA from europe are 50,000ya, while the oldest fossil DNA from SEasia is 8000ya. Despite this, Southeast asia still has the oldest cave art (45,0000ya)
Asian cord wrapped ware looks amazingly like the pottery found here on the East Coast of North America. Look at Jomon pottery from Japan and Iroquois pottery from New York. I've made the cord wrapped paddles used and reproduced the pottery myself.
As I recall from a period where I was fascinated by pottery, there is a theory that cooking baskets were lined with clay which then led to the baskets being used as molds to produce pure clay bowls, etc. Doing this during the ice age actually makes a lot of sense. Firing the clay may have been an accidental discovery when a basket got too hot, leaving only the clay lining at some point. Our ancestors were smart people to recognize that the pottery was more resilient than the baskets ... Nice presentation.
Yep! That's what we learned in class. I was a professional potter for over 20 years and this makes perfect sense There is archaeological evidence of this. Clay pots with basket impressions, also people who still boil water in baskets over fire.
Can you suggest any resources for this theory of clay lined baskets preceding the introduction of pottery? I find this fascinating. Also, I've seen traditional Native American tightly woven cooking baskets in use. As I understand it these were not actually placed in the fire, though accidents would have happened. Even animal skin bags were used for cooking in the same way--with hot stones dropped inside. It's like we are missing aomething or it's staring right at us and we don't quite get it, yet. So somewhere along the way people got the idea to line the inside of baskets. Maybe by using clay lined depressions first they got the idea. I suspect carrying water came before the clay lining, then the cooking followed.
Thanks Matt. Another eye opening video. It seems we need to make a map and timeline that includes all things happened in prehistory including all places discovered to understand how and why they are linked
@@AncientArchitects Where does that timeline map come from that you show at the end? I'd like to download it. That map already give wonderful insight because it also has a timeline of the population on earth. Often people don't realize how incredibly small the population was back then and tend to think in many millions.
I'm of the belief that the Copper Age was discovered by the accidental inclusion of copper ore in the firing process for pottery. I think the use of kilns allowed the raw ore to reach the required temperature to melt and then be discovered after the pottery firing process ended.
Thank you a lot, this video has been giving an insight to me on the whole topic of pottery. I missed a lot of human development during the centuries and I eagerly try to keep up with the others, more experienced ones. I am so sorry of not been attenive enough but I always fear while stepping into a new topic. Sonja 😊
@@AncientArchitects Amen brother. That is why I am Subscribed to channels like yours. Love filling my head with weird knowledge, and love it even more when that weird knowledge comes in handy. Thank you!
The earliest pottery may well have been discovered, rather than invented. You can cook a fish, wrapped in seaweed or wet greens. Cover it in clay, and set it in the coals to bake. Juicy , evenly cooked and not subject to scorching or ashes. You pop one in the fire, but you fall asleep. When you awaken, many hours later, your fire has dwindled and your fish wrap is hard as a rock. So, you crack it open, and extract your dry, overcooked fish. But you are left with the hard, though largely intact hull of your fish-cooking vessel. You play with it, and discover that it holds water, and doesn`t dissolve back into gooey clay. These first potters were hunter-gatherers. They were migratory, carrying only essentials when making camp. Baskets are light, pottery is heavy. I would wager that most pots in this era, were made as part of establishing a new camp. Most riverbanks contain clay, and generations of smart, observant people would recognize the properties of different clay soils and understand how they behaved when wet, sun dried and fired (accidentally or otherwise) Pre-agricultural pottery is rare for a reason. It was heavy, fragile, and of limited value to itinerant people. I wonder when the connection between hotter, charcoal fires and superior finished pottery was made. Likely, it coincdes with sedentary, agricultural settlements.
In southern Mexico they sell chicken baked in clay, feathers, guts & all. While riding the FFCC in the 80's, i saw a family tear one apart, even had the yolks of eggs!
Also, imagine that someone was cremated after death in their canoe that they'd been using all their life to provide for the tribe. Along the way the canoe had been repaired many times with clay to waterproof the vessel. The fire is very hot and the body/boat is vaporized, but what remains is the clay that was inside the canoe. Somewhere nearby a lone genius gets an idea...
I remember myself at age 7 or 8 discovering a clay deposit near a creek in my native California. Itcseemed amazing to me somehow, and ay 72 I still remember it. I must have been similar to our ancient ancestors in their time.
Indeed. They were us, and we are them. Anatomically speaking no difference. They were "modern" humans. So it stands to reason they were just as capable as we are today, just as intelligent. They just didn't have the massive information infrastructure we have today, from which our intelligence now springs, although from their ability to work in stone it's pretty clear they had information we lack even today... John~ American Net'Zen
Thank you for sharing this explanation. When I had asked before what was meant by Pre-Pottery. And I thanked you for the answer. But I still had trouble with how they were able to cook and eat with out some way to store and hold things. I didn't get that they made them out of stone. But it makes sense if they were so good with carving rock and this is what they knew that is what they used. And the idea of making pots inside of baskets is a great idea. I can surely see how this was a way to start if the idea was new to you. I have worked with clay and made pots. So the baskets would have given you just what you needed to get you started. The size the shape flat or round. Thank you so much for this explanation. I do enjoy your videos.
I like the transition stage of the Americans where they covered a woven grass basket with pine tar so they could boil water in it. Much lighter and durable than a ceramic covered one. All these innovations created the NeoLithic.
@@AncientArchitects you keep putting it out and I’ll keep watching. I’d love to see a chronological timeline video of what things happened where. I’m almost convinced that Neanderthals might have had civilisations and created a lot of the stuff that sits outside the standard human timeline. I mean, why not?
Um, what's the clay content of the soil? Low clay content could explain why they used stone instead. In places where clays are readily available it's just a matter of time before people notice that it hardens when heated but in low clay content areas ceramics would most likely be introduced by trade.
When someone says "pre-pottery" or "didn't have the wheel" I take it with a grain of salt. There could be any number of reasons we haven't found such things in any given area. I really appreciate this video. Thanks.
i recall fifty years ago being told that pottery was invented by lining baskets with clay to make them waterproof then inadvertently fired by setting them to boil water on an open fire. i have experimented firing pots that way,with reasonable results. but to equate pottery with climate or even the invention of agriculture is putting the cart before the horse. pottery has been invented and reinvented multiple times in human history and as is often the case, it is not necessity that is the drive but the opportunity of having suitable materials. not all people have access to clay and still fewer have access to clay suitable for the uneven temperatures of firing on a bonfire. having the right material to begin with, added to human ingenuity often has astonishing effects. Take the Jomon culture for one example and isn't it interesting that they and the Chinese instance have resulted in regions with histories of exceptional ceramics. It is the same with every other material. It may well turn out that it was the availability of those workable hardstones for those marvelous bowls that powered Gobelki Tepe just as it was obsidian that powered Catayl Huyuk. As with megaliths and pyramids, it is always the accessibility of materials that drives the culture.
Pottery has to be really dry when fired. Steam will wreck anything when it gets hot enough , and pottery fires well above that temperature. They could have cooked dry food in it , and overcooked it, though.
When I was at engineering school I came to a similar realization that material science is THE limiting factor in advancement. People thought of submarines and combustion engines and computers and helicopters hundreds of years before they became reality. The world had to wait for material science to achieve the proper tolerances.
It wouldn't be surprising if the first step in the invention of pottery was the lining of bags with mud in order to transport fire from place to place, Noticing that the mud turned into a sort of stone would be the next.
It’s interesting to me that early Native Americans boiled water by throwing hot stones in a basket full of water, and fish was cooked sometimes by covering the fish with river clay and putting it in a fire. It wouldn’t have been long, I am assuming, that the intuitive connection of the fish pattern in the clay after cooking it would have lent the idea of water proofing a basket and hence pottery. Cool. Thank you Matthew.
Thanks as always for the amazing work. And Matty, I hate being demanding, but I really hope you can have a closer look at that ancient Czech ceramic Venus. If it's the oldest example we have of the motif, with such beautiful, confident, stylised design... Well damn, that's a mind blower in and of itself!
Thanks for this video. I know you only use the terms used by "professionals", but I always cringe a little over such finite terms created out of the lack of evidence instead of actual evidence. Far too many times have discoveries been claimed as "the first". Challenging the static narratives is a large part of this channel, so once again, thanks!
My favorite pre-pottery culture is Japan's Jomon (10,000 year ago). The people named after their pottery style. (cords wrapped around their pottery. The inspiration for the art style of Zelda Breath of the Wild)
@@Ps3luvr260 yeah it's super lame. A lot of the western/European history written by (and especially in) the 1800s is really dumb and racist and is just never updated/ corrected.
@@JamesFenczik Claiming it is dumb and racist is just it's own kind of dumbness. It is eurocentric and it is ok that is this way. Europeans were in a long time the only ones going out there and digging up history to make a puzzle more complete, refining the way of doing it to the way archeology works as a field all over the world today. Most of the world would be middle age central without what happened in Europe and you and me if we were even born wouldn't know crap about anything beside cooked up stories some people tell us in fancy big buildings.
You can see the potential arc of development. If you line a basket with clay you can carry water in it, it’s not a huge leap from there to accidental or perhaps even intentional firing. Cool :0)
I guess you really do read the comments. Realistically how can you actually date the invention of pottery? I believe it is a relative term. If a concave stone is found naturally and used for crushing herbs and grains, is it considered to be pottery? Or perhaps this is what inspired the use of clay. It is so brittle that I am positive that it has been reinvented a few times.
Humans can only go 3 days without water, making range 1.5 days away without ability to bring water, or @75 miles. Pottery is vastly superior to animal skins for this purpose. Truly an important step in exploration and migration! Peace
I have suspected that the need to transport water efficiently with pottery predated cooking woth pottery. Nomadic proples probably used pit cooking with leaves holding their food.
Boiling water must have been vital for both sterilization and extracting Maximum food from animals. Plants such as acorns need to be heated but not necessarily in water. This can’t be done in animal skins nor any kind of water proofed basket. Stone bowls would work but hard to make, hard to heat compared to thin walled pottery. Plus imagine the hot water needs for a clan of 50 people. This means larger bowls with lids would be the ideal solution. This might be the practical driving force for pottery over stone
It takes a certain type of soil, clay, to make pottery. You can't just take some dirt and slap it on a basket. So, a question I have is did the Gobekli Tepe region have that type, or not? This might explain it.
Pottery can be made from any type of clay tbh. Locally made pots could use clay from river beds or they would simply mine it. Certain clays were sought, however; for example medieval whiteware pottery was made from, in general, a formation called the Reading Beds - a type of pink clay found across parts of southern England. It fire white and usually had a green glaze added. Check out Cheam or Kingston ware.
Basically, the finer the "dirt" is the more clay-like it becomes ! So the "finest" clay is the last to settle in water, (try it out), So in a puddle of water, the clay is on top. The guy who realises this is the guy who becomes the first potter !
@@Rovinman Thanks for the education provided in the reply, not only to this one but to the others. I suspect the first "guy" to realize this about finer dirt was a "gal." The division of labor done by pre-modern societies, men tending to the hunt and women more to the home and hearth front, makes me think it was the female who first came up with ideas we now take for granted. From pottery to weaving (textiles) and the like, I suspect it was the ladies who had the "ah HA" moment in those critical areas of our primate development over time. And no this isn't a "battle of the sexes," comment. Or shouldn't be viewed as such. It's more an acknowledgement about just how complimentary, how necessary, the two sexes are to each other. John~ American Net'Zen
@@johncurtis920 I think you have a good point there, although the Hunter may have stepped in a puddle and got covered in clay, which was caked by the time he got back from the hunt ! But the answer is we just don't know, but I'm sure that agter the caked mud fell off the hunters foot, someone saw how dry and hard it had become, hence a container of sorts. It's all speculation ! How long after the Sun baking and softening again, did the idea of Fire hardening appear ? I am sure it was more than one rainy day, and a night in by the fire ! But I like the idea you propose ! I'm ALL for innovation !
Consider the fire pit. One might line it with some handy, sticky earth to help keep flames under control. The fire is kept going wherever possible, for warmth and cooking/drying various foodstuffs. It’s nearly time to move on, so the fire is allowed to die out. There is a very odd change in the lining earth, it is hard, and does not bend. Hmmmm. Interesting stuff. Perhaps a youngster, or a woman who tends the fire takes a piece or so from curiosity, fools with it, finds it doesn’t let water melt or penetrate it. ‘Hey, guys! Look at this!’ Pottery is born.
Great video mate, saw you on uncharted x podcast and found it really refreshing hearing from you. I thought ruminants refers to the way animals digest their food not hoofs?
@@AncientArchitects The definition isn't wrong per se. But yeah rumination is about digestion. Rumination is related a to the feature of a parted stomach (cows are the mostly teached example in school). Going up the taxation class they are part of the even-toed ungulates. So you also got the ungulates in a way in it what you said. Aquatic would mean they also eaten fish. If that page you showed is an indication for the diet.
hi, Matt! another interesting, eye opening video. there is a comment about how pottery wasn't discovered, it was just there. no big deal. get some clay and, voila! pottery! balderdash! my 1st wife took courses in pottery and i'm hear to tell you, making a functional bowl, vase, or whatever is FAR from easy! and, you can't use just any clay with success! and, the firing process needed to be learned, either by trial and error or being taught how. even then, it isn't easy. naysayers need to attempt things before saying they are easy. sorry, just had to get that off my chest. it really gets my goat when people downplay the acheivements of the ancients!
Lol great points, I wanted to say that pottery may just be to big a pain to make compared to stone wood or animal horn vessels. Makes me wonder how far back stone cooking utensils go. Loved you pointed out the issues of pottery thanks.
I was born during the greatest age where humans worked out how make drinking vessels and plates out of PAPER! Then my mother discovered Tupperware and humanity was doomed.
That was the tipping point, but the real speed of change was Pampers. When disposable diapers came along, roadside litter lead to a plastic planet. (Mini rant over.🤯)
The technique of using cord wrapped paddles to decorate pottery like the vessels shown in the video may have a way to add a decorative motif related to basket made pottery but it's not certain that basket pottery was the first type made or if most pottery using cultures even made it that way. Side Note: The punctate pottery rim sherd shown in the video is exactly the same as the punctate pottery found here on the East Coast of America. Parallel evolution of the technology from Asia and America or direct contact?.. Nobody knows.
We have to keep in mind vast majority of people lived on the shoreline of the oceans a shoreline during the ice age which would be under ruffly 200 feet of water now.
The history of china's pottery technology is amazing. The information that they made pottery by covering a basket with clay is amazing. I wonder how primitive humans discovered pottery. A bowl covered with clay to keep the water from flowing, is this made by heating it for cooking? Thank you for making this interesting video!
I don't know enough about Chinese pottery history to comment, but as you said, there has been no pottery found at Gobekli Tepe or the surrounding sites. Very interesting vid as always Matt....peace to ya.
I find it incomprehensible that pottery was not used very early on, just not durable pottery. As a 4 year old playing in the creek, I discovered clay and made stuff out of it.
Sweetie, you weren’t firing that clay so what you made wasn’t pottery. You didn’t pay attention to the video, did you? It’s sad when exceptionally simple concepts elude people.
@@DaveTexas I did not say what I made was pottery, I was pointing out that clay is ubiquitous and almost impossible to not notice how useful it is. I was not firing my little clay pots, but somewhere in ancient times, it seems very, very likely that someone did a crude form of firing the clay. Some people are just so pretentious they cannot help but being assholes.
It makes sense they would have filled a basket with clay, as they were probably using the basket to carry it to begin with. They could have been filling the basket with muddy clay, and waiting for the water to trickle out and dry out a bit maybe even put it by the fire to assist in the process and forgot about it and the basket eventually went up in flames and then noticed the interesting shaped remnant. That corded texture is useful for grip, and pleasing to the eye, and if you ever saw an old fashioned wash board, the grooves help with abrading clothing to clean it.
Like a month ago I told my girlfriend while watching one of these videos I showed her the handbags and said what if they’re just a bucket for carring water and everybody’s just overthinking it..
If anyone reads this I have an idea what the clay venues figurines were used for.. Once it’s pointed out it’s obvious, an “oh of course what an elegant solution to a simple problem.
There is no use case for fragile pottery. Stone vessels last much longer and are multiuser. Pottery is a sign of a new caste of workers creating a surplus and making their own tools.
It is a pity we do not have access to site that are currently below sea level. Since oceans rose ~100 metres since the Younger Dryas, there is undoubtedly thousands of sites with amazing discoveries awaiting us. The more advanced civilisations may well have been along the old coast lines.
it may even be possible that on some of these vessels corded patterns could be intentional akin to impressing into the raw clay of something like a quipu necklace as sign of ownership or when in the year to use the contents. Also Amur River is important to much of east asia as the urheimnat of many cultures (even china many dynasties were not Han but from amur or mongolia).. trade with Amur was vital for Japan and Korea in the long view historically) besides old pottery also in Japan in early jomon period, persian glass objects have been found in Kofun burials..
Thank you for watching and for being here! If you want to support the channel, you can become a RUclips Member at ruclips.net/channel/UCscI4NOggNSN-Si5QgErNCwjoin or I’m on Patreon at www.patreon.com/ancientarchitects
So when you upload a video privately, then at the time you make it public, is when it's published to us all, correct? 😇
bruh places where they used pottery wasnt afflicted by ice age at all, they had pretty much warm climate over there
What about "out of place artifacts" like poetry found in coal mines? There many more but I would say that is the most famous one to point out
Not going to lie, I have never even thought about putting clay over a basket to make pottery. Now that you mention it, it makes complete sense to me. Thanks again for the great content and making me think about different ways ancient humans were surviving harsh climates.
It does make sense doesn’t it? So simple but so effective!
Wow yer its seems so obvious now 🙄
sure you already got the shape you want so press the clay in there and fire the basket away in the fire. We used to do that to create hollow forms for metalworking. Craft techniques are nifty!
Rather almost like carbon fiber is made today.
No plastic
I paused the video to take a screenshot of the graphic that goes from "First Pottery" to "My House" because it made me laugh out loud. Nicely done. Great channel
You could totally hold my attention for 30+ minutes everytime you make a video. And I would happily wait for longer form content.
Sensational information presented without sensationalism; what a relief.
Great job as usual. I have learned so much from your videos and I appreciate that you are careful about not going beyond data and artifacts when you speculate on the past. The hallmark of true science is often to suspend judgment rather than theorizing haphazardly (overreaching really). Thanks again for your efforts. JimF Fairfax, VA USA
I see someone else mentioned it below, but a fascinating idea about the evolution of pottery. Used to initialy waterproof woven containers. Brilliant, but so simple. Makes me wonder about cordedware pottery. It may not have been fired the same way, but just continuing the traditional aesthetic. Reminds me of the idea stone pillars copy the look of pillars made from reeds. Another great, eye opening, and thought provoking, video. Thanks.
This channel always saves me when I'm bored. Great job
An excellent documentary full of new (to me) and valuable knowledge. Thank you for it.
Considering how brittle and fragmentary were the shards found, we are lucky to have even that much evidence. Amazing detective work is needed to piece together the evidence [this looks like an intentional pun, but I'll leave it for readers to wonder if it is or isn't]. Thanks, Matt, for yet another glimpse into the far distant in time lives of our ancestors.
Pottery is actually reasonably indestructible, it is why we have such an extensive artefact record and why it is used as the primary source for dating.
You forgot the fact that it was found in southern China.
Hot weather severely degrades artifacts and fossils. The oldest fossil DNA from europe are 50,000ya, while the oldest fossil DNA from SEasia is 8000ya. Despite this, Southeast asia still has the oldest cave art (45,0000ya)
This was a wonderfully complete, brief history of the creation of pottery. Thank You Matt for the research and production!
Mind broadening! Thank you Matt!
Asian cord wrapped ware looks amazingly like the pottery found here on the East Coast of North America. Look at Jomon pottery from Japan and Iroquois pottery from New York. I've made the cord wrapped paddles used and reproduced the pottery myself.
As I recall from a period where I was fascinated by pottery, there is a theory that cooking baskets were lined with clay which then led to the baskets being used as molds to produce pure clay bowls, etc. Doing this during the ice age actually makes a lot of sense. Firing the clay may have been an accidental discovery when a basket got too hot, leaving only the clay lining at some point. Our ancestors were smart people to recognize that the pottery was more resilient than the baskets ... Nice presentation.
Yep! That's what we learned in class. I was a professional potter for over 20 years and this makes perfect sense There is archaeological evidence of this. Clay pots with basket impressions, also people who still boil water in baskets over fire.
Can you suggest any resources for this theory of clay lined baskets preceding the introduction of pottery? I find this fascinating. Also, I've seen traditional Native American tightly woven cooking baskets in use. As I understand it these were not actually placed in the fire, though accidents would have happened. Even animal skin bags were used for cooking in the same way--with hot stones dropped inside. It's like we are missing aomething or it's staring right at us and we don't quite get it, yet. So somewhere along the way people got the idea to line the inside of baskets. Maybe by using clay lined depressions first they got the idea. I suspect carrying water came before the clay lining, then the cooking followed.
@@tonygrowley5275 I'm interested in learning which groups might still be using woven baskets over fires. Do you know of any resources I could look up?
@@tonygrowley5275 I just found the hangi used by the Maori. It is a stonelined firepit where they cook food in covered baskets. Fascinating.
great episode. keep them coming.
Thanks Matt. Another eye opening video. It seems we need to make a map and timeline that includes all things happened in prehistory including all places discovered to understand how and why they are linked
I might start one in photoshop
@@AncientArchitects Where does that timeline map come from that you show at the end? I'd like to download it. That map already give wonderful insight because it also has a timeline of the population on earth. Often people don't realize how incredibly small the population was back then and tend to think in many millions.
I'm of the belief that the Copper Age was discovered by the accidental inclusion of copper ore in the firing process for pottery.
I think the use of kilns allowed the raw ore to reach the required temperature to melt and then be discovered after the pottery firing process ended.
Thanks I enjoy rewatching your videos.👍🏼
Thank you a lot, this video has been giving an insight to me on the whole topic of pottery. I missed a lot of human development during the centuries and I eagerly try to keep up with the others, more experienced ones. I am so sorry of not been attenive enough but I always fear while stepping into a new topic. Sonja 😊
Once again your persistent digging has brought us obscure knowledge which provokes one to re-evaluate what we thought we understood!
I sometimes like researching more obscure but important topics. I always like learning!
@@AncientArchitects Amen brother. That is why I am Subscribed to channels like yours. Love filling my head with weird knowledge, and love it even more when that weird knowledge comes in handy. Thank you!
Hooray! Another Ancient Architects video!
Enjoy!
i chuckled at "My House", cheers :)
Love your content, Matt. Thanks for another informative video! ❤
Thanks for watching
The earliest pottery may well have been discovered, rather than invented. You can cook a fish, wrapped in seaweed or wet greens. Cover it in clay, and set it in the coals to bake. Juicy , evenly cooked and not subject to scorching or ashes. You pop one in the fire, but you fall asleep. When you awaken, many hours later, your fire has dwindled and your fish wrap is hard as a rock. So, you crack it open, and extract your dry, overcooked fish. But you are left with the hard, though largely intact hull of your fish-cooking vessel. You play with it, and discover that it holds water, and doesn`t dissolve back into gooey clay.
These first potters were hunter-gatherers. They were migratory, carrying only essentials when making camp. Baskets are light, pottery is heavy. I would wager that most pots in this era, were made as part of establishing a new camp. Most riverbanks contain clay, and generations of smart, observant people would recognize the properties of different clay soils and understand how they behaved when wet, sun dried and fired (accidentally or otherwise)
Pre-agricultural pottery is rare for a reason. It was heavy, fragile, and of limited value to itinerant people. I wonder when the connection between hotter, charcoal fires and superior finished pottery was made. Likely, it coincdes with sedentary, agricultural settlements.
In southern Mexico they sell chicken baked in clay, feathers, guts & all.
While riding the FFCC in the 80's, i saw a family tear one apart, even had the yolks of eggs!
Also, imagine that someone was cremated after death in their canoe that they'd been using all their life to provide for the tribe. Along the way the canoe had been repaired many times with clay to waterproof the vessel. The fire is very hot and the body/boat is vaporized, but what remains is the clay that was inside the canoe. Somewhere nearby a lone genius gets an idea...
I remember myself at age 7 or 8 discovering a clay deposit near a creek in my native California. Itcseemed amazing to me somehow, and ay 72 I still remember it. I must have been similar to our ancient ancestors in their time.
Bet you got this correct.
Pottery, ceramic figures and carved figures show that early man was much smarter than we were taught.
Indeed. They were us, and we are them. Anatomically speaking no difference. They were "modern" humans.
So it stands to reason they were just as capable as we are today, just as intelligent. They just didn't have the massive information infrastructure we have today, from which our intelligence now springs, although from their ability to work in stone it's pretty clear they had information we lack even today...
John~
American Net'Zen
Another fascinating video. I really enjoy your longer format videos to. Thank you
Thank you for sharing this explanation. When I had asked before what was meant by Pre-Pottery. And I thanked you for the answer. But I still had trouble with how they were able to cook and eat with out some way to store and hold things. I didn't get that they made them out of stone. But it
makes sense if they were so good with carving rock and this is what they knew
that is what they used.
And the idea of making pots inside of
baskets is a great idea. I can surely see
how this was a way to start if the idea was
new to you. I have worked with clay and
made pots. So the baskets would have
given you just what you needed to get you
started. The size the shape flat or round.
Thank you so much for this explanation. I
do enjoy your videos.
I like the transition stage of the Americans where they covered a woven grass basket with pine tar so they could boil water in it. Much lighter and durable than a ceramic covered one.
All these innovations created the NeoLithic.
Watching immediately!
Thanks!
Thanks for this I had no idea I was still convinced pottery was 8000 years old fantastic really pleased to be put straight fabulous thanks so much!
I learned lots of new stuff. Thank you.
It’s so frustrating hearing all these threads but not knowing exactly the human story. Great video. Love this stuff
Thank you for watching 👍
@@AncientArchitects you keep putting it out and I’ll keep watching. I’d love to see a chronological timeline video of what things happened where. I’m almost convinced that Neanderthals might have had civilisations and created a lot of the stuff that sits outside the standard human timeline. I mean, why not?
Yep.
Amazing. Thank you!
Another very informative and obviously well researched video! “my house” 😂😂 had me laughing 😆
Thank you for your time and effort put into these videos, bravo!
Thanks for watching and commenting
Thanks for sharing, Matt.
Interesting as usual.
Um, what's the clay content of the soil? Low clay content could explain why they used stone instead.
In places where clays are readily available it's just a matter of time before people notice that it hardens when heated but in low clay content areas ceramics would most likely be introduced by trade.
Very interesting.
Would you make a video about Japanese Jomon period? Pottery and clay figurines of that period are absolutely fascinating.
When someone says "pre-pottery" or "didn't have the wheel" I take it with a grain of salt. There could be any number of reasons we haven't found such things in any given area. I really appreciate this video. Thanks.
i recall fifty years ago being told that pottery was invented by lining baskets with clay to make them waterproof then inadvertently fired by setting them to boil water on an open fire. i have experimented firing pots that way,with reasonable results. but to equate pottery with climate or even the invention of agriculture is putting the cart before the horse. pottery has been invented and reinvented multiple times in human history and as is often the case, it is not necessity that is the drive but the opportunity of having suitable materials. not all people have access to clay and still fewer have access to clay suitable for the uneven temperatures of firing on a bonfire. having the right material to begin with, added to human ingenuity often has astonishing effects. Take the Jomon culture for one example and isn't it interesting that they and the Chinese instance have resulted in regions with histories of exceptional ceramics. It is the same with every other material. It may well turn out that it was the availability of those workable hardstones for those marvelous bowls that powered Gobelki Tepe just as it was obsidian that powered Catayl Huyuk. As with megaliths and pyramids, it is always the accessibility of materials that drives the culture.
This is true even of the industrial revolution in Britain. Easy access to coal allowed it to happen.
Pottery has to be really dry when fired. Steam will wreck anything when it gets hot enough , and pottery fires well above that temperature. They could have cooked dry food in it , and overcooked it, though.
When I was at engineering school I came to a similar realization that material science is THE limiting factor in advancement. People thought of submarines and combustion engines and computers and helicopters hundreds of years before they became reality. The world had to wait for material science to achieve the proper tolerances.
It wouldn't be surprising if the first step in the invention of pottery was the lining of bags with mud in order to transport fire from place to place, Noticing that the mud turned into a sort of stone would be the next.
That was fabulous!
What indicates that farming has occurred? Figuring that out sounds interesting too.
It’s interesting to me that early Native Americans boiled water by throwing hot stones in a basket full of water, and fish was cooked sometimes by covering the fish with river clay and putting it in a fire. It wouldn’t have been long, I am assuming, that the intuitive connection of the fish pattern in the clay after cooking it would have lent the idea of water proofing a basket and hence pottery.
Cool. Thank you Matthew.
Awesome channel,thank you so much
Thanks as always for the amazing work. And Matty, I hate being demanding, but I really hope you can have a closer look at that ancient Czech ceramic Venus. If it's the oldest example we have of the motif, with such beautiful, confident, stylised design... Well damn, that's a mind blower in and of itself!
Thanks for this video. I know you only use the terms used by "professionals", but I always cringe a little over such finite terms created out of the lack of evidence instead of actual evidence. Far too many times have discoveries been claimed as "the first". Challenging the static narratives is a large part of this channel, so once again, thanks!
My favorite pre-pottery culture is Japan's Jomon (10,000 year ago). The people named after their pottery style. (cords wrapped around their pottery. The inspiration for the art style of Zelda Breath of the Wild)
Yes, was reading about them at the weekend!
Why is it that there called pre-pottery but are also named for their pottery, that’s super confusing from my uneducated perspective
@@Ps3luvr260 yeah it's super lame. A lot of the western/European history written by (and especially in) the 1800s is really dumb and racist and is just never updated/ corrected.
@@JamesFenczik Claiming it is dumb and racist is just it's own kind of dumbness. It is eurocentric and it is ok that is this way. Europeans were in a long time the only ones going out there and digging up history to make a puzzle more complete, refining the way of doing it to the way archeology works as a field all over the world today. Most of the world would be middle age central without what happened in Europe and you and me if we were even born wouldn't know crap about anything beside cooked up stories some people tell us in fancy big buildings.
@@Airwave2k2 claiming Europeans were "the only ones" is that dumb racism I'm talking about lol.
You can see the potential arc of development. If you line a basket with clay you can carry water in it, it’s not a huge leap from there to accidental or perhaps even intentional firing. Cool :0)
Thanks, as always.
I guess you really do read the comments. Realistically how can you actually date the invention of pottery? I believe it is a relative term. If a concave stone is found naturally and used for crushing herbs and grains, is it considered to be pottery? Or perhaps this is what inspired the use of clay. It is so brittle that I am positive that it has been reinvented a few times.
I love your videos ! You should check out Lepenski Vir and Vinca culture, they are interesting
Yes! Well aware of the Vinca - amazing culture!
Great video thank you.
I love this topic.
I just *knew* this whole “pre-pottery pottery” scenario was only gonna get more complicated…
This is why I had true distain for the term "pre-pottery"!!
Amazing 👍
"In my day we made proper stone pots. Kids today are so soft."
wow surprising! so many things to discover...so little time ❤️
I know the feeling
Humans can only go 3 days without water, making range 1.5 days away without ability to bring water, or @75 miles. Pottery is vastly superior to animal skins for this purpose. Truly an important step in exploration and migration! Peace
Massive step, agreed!
Large bird eggs
If you have to bring water with you!
I have suspected that the need to transport water efficiently with pottery predated cooking woth pottery. Nomadic proples probably used pit cooking with leaves holding their food.
Boiling water must have been vital for both sterilization and extracting Maximum food from animals. Plants such as acorns need to be heated but not necessarily in water. This can’t be done in animal skins nor any kind of water proofed basket. Stone bowls would work but hard to make, hard to heat compared to thin walled pottery. Plus imagine the hot water needs for a clan of 50 people. This means larger bowls with lids would be the ideal solution. This might be the practical driving force for pottery over stone
It takes a certain type of soil, clay, to make pottery. You can't just take some dirt and slap it on a basket. So, a question I have is did the Gobekli Tepe region have that type, or not? This might explain it.
Pottery can be made from any type of clay tbh. Locally made pots could use clay from river beds or they would simply mine it. Certain clays were sought, however; for example medieval whiteware pottery was made from, in general, a formation called the Reading Beds - a type of pink clay found across parts of southern England. It fire white and usually had a green glaze added. Check out Cheam or Kingston ware.
Terrazzo floors & plastered skulls? I’d say YES
Basically, the finer the "dirt" is the more clay-like it becomes !
So the "finest" clay is the last to settle in water, (try it out),
So in a puddle of water, the clay is on top.
The guy who realises this is the guy who becomes the first potter !
@@Rovinman Thanks for the education provided in the reply, not only to this one but to the others.
I suspect the first "guy" to realize this about finer dirt was a "gal." The division of labor done by pre-modern societies, men tending to the hunt and women more to the home and hearth front, makes me think it was the female who first came up with ideas we now take for granted.
From pottery to weaving (textiles) and the like, I suspect it was the ladies who had the "ah HA" moment in those critical areas of our primate development over time. And no this isn't a "battle of the sexes," comment. Or shouldn't be viewed as such. It's more an acknowledgement about just how complimentary, how necessary, the two sexes are to each other.
John~
American Net'Zen
@@johncurtis920 I think you have a good point there, although the Hunter may have stepped in a puddle and got covered in clay, which was caked by the time he got back from the hunt !
But the answer is we just don't know, but I'm sure that agter the caked mud fell off the hunters foot, someone saw how dry and hard it had become, hence a container of sorts.
It's all speculation !
How long after the Sun baking and softening again, did the idea of Fire hardening appear ?
I am sure it was more than one rainy day, and a night in by the fire !
But I like the idea you propose !
I'm ALL for innovation !
top notch video
OK, I'm just gonna say it - in archaeology pieces of pottery are referred to as sherds, not shards. That is pieces of glass.
Consider the fire pit. One might line it with some handy, sticky earth to help keep flames under control. The fire is kept going wherever possible, for warmth and cooking/drying various foodstuffs. It’s nearly time to move on, so the fire is allowed to die out. There is a very odd change in the lining earth, it is hard, and does not bend. Hmmmm. Interesting stuff. Perhaps a youngster, or a woman who tends the fire takes a piece or so from curiosity, fools with it, finds it doesn’t let water melt or penetrate it. ‘Hey, guys! Look at this!’ Pottery is born.
Good one Matt.Had no idea there was pottery - pre pottery!
unlike many ancient inventions its very easy to imagine how pottery was invented -
Dolni Vestonice in Czech Republic dates to 28,000 BP and features a kiln and fired clay objects.
The push and nag to subscribe kills the video.
“My House” lol
Best of the best!
Wonderful video Matt. Didn't realise pottery had such a long history. I wonder if this changes some existing mainstream archaeological concepts?
Great video mate, saw you on uncharted x podcast and found it really refreshing hearing from you. I thought ruminants refers to the way animals digest their food not hoofs?
I have to admit I’m not a biologist. I could be wrong, I went to a dictionary for a definition 😂
@@AncientArchitects The definition isn't wrong per se. But yeah rumination is about digestion. Rumination is related a to the feature of a parted stomach (cows are the mostly teached example in school). Going up the taxation class they are part of the even-toed ungulates. So you also got the ungulates in a way in it what you said. Aquatic would mean they also eaten fish. If that page you showed is an indication for the diet.
hi, Matt! another interesting, eye opening video. there is a comment about how pottery wasn't discovered, it was just there. no big deal. get some clay and, voila! pottery! balderdash! my 1st wife took courses in pottery and i'm hear to tell you, making a functional bowl, vase, or whatever is FAR from easy! and, you can't use just any clay with success! and, the firing process needed to be learned, either by trial and error or being taught how. even then, it isn't easy. naysayers need to attempt things before saying they are easy.
sorry, just had to get that off my chest. it really gets my goat when people downplay the acheivements of the ancients!
Lol great points, I wanted to say that pottery may just be to big a pain to make compared to stone wood or animal horn vessels. Makes me wonder how far back stone cooking utensils go. Loved you pointed out the issues of pottery thanks.
You'd think a cup would be an immediate invention.. 🤔😁
I was born during the greatest age where humans worked out how make drinking vessels and plates out of PAPER! Then my mother discovered Tupperware and humanity was doomed.
That was the tipping point, but the real speed of change was Pampers. When disposable diapers came along, roadside litter lead to a plastic planet. (Mini rant over.🤯)
It’s interesting to consider how important pottery was thousands of years ago.
My take on pottery is that it really became a serious endeavor when beer was discovered. No pots, no beer.
The technique of using cord wrapped paddles to decorate pottery like the vessels shown in the video may have a way to add a decorative motif related to basket made pottery but it's not certain that basket pottery was the first type made or if most pottery using cultures even made it that way. Side Note: The punctate pottery rim sherd shown in the video is exactly the same as the punctate pottery found here on the East Coast of America. Parallel evolution of the technology from Asia and America or direct contact?.. Nobody knows.
Thank you.
We have to keep in mind vast majority of people lived on the shoreline of the oceans a shoreline during the ice age which would be under ruffly 200 feet of water now.
I believe that the whole Tas Tepeler region is limestone and no clay - perhaps if there had been they'd have developed pottery
The history of china's pottery technology is amazing. The information that they made pottery by covering a basket with clay is amazing. I wonder how primitive humans discovered pottery. A bowl covered with clay to keep the water from flowing, is this made by heating it for cooking? Thank you for making this interesting video!
I don't know enough about Chinese pottery history to comment, but as you said, there has been no pottery found at Gobekli Tepe or the surrounding sites. Very interesting vid as always Matt....peace to ya.
Thanks for watching mate
Thanks mate. 👍
I find it incomprehensible that pottery was not used very early on, just not durable pottery. As a 4 year old playing in the creek, I discovered clay and made stuff out of it.
Sweetie, you weren’t firing that clay so what you made wasn’t pottery. You didn’t pay attention to the video, did you? It’s sad when exceptionally simple concepts elude people.
@@DaveTexas I did not say what I made was pottery, I was pointing out that clay is ubiquitous and almost impossible to not notice how useful it is. I was not firing my little clay pots, but somewhere in ancient times, it seems very, very likely that someone did a crude form of firing the clay. Some people are just so pretentious they cannot help but being assholes.
It's interesting that they didn't make pottery but they made concrete/terrazzo.
It makes sense they would have filled a basket with clay, as they were probably using the basket to carry it to begin with. They could have been filling the basket with muddy clay, and waiting for the water to trickle out and dry out a bit maybe even put it by the fire to assist in the process and forgot about it and the basket eventually went up in flames and then noticed the interesting shaped remnant. That corded texture is useful for grip, and pleasing to the eye, and if you ever saw an old fashioned wash board, the grooves help with abrading clothing to clean it.
I committed Heresy, I watched video..........before hitting the Like button, Blasphemy!
stuff just keeps getting older
Like a month ago I told my girlfriend while watching one of these videos I showed her the handbags and said what if they’re just a bucket for carring water and everybody’s just overthinking it..
Much obliged for this knowledge.
Pottery only makes sense after people developed settlements (and maybe agriculture).
It's too cumbersome and too fragile to transport (by carrying).
If anyone reads this I have an idea what the clay venues figurines were used for.. Once it’s pointed out it’s obvious, an “oh of course what an elegant solution to a simple problem.
There is no use case for fragile pottery. Stone vessels last much longer and are multiuser. Pottery is a sign of a new caste of workers creating a surplus and making their own tools.
Jolly good!
Is that an outdated British phrase or is it still used commonly?
(If not British please disregard)
Squirrel!”
But seriously....could stone pottery making lead humans to this level of skill with stonemasonry....
Never thought about that before
Thank you for this educational video.
It is a pity we do not have access to site that are currently below sea level. Since oceans rose ~100 metres since the Younger Dryas, there is undoubtedly thousands of sites with amazing discoveries awaiting us. The more advanced civilisations may well have been along the old coast lines.
it may even be possible that on some of these vessels corded patterns could be intentional akin to impressing into the raw clay of something like a quipu necklace as sign of ownership or when in the year to use the contents. Also Amur River is important to much of east asia as the urheimnat of many cultures (even china many dynasties were not Han but from amur or mongolia).. trade with Amur was vital for Japan and Korea in the long view historically) besides old pottery also in Japan in early jomon period, persian glass objects have been found in Kofun burials..
Nice ideas. Thanks
“My House” 😆
interesting, thank you
Thank you