Beginning of the Potter’s Art
The potter’s art was probably entirely unknown to Palæolithic Man, for in none of the pure Drift finds have fragments of clay vessels been found. So where clay vessels or fragments of them occur, they appear as the proof of a post-Drift period. On the other hand, pottery was quite general in the Neolithic Age of Europe. Still, the need of clay vessels is not general among all races of the earth even at the present day; up to modern times there were, and still are, races and tribes without pots. From their practices it is evident that the European Stone men of the Drift could also manage to prepare their food, chiefly meat, by fire without cooking vessels. The Fuegians lay the piece of meat to be roasted on the glowing embers of a dying wood fire, and turn it with a pointed forked branch so as to keep it from burning. Meat thus prepared is very tasty, as it retains all the juice and only gets a rind on the top, and the ashes that adhere to it serve as seasoning in lieu of salt. On a coal fire not only can fish be grilled, stuck on wooden rods, but whole sheep can be roasted on wooden spits, precisely as people have the dainty of roast mutton in the East. To these may be added a large number of other methods of roasting, and even boiling, without earthen or metal vessels, which are partly vouched for by ethnography and partly by archæology, and some of which, like the so-called “stone-boiling,” are still practised at the present day.
No Perfect Pottery in the Stone Age
Although, according to this, pottery is not an absolute necessary of life for man, yet it is certain that even those poorly equipped pioneers who first settled in Denmark in the Pine Period, in spite of their having an almost or quite exclusive meat fare, had clay pottery in general use for preparing their food, and probably also for storing their provisions. As we have already shown, the remains that have been preserved in the kitchen-middens are the oldest that have been found in Denmark. Simple and rude as the numerous potsherds that occur may appear, they are of the highest importance on account of the proof of their great age. Unfortunately, as we have already seen, not a single perfect vessel has come to light. The fragments are very thick, of rough clay with bits of granite worked in, and are all made by hand without the use of the potter’s wheel. The pieces partly indicate large vessels, some with flat bottoms, and others with the special characteristic of pointed bottoms, so that the vessel could not be stood up as it was.Smaller bowls, frequently of an oval form, also occurred with rounded bottoms, so that they also could not stand by themselves. It is very important to note that on these fragments of pottery we find only extraordinarily scanty and exceedingly simple ornamental decorations, consisting merely of incisions, or impressions made with the fingers, on the upper edge.
MAN’S FIGHT WITH THE GIANT ANIMALS OF THE ANCIENT WORLDFrom the painting, “The Slaughter of a Mammoth,” by V. M. Vasnetsov, now in the Russian Historical Museum at Moscow.LARGER IMAGE
MAN’S FIGHT WITH THE GIANT ANIMALS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
From the painting, “The Slaughter of a Mammoth,” by V. M. Vasnetsov, now in the Russian Historical Museum at Moscow.
LARGER IMAGE
We shall see how far this oldest pottery of the Stone Age is distinguished by its want of decoration from that of the fully-developed Stone Age. But it is very important to notice that this rudest mode of making clay vessels, which we here see forming the beginning of a whole series that rises to the highest pitch of artistic perfection, remained in vogue not only during the whole Stone Age, but even in much later times.
Stone Age Potter’s Handwork
It is true that in the fully developed neolithic Stone Age of Europe the clay pottery is also all made by hand, without the potter’s wheel, the oldest and rudest forms still occurring everywhere, as we have said; but besides these a great variety is exhibited in the size, form, and mode of production of the pottery. The clay is often finer, and even quite finely worked and smoothed, and the vessels have thin sides and are burnt right through. The thick fragments are generally only burnt outside, frequently only on one side, and so much that the clay has acquired a bright red colour, whereas the inside, although hard, has remained only a greyish black. We have numerous perfectly preserved vessels of the later Neolithic Age. They are frequently distinguished by an artistic finish and beauty of form, and on their surfaces we find ornaments incised or imprinted, but rarely moulded on them, which, although the style is only geometrical, cannot be denied a keen sense of beauty and symmetry. The clay vessels also show the beginning of coloured decoration. The incised strokes, dots, etc., are often filled out with white substance (chalk or plaster), which brings the patterns out into bold ornamental relief from the black or red ground of the surface.
After that it is no wonder that pottery advanced to the real coloured painting of the vessels during the Neolithic Period, at least in some places.
Growth of Artistic Taste
On these vessels the handle now appears, in its simplest form as a wart-like or flatter projection from the side of the vessel, pierced either vertically or horizontally with a narrow opening just large enough to admit of a cord being passed through. Other handles, just like those in use at the present day, are bowed out broad, wide, and high for holding with the hand. These generally begin quite at the top, at the rim of the vessel, and are continued from there down to its belly, whereas the first-mentioned are placed lower, frequently around the greatest circumference of the vessel.
There is no doubt whatever that in the main these clay vessels were made on the spot where we find their remains at the present day. This easily explains the local peculiarity that we recognise in various finds, by which certain groups may be defined as more or less connected with one another. Different styles may be clearly distinguished by place and group. But, this notwithstanding, wherever we meet with neolithic ceramics, they cannot conceal their homogeneous character. In spite of all peculiarities this general uniform style of the ceramics of the Stone Age, which we can easily distinguish and determine even under its various disguises, goes over the whole of Europe.
The Proofs of Man’s Mental Development
In finds that lie nearer to the old Asiatic centres of civilisation and to the coasts of the Mediterranean—as, for instance, at Butmir—the vessels are in part better worked, and the ornaments are richer and more elegant, and the spirals more frequent and more regular, and are sometimes moulded on, and sometimes, as we have mentioned, even painted in colour. But the general character remains unmistakably Neolithic, and may be found not only on the European coasts of the Mediterranean and the islands of the Ægean Sea, but in certain respects also in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The oldest Trojan pottery also exhibits unmistakable points of agreement with it.
Not only the stone weapons and implements, but, as far as we can see, even the remains of the oldest ceramics, show that uniform development of the culture of the Neolithic Period which proves a like course of mental development in mankind.