Origin of Ceramic Technology Ice Age Bear Sculpture 25,000-29,000 years old Czech Republic
The earliest ceramics made by humans were pottery objects, including 27,000 year old figurines, made from clay, In our modern world of metal technology and artificial plastics it’s easy to forget the importance of ceramics. However, there was a time when pottery was the only way to make vessels for cooking food or storing it. Doing so would’ve opened up a raft of new options for prehistoric people, such as using advanced cooking techniques to make previously inedible resources palatable. Alternatively by storing food they could’ve made lean times less harsh enabling larger populations or making previously inhospitable locations habitable.
However ceramics weren’t always utilised for such utilitarian purposes. The first instances of this technology come from a set of European sites (Dolni Vestonice, Pavlov and Piredmosti) which were inhabited by people 28-24,000 years BP. These individuals produced the Gravettian industry which included the famous Venus figurines. One such figurine, made from ceramics, is the earliest example of the technology we have. Ice Age European pottery suggests that this is an independent invention and not the result of refining the methods which produced the famous “bangers” at Dolni Vestonice.
Dolni Vestonice was once a thriving camp inhabited during the Palaeolithic period approximately 30,000 years ago. Today it is a prominent archaeological site located near the modern City of Brno in the Czech Republic.
Dolni Vestonice is famous for the rich deposit of archaeological evidence, providing us with an insight into a culture of Ice-Age people in central Europe. It shows how people constructed their huts of mammoth bones, the technology they used, as well as burial practices and the making of art – some of the earliest examples of symbolic representation.
The site includes the remnants of several huts, one of which has the remains of one of the earliest kilns ever discovered. The kiln, used for baking clay objects, is remarkable for that time. It wasn’t for another 15,000 years that people in faraway Japan would shape clay and turn it into ceramic pots – the first containers made out of clay.
The kiln at Dolni Vestonice had glowing coals that were covered by a dome made of earth. The floor of the hut around the kiln was covered with hundreds of ceramic figurines and their fragments, depicting humans and numerous animals. These are the first examples of ceramic artefacts ever found and they date to between 28,000 and 24,000 years ago.
One of the most striking and almost complete figurines became known as the Venus of Dolni Vestonice. It is 11cm high and depicts a voluptuous nude female figure – it is thought to be a symbol of fertility or possibly an idol or ‘goddess’. This Venus found a prominent place in textbooks and coffee-table books and also in popular imagination – showing how our distant ancestors reflected on themselves through pictorial representation and how they invented the art, as we know it.
However ceramics weren’t always utilised for such utilitarian purposes. The first instances of this technology come from a set of European sites (Dolni Vestonice, Pavlov and Piredmosti) which were inhabited by people 28-24,000 years BP. These individuals produced the Gravettian industry which included the famous Venus figurines. One such figurine, made from ceramics, is the earliest example of the technology we have. Ice Age European pottery suggests that this is an independent invention and not the result of refining the methods which produced the famous “bangers” at Dolni Vestonice.
Dolni Vestonice was once a thriving camp inhabited during the Palaeolithic period approximately 30,000 years ago. Today it is a prominent archaeological site located near the modern City of Brno in the Czech Republic.
Dolni Vestonice is famous for the rich deposit of archaeological evidence, providing us with an insight into a culture of Ice-Age people in central Europe. It shows how people constructed their huts of mammoth bones, the technology they used, as well as burial practices and the making of art – some of the earliest examples of symbolic representation.
The site includes the remnants of several huts, one of which has the remains of one of the earliest kilns ever discovered. The kiln, used for baking clay objects, is remarkable for that time. It wasn’t for another 15,000 years that people in faraway Japan would shape clay and turn it into ceramic pots – the first containers made out of clay.
The kiln at Dolni Vestonice had glowing coals that were covered by a dome made of earth. The floor of the hut around the kiln was covered with hundreds of ceramic figurines and their fragments, depicting humans and numerous animals. These are the first examples of ceramic artefacts ever found and they date to between 28,000 and 24,000 years ago.
One of the most striking and almost complete figurines became known as the Venus of Dolni Vestonice. It is 11cm high and depicts a voluptuous nude female figure – it is thought to be a symbol of fertility or possibly an idol or ‘goddess’. This Venus found a prominent place in textbooks and coffee-table books and also in popular imagination – showing how our distant ancestors reflected on themselves through pictorial representation and how they invented the art, as we know it.
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