Neolithic Pottery (Guest Lecturer: Dr. Katsarou)

          Our group was very fortunate to have Dr. Stella Kastarou ((specialist on caves and prehistoric research) speak to us about Neolithic pottery; she is very knowledgeable on the subject and gave a great presentation. She primarily discussed her findings on Thessaly and walked us through the processes of forming the pots, decorating them, the firing process, potential uses and functions of the pots, and the recycling of the pots to make new pottery. 

            I was intrigued by the course texture of the pottery. When we visited the potters workshop and examined modern pottery the clay is refined for the wheel, in contrast making Neolithic pottery appear primitive and unrefined, but in actuality they made their clay rough on purpose, adding obsidian, straw, manure, crushed shells, and recycled pottery or ‘grog’. This process of adding these elements into the clay is called tempering, and it is done to prevent thermal shock. The difference in the clay textures has to do with the kiln or firing process. There is sun dried, pit fired, and kiln fired and there is also hand made pottery and pottery made using the wheel.

Neolithic pottery was pre-wheel and pre-kiln era, so the pottery is much thicker; Dr. Kastarou even had pictures of added layers to the pots to make them sturdier. These pots were hand made, using either the pinch pot technique or the coiling method, and possibly done by females.

The most interesting thing about her presentation was the pattern designs and human nail impressions on shards of broken pottery they found on site. In the middle to late Neolithic period decoration became prevalent in the pottery, designs done in slip or with white paint. These designs look like weaving patterns and would have been very time consuming and mathematical in their construction. These ancient people even discovered how to incorporate ash into their clay to give it a glossy luster without being burnished. Also some of these pots must have been left to dry on woven mats, because they discovered weaving impressions on the bottoms of the pottery as well as the insides, as if they used baskets as molds that would burn up in the firing process, just leaving the pottery with a decorative internal design. The whole presentation was very enlightening and brought to life the pottery we have already seen at in the Paros Archeological museum. 

M.A.B. 2012