2. The building up of a form, often on a piece of basket-work or
matting, gradually raising the walls higher by applying and smoothing
down successive layers of clay.
3. Coiling; in which the clay is rolled out into thin ropes, and these
are coiled round and round upon each other and smoothed down with the
hands and with simple tools of bone, wood or metal.
The use of the potter's wheel is unknown, while it is remarkable how
beautifully true and finely-fashioned much primitive pottery is. The
primitive red and black vases discovered by Flinders Petrie in Egypt,
and the somewhat similar vessels of prehistoric date from Spain, are
remarkable instances of this. Some primitive races leave their pottery
without decoration, especially when they have a fine red-burning clay to
work in, but, generally speaking, primitive pottery of every race and
time is elaborately decorated, but only with the simplest patterns. Such
decorations consist of lines, dots or lunette-shaped depressions
arranged in crosses, chevrons, zigzags or all-over repeated pattern. All
this ornament is scratched or impressed into the clay before it is
fired. Simplest of all is, perhaps, the pattern which has so obviously
been produced by pressing a twisted thong round the neck or bowl of a
vase; though the thong may have been used in the first instance merely
to serve as a support while the vessel was dried. At a later stage the
ornament is generally obtained by scratching with a tool, by pressing
the end of a hollow stick into the clay to form rows of circles, by
using a stick cut at the end into the shape of a half-moon, or other
equally simple decorative device. In certain tropical countries this
rudimentary pottery becomes hard enough for a certain amount of use when
merely dried in the sun, but in all northern and temperate countries it
must have been fired, probably in the most imperfect way, in an open
fire or in such a kiln as could be formed by sinking a hole into the
ground and erecting round it a screen of stones. How imperfect the
firing was is shown by the ashen-grey colour due to smoke. In those
countries where the ware has been more perfectly fired the pieces
naturally become buff, drab, brown or red.
The primitive vessels that have been found in the grave-mounds of
England and the northern countries generally have received a number of
fanciful names for which there is very little warrant except in the case
of the cinerary urns. These are generally the largest vessels of this
class, and as they were used to contain burnt bones there seems
sufficient warrant for the supposition that they were made for this and
for no other purpose.
Our knowledge of primitive pottery has been greatly improved during
recent years by the labours of a number of American students connected
with the United States Geological Survey, who have carefully recorded
the present-day practices of those native tribes who make and use
pottery in various parts of North America and Mexico; while, in the same
way, Peruvian, Brazilian and other South American pottery has been as
closely investigated by European observers. It should be noted that no
primitive pottery reveals any trace of a knowledge of glaze, though much
of it has been highly polished after firing, and in some cases a varnish
has been applied which may perhaps be regarded as the earliest kind of
"glazing" ever applied to pottery vessels.
LITERATURE.--On primitive pottery the following works may be specially
mentioned. W. Greenwell, _British Barrows_ (1877); Boyd-Dawkins,
_Early Man in Britain_ (1880); Mortimer, _Forty Years' Researches in
British and Saxon Burial-mounds of East Yorkshire_ (1905); Abercromby,
"The Oldest Bronze-age Ceramic Type in Britain," _J. Anth. Inst._ vol.
xxxii. (1902), 373; _Guide to Antiquities of the Bronze Age_ (British
Museum, 1904); Koenen, _Gefässkunde der vorrömischen, römischen und
fränkischen Zeit in den Rheinländern_ (1895); Wosinsky, _Der
inkrustierte Keramik der Stein- und Bronze-zeit_ (1904); Walters,
_History of Ancient Pottery_ (Greek and Roman) (1905); Holmes,
_Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern United States_ (Bureau of
Ethnology, Washington, 1899); also Holmes and Cushing in _Report_ of
Bureau of Ethnology for 1882; Wiener, _Pérou et Bolivie_ (1880); Von
der Steinen, _Natur-Völkerei Central Brasiliens_ (1894); Hartman,
_Archaeological Researches in Costa Rica_ (1905); Strebel, on "Mexican
Pottery" in _Publications_ of Museum für Völkerkunde (Berlin, vol. 6,
1899); Werner, _British Central Africa_ (1907); Füllborn, _Deutsche
Ost-Afrika_, vol. ix. (1907); Macluer, "Kabyle Pottery," _Journ. Anth.
Inst._ vol. xxxii. p. 245, and "Upper Egypt," _ibid_. xxxv. p. 20;
Myres, "Early Pottery Fabrics of Asia Minor," _Journ. Anth. Inst._
xxxiii. p. 367; Turveren Museum, _Notes analytiques sur les
collections ethnographiques du Congo_, tome ii. (1907); Cupart,
_Debuts de l'art de l'ancienne Égypte_ (1903). (W. B.*)