Conventionally the use and origins of pottery have been associated with the emergence of the Neolithic and the advent of farming. However, we now know that there is no exclusive association between ceramic use and farming, and that pottery use amongst hunter-gatherers was far more widespread than has hitherto been recognised. It was hunter-gather societies that were responsible for the invention and dispersal of this innovation and the origins and the use of ceramics have no necessary association the advent of farming societies. Indeed, outside Europe and the Near East, farming and the use of pottery represent distinct technological traditions, operating independently from one another and having quite separate histories. The use of ceramics by hunter-gatherers appears to predate the emergence of farming by several thousand years. The book traces the origin of ceramic technology from its putative centre of origin in China and the Far East, and then trace its subsequent dispersal via hunter gatherer communities of Northern Eurasia through to Northern Europe.
Chapters assess the practical impact of this technological innovation had on forager communities, their health and diet, and the role of ceramics as a medium of symbolic expression and a focus of social relations between individuals and larger social groupings.
- ISBN10 1844720802
- ISBN13 9781844720804
- Publish Date 15 April 2007
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 7 December 2006
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint UCL Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English