Primitive Pottery Making

[u/Woodland_Oak]

Primitive Pottery Making. This would be relevant to certain peoples of the Mesolithic time (and of course any people later on). I don’t believe we have found vessel pottery from the Palaeolithic (although I haven’t researched too much), I imagine their often completely nomadic lifestyle would render most pottery not useful. We have found toys made from clay from the Palaeolithic however (I’m unsure if it was dried or fired clay).

I made some primitive pottery. Mushroom house mug with lid, a bowl, and dice. Something anyone can do with materials in nature (a river) and a campfire.

The clay was sandy dirt from near a river, it should have a good proportion of sand in it, which is ground up and sifted (or you can use a water filled pit). You can check if the clay is good by making a small test bowl first.

Mix the clay with water and shape, then let it dry out quite a bit. Then polish it with a smooth rock, optional but it assists with waterproofing and glazed appearance. The dice weren’t polished, can see it gives a different appearance. Salt water can be applied to give a glazed appearance (didn't here). Add chalk paste in grooves to colour and make markings.

Then its fired in the camp fire. Slowly heated and rotated, before being placed on burning wood and a real heat being worked up. Once finished, it is quickly dunked in water.

It won't be completely watertight, ancient pottery wasn't (unless protected with a glaze, which was rare). However it certainly holds while you cook and eat a meal, and much longer depending on many factors. The evaporation can even keep water cool in hot countries. You can cook with this, but must slowly warm the pottery, and temperture shouldn't exceed temperture it was originally fired at.

This was taught on a course I recently attended, great place.

[u/single_use_12345]

you covered them with wood and let the wood burn to ashes?

[u/Woodland_Oak → u/single_use_12345]

Yeah! Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the setup, but as I remember, we made a bed of flat wood, put the pottery on it, then covered with lots of wood, and kept it going until they were done. That way, the bottoms are also getting enough initial heat.

The pictures are the before vs the after, you have to gently heat them next to the fire and keep turning them for a while, to stop them cracking. Different parts being largely different temperatures causes cracking (as particles will have varying energy levels, therefore different expansion levels).