I have to credit Steve Watts with this nice organization of notes on this sequence. Steve is a good friend of mine and an excellent primitive skills instructor. I consider him my mentor. The sequence below is referenced in a primitive, anthropological matrix but is still very relevant to producing pottery in a survival situation. We are talking pottery for use as a cooking or eating vessel not as art.
Pottery is great to cook in.
It transfers heat very quickly to the contents of the pot and even allows you build up flame around a pot to cook in. Normally, flames are not used to cook with, coals are, due to flames' inconsistent temperature vs. coals consistent temperature. Cooking is another subject, but is definitely one we ought to cover sometime in the future. If fresh, remove large rocks and organics, add water, if needed, wedge, knead, remove lumps. USE Cooking, storage, transportation, burial, processing, eating, etc.