The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1885-12-17
ao<ks The First Potter.


Collective humanity owes great
deal of gratitude to the first potter.
When did the first potter livep Indeed,
paradoxical as it may sound to say so,
one may. reasonably doubt whether
there was ever actually any one single
man on whom one could definitely lay
ones finger and say with confidence:
Here we have the first potter. Pottery,
no doubt like most other things, grew
by imperceptible degrees from wholly
vague and rudimentary beginnings.
Did pal@olithic man, that antique,
naked, crouehing savage who hunted
the mammoth, the reindeer, and the
cave bear among the frozen fields of in
terglacia1 Gaul and Britain-did paleo-
ithic man himself, in his rude rock
shelters, possess a knowledge of the
art of pottery: This is a question
which has been much debated amongst
archaologistss and which can not even
now be considered as finally settled be-
fore the tribunal of science. He must
have drank out of something or other,
but whether he drank out of earthen-
ware cups is still uncertain. 1t is
pretty clear that the earliest drinking
vessels used in Europe were neither
bowls of earthenware nor shells of
fruits, for the cold climate of intergla-
cial times did not permit the growth in
northern latitudes of such large natural
vessels as gourds,1 cafabashes, bam-
boos, or cocoanuts.~ Still, the remain
ing evidence certainly seems to shew
that a little very rude and almost
shapeiess handmade pottery has real
ly been discovered among the buried
caves where paieolithic men made for
ages their chief dweliing-places. Frag-
ments of earthenware occurred in the
Hohefels cave, near Ulm, in company
with the bones of reindeer, cave bears,
and mammoths, whose joints had
doubtless been duly boiled, hundred
thousand years ago, by the intelligent
producer of those identical sun-dried
hesh-pots; and M. jolly, of Toulouse,
has in his possession portions of an ir-
regularly circular fiat-bottomed vessel,
from the-c cave OF Nibrigas, on which
the ffngef-marks OF the hand that
nodded the clay are still clearly dis
tinguishable on the baked earthen-
ware. The relics of pal@olithic pot
terry are. however, SO very fragmen-
tarv, and the circumstances under
which they have been discovered SO
extremely doubtful, that many cautious
and skeptical antiquaries will even
now have nothing to say to the sus-
pected impostors. In America the for
gotten people who built the mounds of
Ohio ami the great tumuliof the Mis-
sissippi valley decorated their pottery
not only with animal figures. such as
snakes, fish, frogs. and turtles, but al
nd
OF them evidently modelled from life,
and soms of them quite Enthusiastically
genuine portraits. Prehistoric Euro
pean pottery has never a spout. but it
often indulges in some simple form of
ear or handle. The very ancient Brit
ish bowl from Bavant Long Barrow
produced by that old. lsquatty, Finn
like race which preceded the ''Ancient
Britons" of our old fashioned school
books-has two ear-shaped handles
projecting just below the rim, exactly
as in the modern form of vessel known
as crock, and still familiarly used for
household purposes. This long survi-
val OF common domestic shape from
the most remote prehistoric antiqui-
ty to our own time is very significant
and very interesting. Many OF the old
British pots have also hole or two
holes pierced through them near the
top. evidently for the purpose of put
ting ill I, string or rope by way of Il
handle. With the round barrows,
which belong 10 the bronze age. and
contain the remains of later and
more civilized Celtic population, we
get far more advanced forms of pot
terry. Burial here is preceded by Gre
nation, and the ashes are inclosed in
urns, many of which are very beautiful
in form and exquisitely decorated
L0nqnsun' Maguztne.