Summary: Pottery
Key dates:
Pottery made its first appearance in Ireland with these Neolithic people. The earliest bowls were undecorated and had a”shoulder” which distinguished the belly of the bowl from the neck. Many were polished before firing. They were mainly a dark brown colour.
Most of the manufacturing would have been on a small scale. The pots were made by hand; rings of clay were placed on top of each other and fired in bonfires or firing pits at about 800 degrees celsius.
By the third millennium BC there were a variety of decorated pots available. Also by this time, pots tended to have flat bases instead of the earlier round bottoms. These bowls were decorated with shell or cord impressions. Sometimes a technique called stab and drag was used. These were later called Carrowkeel bowls and were often found in graves.
A second type of pottery was grooved ware which is associated with the later period. These pots had straight or slightly curved walls, with decoration of straight, evenly grooved lines. These were often found at henge monuments.
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