| The history of us humans is often categorized by the | | | | One of the most important and unrecognized |
| materials we use. You have the Stone Age, the | | | | advances of civilization was when we learned to |
| Bronze age and the Iron Age. But in between the | | | | make pottery. It's the first time we learned to take a |
| Stone Age the Bronze Age, we need to insert another | | | | natural material that was relatively useless and |
| age, the Pottery Age. Turning clay into pottery was | | | | transform it into something useful. Now we were out |
| the first time we took a material found in nature, clay | | | | of the Stone Age. From now on the advance of |
| and turned it into something different and useful, | | | | civilization was marked by how we learned to |
| pottery. Without pottery and the techniques that we | | | | transform natural materials into different and more |
| learned to create it the Bronze and Iron Age could not | | | | useful forms. Clay is found abundantly in nature. As a |
| have happened. Before we could do that, we needed | | | | boy I found clay in and around a brook, where I used |
| fire. We began to use fire sometime during the Stone | | | | to play. This clay was wet enough so that it could be |
| Age. First it was probably as we found it when | | | | worked into shapes just as I found it. When you dry |
| caused by lightning but eventually we learned to create | | | | the clay, it becomes solid. However, it is not very |
| fire on demand. I'm sure our first use was for cooking | | | | strong and if it gets wet again it falls apart. But fire it at |
| meat. As the first source of energy that we controlled, | | | | a high enough temperature and it changes it's |
| it was necessary for all that followed. | | | | properties. It becomes strong, waterproof and very |
| The Stone age is a period of time when humans only | | | | useful. It becomes pottery. |
| used natural materials as they found them. Wood, | | | | The temperatures need to fire pottery are higher than |
| animal skins, and stone are some of the materials that | | | | you would normally find in a cooking fire. Maybe the |
| humans adapted to their use in that time period.. An | | | | first discoveries of making fired ceramics was made |
| example would be a spear with a wooden shaft and a | | | | by clay objects falling into very hot cooking fires. We |
| stone arrow shaped tip. Some animal product like gut | | | | learned over time to make hotter fires and to contain |
| string might be used to tie the spear tip to the shaft. A | | | | these fires in kilns to make them even hotter. The first |
| wooden club can be improved by attaching a stone | | | | kilns were just dug into the earth but as we learned to |
| head and properly shaped it becomes an ax. Bows | | | | make brick, also a fired clay object, more elaborate |
| and arrows can also be made using stone wood and | | | | kilns were built. The age of metals was not only made |
| animal products. You can make sharpened stone tools | | | | possible with the use of fired ceramic pots and bricks |
| for many uses. They can shape wood into many | | | | but also by the kilns and furnaces we developed to |
| other useful objects. | | | | fire these ceramic objects. |