Making And Firing A Replica Prehistoric Pot

[@floraflossieflo]

Wonderful video, of course! I shall recommend both to anyone who's interested in making or firing their neolithic pots. Many thanks.

[@GunnarShaffer]

Fantastic video! I’ve been doing it the wrong way and failing, so happy I found your video. I am trying to remake Caddo Pottery!

[@faunmoss]

I love this video, thank you! Wonderful channel I just discovered. It's fascinating to see the kinds of inclusions people were using back then; I've heard of grog and sand of course, but I didn't know people would include animal manures or other fine organic matter! I just learned from a different channel (Andy Ward's Ancient Pottery) about using dried manure for firings, which I suppose wasn't done unless the culture was raising livestock. I find it fascinating! The humble cowpie has such varied uses. But good to know that sawdust will do the trick just as well.

[@PottedHistory]

Thanks, yes I spent many years living in Lesotho, Southern Africa, where the traditional potters still use animal dung 💩 as a fuel.

[@MokuraiDojo]

This is great ! I have 2 questions : 1) Are they recommended quantities for the additives, baked clay, sand, wood dust and gravel, or do you add them until your clay looks like what you cut it in the video ? 2) I see that you sifted the saw dust. is there a recommended granularity for the gravel and baked clay ? Thank you !

[@PottedHistory]

If I'm replicating a specific find I will try to get as close as possible to the original materials, we have stocks of all manner of inclusions around the workshop. In this case I was more interested in the open texture of the clay and demonstrating a variety if materials, it was probably about 20% by volume of additions. A good way to achieve a specific volume, is to make the clay into a disc shape then cut out a suitable sized wedge, like a pie chart, replace it with the material you're adding and then knead the whole lot together.

[@PottedHistory]

Again with the size of gravel etc, it would normally depend on the original and varies greatly, but generally something in the range of 1 to 3mm works well, in this case some of it was up to 5mm.

[@MokuraiDojo]

@@PottedHistory good trick ! so, 20 % is a lot. Do you think they did that on purpose, or they just were using bad kind of clay ?

[@PottedHistory]

@@MokuraiDojo Clay fit for purpose, I wouldn't call it bad.

[@wynwilliams911]

@@PottedHistory oh what a wonderful tip!

[@Atanar89]

Great video! One nitpick: I think you are a bit overdoing it with the big gravel pieces. I've not seen this size of temper in prehistoric wares outside of huge storage vessels with thick walls. Never in small pots.

[@PottedHistory]

Thanks. The intention here is to get absolute novices to sucessfully open fire their first pots and the large grit really helps. Also, here in Northumberland I've encountered very small BA food vessels and even beakers, where the larger inclusions actually emerge on both sides of the wall.