Prehistoric Pot Making
In January 1996, the stalwarts of Alan Ward's GCSE Archaeology course are gathered for their weekly class. "As part of the course," says Alan, "you will be undertaking an Experimental Archaeology project. Here's a lump of clay, make a "Beaker" (Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age) pot." Well, after several attempts, your correspondent did make a pot. About 2 cm high. (Conclusion No. 1: Some novice Bronze Age potter should be credited with the invention of the ashtray about 4000 years too soon!). However, in the end, the classes, from Canterbury and Ashford, did manage to make a pot or two, some not very big and some not very Beaker in style, but we were proud of them.
Stage two. "Fired" with enthusiasm, plans were made to build two kilns. One would be a relatively simple effort where the pots would be laid beneath a turf-covered bonfire. The second would be more ambitious and take advantage of a deposit of clay about one meter below the topsoil at the kiln site. The objective was to make a clay dome kiln. To make the project a bit more experimental, a proportion of the clay was excavated with a bone shovel made from the shoulder blade of a bullock. Two observations here. First, it was easier to remove remnants of beef and gristle from the bone with a sharp flint than with a modern kitchen knife. Secondly, digging turf and topsoil with a bone shovel is hard, but for excavating the clay, the tool was quite efficient.
To build the more ambitious kiln, a bower of branches was erected and covered with straw, about three inches of clay was then plastered over the structure which was then left to "dry" for a week. (Conclusion No. 2: No prehistoric man in his right mind would attempt to build such a kiln in the depths of a British winter. It may be easier to dig out clay when it is wet, but getting the dome to dry out before firing is impossible).
The day of reckoning arrived. Alan displayed his confidence in our skills by forecasting that all our pots would explode in the bonfire kiln. We were more optimistic. In any event, after firing for about four hours, we did get some pots out in one piece. Alas, our confidence was short-lived. To see if the pots had fired properly, two were immersed in water, after a short while, hours of careful pot making were reduced to sludge in the bottom of the bucket.
Undaunted, an attempt was made to fire the dome kiln. Optimism was unrewarded yet again. After about six hours, the roof collapsed!
A large bonfire kiln was built over the remains of the clay dome. The wood slowly burnt to form a deep bed of red-hot charcoal over the pots and after about 24 hours, four of the five pots were retrieved intact. They had changed color to the bright red typical of earthenware. The water test was passed (well almost) for the upper halves of the pots did not disintegrate.
Chris Pout