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Lecture 4

Saddle Quern

Bread is perhaps the ultimate convenience food: a ready-prepared meal that can be carried on the person and eaten as hunger dictates without further preparation. Yet bread is not a self-evident food-stuff, as it is made from flour, and this requires a mill or quern to make it. In its simplest form, the saddle quern, two stones rubbing together, becomes a vital instrument supporting life. Continue reading →

Ceramics

A small ceramic figurine depicting a zoomorph was excavated in 2001 from Vela Spila, Croatia. Archaeologists typically associate the origins of ceramic technology with the first pots and vessels made by early sedentary, agricultural societies. However, this figurine was excavated from a horizon with typical late Upper Palaeolithic material culture, radiocarbon dated to c. 15,000 BP. Continue reading →