Primitive Pottery

Pottery is the first utensil invented by mankind, and its invention has deeply changed human’s life. Primitive potteries can be found almost at any place where the primitive human beings once inhabited. With the development of China’s archeology, a large quantity of potteries from different primitive cultural ruins have been found in China. The unearthed pottery pieces in Hewan of Yangyuan County in Hebei Province indicate that China is one of the earliest countries to make pottery wares, with a history over 11700 years dating back to the late Paleolithic Period. The unearthed primitive pottery wares include household utensils as well as sculptures for ornaments. Judging from the ornamental forms, the primitive pottery falls into three kinds: the plain-colored pottery, the painted pottery, and the color-drawing pottery.

Inspired by the daily activities like fishing, hunting and cultivating, the primitive humans reflected their worships, life styles as well as beliefs in pottery making. The animal-shaped potteries indicate that people at that time have begun to domesticate chicken, dogs and pigs. The human-figure pottery embodies changes in primitive society. For example, the sculptures of naked women represent a kind of primitive genital worship.

Subtle geometric designs and lively plant and animal figures on the primitive pottery show their abstraction of and empathy to objective things, demonstrating their rich imagination and cultural distinctions. Preference to symmetry, balance, congruity, and contrast showed in the designs on the pottery wares is of artistic and ornamental needs. The pottery wares unearthed in the Yangshao Culture and the Majiayao Culture are the representatives of painted pottery. Their rich designs can be regarded as the source of traditional Chinese painting. And among all the objects the most famous one is the geometric-designed painted pottery unearthed in the Majiayao Culture. Besides, other potteries excavated, with different cultural connotation and style, radiate with those unearthed in Yangshao and Majiayao. For example, the black pottery wares unearthed in the Longshan Culture, representative of the Neolithic cultures, are famous for its polishing pitch-darkness and eggshell-thin bodies.

The pottery wares, with their unsophisticated beauty, rich design, and particular form, display to us the primitive human’s wisdom and artistic accomplishments, and are the embodiments of the source of the time-honored Chinese civilization.