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About Pottery
The invention of pottery is a highly significant
cultural phenomenon in human history. Although the role of early
ceramics in different areas of the world is still a matter of debate,
the emergence of pottery in a culture has often been linked with
important changes in lifestyle, such as sedentary living and the
emergence of food production. Although pottery may have had different
functions in different communities, and at distinct times in the same
communities, it obviously had, and still has, a major impact on people’s
lives. Ceramics have not only assumed a utilitarian role, for instance
in the preparation and storage of food and beverages, but clay pots and
figurines have also served ritual and medical purposes (Barnett & Hoopes
1995). In sub-Saharan Africa pottery is invested with great symbolic
importance. The craft is surrounded with rituals and prohibitions and
several steps in the production sequence serve as a metaphor for
interpreting and acting upon certain facets of human experience. People
make metaphoric use of pottery vocabulary to refer to transformations
from wet to dry, soft to hard, raw to cooked, natural to cultural,
impure to pure through the operation of heat, to mark isolation and
destruction, to designate bodily cavities, or to discuss concepts like
spirit, conception, and essence (Barley 1994; Gosselain 1999; Jacobson-Widding
1992). Moreover, ‘potting traditions are “sociotechnical aggregates”, an
intricate mix of inventions, borrowed elements, and manipulations that
display an amazing propensity to redefinition by individuals and local
groups’ (Gosselain 2000). A potter’s technical behavior thus leaves room
for choices both along functional and social or symbolic lines, creating
multifaceted associations between technological styles and social
identity.
From: www.metafro.be
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