17,500 YEAR OLD CERAMICS FOUND IN CROATIA

Evidence of a community of prehistoric artists and craftspeople who “invented” ceramics during the last Ice Age – thousands of years before pottery became commonplace – has been found in modern-day Croatia. 

The finds consist of 36 fragments, most of them apparently the broken-off remnants of modelled animals, and come from a site called Vela Spila on the Adriatic coast. Archaeologists believe that they were the products of an artistic culture which sprang up in the region about 17,500 years ago. Their ceramic art flourished for about 2,500 years, but then disappeared. 

The study, which is published in the journal PLoS ONE, adds to a rapidly-changing set of views about when humans first developed the ability to make ceramics and pottery. Most histories of the technology begin with the more settled cultures of the Neolithic era, which began about 10,000 years ago. 

Now it is becoming clear that the story was much more complex. Over thousands of years, ceramics were invented, lost, reinvented and lost again. The earliest producers did not make crockery, but seem to have had more artistic inclinations.

HUMANITY HAS BEEN INVENTIVE FOR FAR LONGER THAN IS TRADITIONALLY THOUGHT OR TAUGHT.

THOUSANDS OF YEARS LONGER.

A TEMPLE IN TURKEY HAS BEEN DATED TO 9000BC.

AND REMEMBER: WE CAN ONLY ASCERTAIN THE AGE OF EXTANT ARTIFACTS; MANY INVENTIVE TOOLS THAT MIGHT BE FAR OLDER THAN THESE MAY HAVE BEEN DESIGNED AND USED BY ANCIENT HUMANS, BUT DISINTEGRATED OVER TIME.

I THINK THESE FINDS DRIVE HOME THE POINT THAT THE IDEA THAT ANCIENT MAN WAS DUMBER THAN US IS NONSENSE.

WE ARE NO SMARTER THAN MAN WAS 10 OR 15 OR 50,000 YEARS AGO.

OUR CURRENT LIVING STANDARDS ARE THE RESULT OF OUR RELATIVELY RECENT TECHNOLOGY AND THE TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS THAT ORGANIZE AND LUBRICATE HUMAN RELATIONS.

SOME WERE DEVELOPED VIA TRIAL & ERROR AND OTHERS WERE INSPIRED BY WORLDVIEWS AND KNOWLEDGE HANDED DOWN OVER THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

SHOULD SOME NATURAL CATACLYSM OR ATTACK, (NUCLEAR OR EMP, FOR EXAMPLE), DEMOLISH OUR TECHNOLOGY OR ABILITY TO USE IT, WE WOULD VERY SOON FIND OURSELVES WORSE OFF THAN OUR ANCIENT ANCESTORS WHO WERE EXPERTS AT LIVING WITH THEIR "PRIMITIVE" TECHNOLOGY.