PRIMITTVE WARE. In general, primitive pot tery is made from surface soil, sometimes of most unpromising appearance, rather than from the finer and purer grades of clay. Naturally the ware produced from such material is coarse and thick-walled. Some of the crudest types of ware are molded in baskets—indeed, find good reason for supposing that the earliest pottery was nothing more than an earthen lining for a basket in which corn o• other grains were parched by shaking them with live coals until the material was more o• less completely baked. Sometimes the frames of wicker or basketry were burnt off in the firing, in such manner as to leave permanent impressions of the framework. This type abounds in mounds and on other prehis toric sites in the Central and Southeastern United States. In the arid regions. not only in the United States and Mexico. but in South America and on other continents, the early ware was im proved far beyond this primitive type, in form and finish as well as in material and manufac ture. Some of the aboriginal American ware is graceful in form, elaborate in decoration, and perhaps finished with a more or less siliceous slip; though neither the true clays no• the potter's wheel were known to the pre-Columbian natives.
Frequently the forms were fantastic, the utensils grading into elaborate symbolic moldings and votive effigies: while the decorations in color were also largely emblematic. (See MAN, SCIENCE OF, paragraph Esthetology.) In beauty of form and color effects, as well as in elaborateness and delicacy of the symbolic designs, aboriginal American pottery may be said to have culminated in the Pueblo region in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico: sonic of the pieces from this region (as shown in the accompanying plate) attest a fairly advanced stage in artistic development. The primitive methods of firing are extremely simple. Ordinarily either a single piece or a small lot is fired outdoors in a shallow pit with the commonest fuel; sometimes smaller draw pieces are used, ostensibly in a ceremonial way (for to the primitive potter the entire proc ess of manufacture is ceremonial rather than merely industrial), yet in such manner as to test the progress of the burning.