Description
Cycladic figurines appeal to the modern eye not least because of the inherent austerity of the stark white marble. However, in reality many of these sculptures were brightly coloured...
There are diverse interpretations of the application of colour to figurines. Since many figurines come from graves, several researchers consider that the coloration may reflect the decoration of the deceased or of the mourning relatives...
It would be another 15,000 years or so before other men, living in what is now Japan, learned to turn clay into pots; yet, as the evidence from Dolni Vestonice attests, ceramics had already been invented. When the kiln hut was first investigated in 1951, its sooty floor was littered with fragments of ceramic figurines. There were animal heads-bears, foxes, lions. In one particularly beautiful lion head there is a hole simulating a wound, perhaps intended to help some hunter inflict a similar wound on a real lion. The floor was also cluttered with hundreds of clay pellets bearing the fingerprints of the prehistoric artisan; he probably pinched them off his lump of unbaked clay when he first began to knead and shape it to his desire. And there were limbs broken from little animal and human figures. They may have cracked off in the baking, or when the ancient ceramist tossed aside a work that failed to please him.James Shreeve discusses this kiln and overall site on pp 276-286 of this one:
The kiln(s) were used for 6000 years at the site, and the ceramic figurines were deliberately shattered by overheating, apparently for some ritual purpose, not tossed aside because they failed to please. :') See also the cool cartoon on this page: Don's Maps site
The Neandertal Enigma:
Solving the Mystery of Modern Human Origins
by James Shreeve
