Cultural Expression: Native American Pottery Timeline

Origins of Native American Pottery

4000 BCE

As with most early pottery, Native American pottery was born out of necessity and its uses included cooking, storing grains, and holding water. It’s thought that Native Americans began with covering cooking baskets (made of woven casings) with mud. Wood coals were then heated and placed within the basket to cook the food. They soon found out that the heat actually hardened the mud clay and made it durable enough to be used alone for cooking, without the need for the woven cased basket.