Person
Tori ZiegerNotes
Pottery is arguably the oldest industry in the world. With the Agricultural Revolution and the establishment of permanent settlements, the storage of food surplus was essential to the continued success of communities. Turkey is home to the oldest “city” in the world, Çatalhöyk. As such, Turkey is home to some of the oldest pottery sherds in the world. Like other pottery, archaeologists can date and geographically place Turkish pottery based on composition and decoration style. Though these sherds are very fragmentary in some cases, there is still a lot of information to be gathered (sherds are what archaeologists call pottery fragments). In these cases, you can still see vibrant paint decorations on these sherds.