Storage vessel

Earliest Agricultural and Stock-Rearing Societies

Between 5500 and 3200 years before common era, the human groups of the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula based their survival on a wide range of food resources, both wild and domestic, as the stocked up with the raw materials that could be found in the area. Likewise, they utilized old settlements in caves, and set new ones in open air next to the farming lands. Meanwhile, it continued the mobility and contacts between different groups from inland and the coast, valleys and mountains, as well as the intermittent settling on a place. During the latest thousand of years, the small villages next to the valleys consolidated as centres of population. Located in river settings, forks in the road and natural passes, these communities temporarily and repeatedly settled in old natural caves such as Cueva Ambrosio (Vélez Blanco), Cueva Humosa (Olula del Río ) o Zájara (Cuevas del Almanzora). Likewise, they increasingly settled their camps and villages open air, whether in small hillocks or on high hills. Their shacks were small structures of clay and vegetable framework, built upon a baseboard dug in the ground, and with logs supporting the roof. Along with them, there are other structures, such as storage pits, water tanks and small drains. Also in this period we find an awesome invention : pottery.

Material: Ceramic
Dimensions: Length 35 cm; Heigth 51 cm
Provenance: Zájara, Cuevas del Almanzora (Almería)
Excavation, Cámalich Massieu, Mª Dolores