Church on a threshing floor

Židovar is an archeological site near Vršac, Northern Serbia. The earliest archeological finds from the site date from the early Bronze Age and the latest ones date from the 1st half of the 1st century AD.

The site is located on the 5000 square meters flat top of a 40 meter tall hill overlooking today dry Karaš river valley.

Originally it was thought that the name Židovar comes from Židov (Jew) making Židovar the place of the Jews.

However recent archaeological excavation results point at another possible etymology. It turns out that the top of the hill was used as "gumno" (a threshing floor). 

Threshing floor is the place where wheat (žito in Serbian) is threshed. Threshing is the process of separating the stalks of hay from the mixture of grains and scaly husks. Hay is put into haystacks and the grain and chaff mixture is then separated through process of winnowing. Threshing is the last part of the harvest (žetva in Serbian). So Židovar could actually be corruption of Žitovar, (the place of grain) or Žetvar (the place of harvest, threshing floor).

At its heyday, during the period between the 3rd and 1st century BC, a Celtic oppidium stood on top of the hill protected with walls and ditches. This was the period when Scordisci federation ruled much of the today's Serbia.

During the excavations of the youngest archaeological layers in Židovar conducted in 1990's, archaeologists discovered a hoard of jewellery.

The hoard consisted of:

Amber beads

Bear teeth pendants

As well as 163 silver items:

Fibulae "Jarak" type

Rings

Bird shape pendants

Other pendants

Chains

Rasors

And finally three boxes

All this jewellery was identified as Celtic. 

Some of the the items are indeed undoubtedly Celtic, like fibulae and silver pendants.  But there is a question mark over the identification of other items as Celtic. For instance what makes amber beads and bear teeth pendants Celtic? Or for instance the rings? What makes these rings Celtic? Or the razors? What makes a razor Celtic? Even bigger question mark is over the identification of the silver boxes as Celtic.  Archaeologists interpreted this cross as a Celtic solar cross dedicated to Taranis and classified them as Celtic jewellery boxes.  But there is no such thing as Celtic cross. There is of course Taranis wheel and examples of this votive wheel were found in the Balkan Celtic settlements. Like this one:

So if these silver boxes were not made by Celts then who made them, when, and why do they have cross on their tops?

One of the people who questioned the identification of these boxes as Celtic was Professor Dr Đorđe Janković from Belgrade University, who died in 2016. He argued that although most of the objects from the hoard were indeed made by Celts some time during 2nd - 1st century BC, the silver boxes, were made much later, during the 1st century AD.

And he suggested that the correct dating of these silver boxes is crucially important for understanding the true importance of the Zidovar archaeological site.

As you can see from the above pictures, the silver boxes were all the same: round with a filigree cross on the top. Two boxes were found intact. And inside of one of the boxes, archaeologists found something very surprising: two bronze rings, one smaller than the other.

Most people ignored this find. But some asked this question: why would someone use such an expensive beautifully decorated silver box to store two plain cheep bronze rings? It made no sense unless these rings had some other, non material value.

And then someone looked at the rings closer and saw they had three symbols engraved on them: fish, good shepherd and palm branch!

Professor Dr Đorđe Janković argued that these symbols made absolutely no sense in Celtic world of the 2nd and 1st century BC. But they made a lot of sense in Christian world of the 1st century AD. These were all early Christian symbols. Which means that these were rings worn by Christians. And the fact that the rings were different sizes suggested that they were possibly wedding rings. A pair of Christian wedding rings, with Christian symbols, kept together in a silver jewellery box with a christian cross on it's top. 

The jewellery hoard was found in a large building with whitewashed walls, dated to the 1st century AD. Because of this Professor Dr Đorđe Janković asked whether this building was an early Christian church: Is it possible that at the end of its existence, in the first half of the 1st century AD, Židovar was a Christian centre with a Christian church where Christian rituals, such as weddings were performed? 

All the early churches were basically just private houses used for worship. Remember we are talking about the time before Christianity became official religion of the Roman Empire. Like the officially oldest discovered Christian church "the Dura-Europos church". In the Wiki article about the oldest church in the world we can read this: "The Dura-Europos church (also known as the Dura-Europos house church) is the earliest identified Christian house church. It is located in Dura-Europos in Syria. It is one of the earliest known Christian churches, and was apparently a normal domestic house converted for worship some time between 233 and 256..."

So it is perfectly possible that the building in which the Christian rings were found could have been a "private house used for Christian worship" or early church. 

If so, this would be the oldest Christian church discovered in Europe and if not the oldest, then one of the oldest Christian churches discovered in the world...

And that would make Židovar one of the most important archaeological sites in the world...

Interesting don't you think?

Equilibrium

Libra (♎) is the seventh astrological sign in the Zodiac. Under the tropical zodiac, Sun transits this area on average between (northern autumnal equinox) September 22 (23) and October 23.

The ruling planet of Libra is Venus. Libra is the only zodiac constellation in the sky represented by an inanimate object.

The Libra sign follows the Virgo sign.

We could almost say that Virgo (Lady) "holds" Libra (Scales) in her hands.

Libra is also another Zodiac sign which can help us understand the true nature of the Zodiac. Which is that the Zodiac is Solar and not Stellar system of signs.

I have already written several article explaining how zodiac sings mark periods of time when important natural events happen during Solar year. These events are linked to the climatic changes in temperate zones of Evroasia and occur every year at more or less the same time. And are not in any way affected by any other star except our own, our Sun.

So far I have shown that four zodiac signs, Aries (ram), Taurus (bull), Pisces (fishes) and Capricorn (goat) mark important cyclical natural events related to animals who live in temperate zones of Evroasia.  

Aries - marks lambing season of European wild sheep
Taurus - marks calving season of European wild cattle
Pisces - marks mating season of European salmon
Capricorn - marks mating season of Alpine ibexes

These events occur every year at the same time, during the time period marked by the images of these animals. And these events are not in any way affected by any star. And they are not in any way influenced by the precession. 

And what about the other non animal zodiac signs? I have so far covered these 3:

Sagittarius - marks the fur hunting season in Continental Eurasia

Aquarius - marks the beginning of the snowmelt in Continental Eurasia

Virgo - marks the beginning of the cooling of the Northern hemisphere, the beginning of the period dominated by the Earth, Yin (Cold, Dark, Wet), the arrival of the Lady which rides on a lion, rides in chariots pulled by lions or stands or sits between lions

But what about Libra? How does it fit into this fixed Solar zodiac?

Well the part of the Solar year marked by the Libra zodiac sign start the day after the Autumn Equinox. Autumn Equinox marks the moment when day and night are of the equal length. 

The day after the Autumn Equinox, night becomes longer than day. This is the moment when the feminine principles (dark, cold, wet), the Yin principles of Mother Earth, finally overpower the masculine principles (bright, hot, dry), the Yang principles of Father Sun. 

I talked about this in my post "Yin and Yang". 

From that day the scales tip and Mother Earth, The Lady, The Virgo, becomes dominant force in the Sun - Earth system. 

This event, the tipping of the equilibrium of day and night in favour of night, occurs every Solar year at the same time (22nd of September). And this event is not affected by stars and is not influenced by precession. It is firmly fixed on the Solar circle. 

And this is why we find the Zodiac sign Libra where it is. To mark this event. 

So what do you think of all this? 

BTW, Mesopotamians seems to have viewed Libra in the same way, as their name for this sign suggest: ZIB-BA AN-NA, The Balance of Heaven. I talked about this in my post "ZIB-BA AN-NA"...

PS: I have since finished the full analysis of the European Zodiac. You can find the jump page to the articles about all the signs here...

Sacrificial animals

On this picture you see "badnjak" (Serbian Yule log, a young oak sapling which is ritually cut on Christmas Eve morning and is then ritually brought into the house on Christmas Eve) and "pečenica" a pig on a spit which is ritually slaughtered on Christmas Eve, roasted and then brought into the house with badnjak.

In Serbian ritual tradition there is a very specific rule which specifies which animal should be sacrificed for which religious holiday. 

Christmas - pig is slaughtered, roasted and eaten by the family (always)

St George's day - sheep is slaughtered, roasted and eaten by the family (always)

St Elijah's day - bull is slaughtered, roasted and eaten by the family (only in exceptional circumstances of devastating draughts. Normally it is a cockerel which is slaughtered, roasted and eaten by the family)

Two things are interesting here. 

First have a look at this excerpt from "Indo European And The Indo Europeans A Reconstruction And Historical Analysis Of A Proto Language And A Proto Culture" by Th V Gamkrelidze:

Roman tradition preserves both the archaic religious function of the pig as a fertility symbol and its place in the hierarchy of sacrificial animals. The sequence of sacrificial animals in archaic Roman tradition was given by the formula su-oue-taurilia ‘pig-sheep-bull’, in order of increasing importance. In the text of Cato discussing the sacrifice of unweaned animals ( suouetaurilia lactentia ), the sequence is porcus-agnus-uitulus ‘piglet-lamb-calf. This sequence of sacred sacrificial animals must reflect the significance and relative weighting of each animal in the economy. Interestingly, an analogous enumeration of sacred sacrificial animals in Sanskrit tradition does not mention pigs at all; their place is taken by goats (Dumezil 1966:238, 530). It is important that in cultures with developed swineherding that is dominant over sheepherding (as in many ancient Indo-European cultures, in particular early Slavic culture), the pig stands before the sheep in such listings (for East Slavic fairytales see Ivanov and Toporov 1974:39).

It can be concluded that the Romans preserved the ancient Indo-European practice whereby pigs, although they had an important economic function, were nonetheless ranked last in the hierarchy of relative economic weight, behind horses, bulls, and sheep. Of the Indo-European cultures known to us from archeological data, the Scytho-Sarmatian tribes of the northern Black Sea area in the first millennium B.C. are among the groups in which pigs in fact are the least important element in the livestock (Calkin 1966:74).

This is the important bit:

The sequence of sacrificial animals in archaic Roman tradition was given by the formula su-oue-taurilia ‘pig-sheep-bull’, in order of increasing importance.

Second have a look at this diagram linking Serbian sacrificial animals to the stages of the Sun god marked on the Solar circle:

You can see that Serbs strictly follow the above Archaic Roman (Indoeuropean) rule of more important animal being sacrificed to more important aspect of the sun god:

Pig - Baby sun
Sheep - Young sun
Bull - Old sun

Now here is something even more interesting. In the above excerpt the second highlighted part says:

Interestingly, an analogous enumeration of sacred sacrificial animals in Sanskrit tradition does not mention pigs at all; their place is taken by goats

You can see how in Serbian tradition the order of the sacrificial animals is tightly tied to the solar wheel. Now have a look at this:

Goat marks the beginning of the solar year, Ram follows then Bull...

Interesting don't you think?

Mountain Serbs of Montenegro

Anthropologist Chris Boehm spent 3 years, between 1963 and 1966, doing fieldwork in Montenegro in Gornja Morača region. He called the people that he encountered there "Mountain Serbs of Montenegro".

At the time Chris was there in the mid 1960's, Gornja Morača Tribe numbering 1800 people lived isolated at the headwaters of the Morača River seven hours by foot from the nearest road.

Firewood had to be brought from far away on foot. This was usually women's job.

The Gornja Morača area is a karst country. Arable land is scarce and fields are small. In the 60's these fields were still worked in the same way they had been worked since medieval time.

At home babies slept swaddled in wooden cots. 

Life in villages in Gornja Morača in 1960's involved a lot of hard work outside of the house done by both men and women. If a mother had to go out and do some work, like get water from a well o firewood from a forest (or both) the baby was carried around on their mother's back.

People from Gornja Morača kept small flocks of sheep. The flocks grazed on high mountain pastures which were exposed to extreme weather conditions year round. 

The sheep were of the type Pivska pramenka, a long tailed coarse wool, typical mountain breed, well adapted to severe conditions of rearing

Every household usually had few cows too, of the buša type, a small tough mountain breed, which was used as a working animal.

Horses were used for transport. They belonged to a local hilly horse breed, tough animals used to hard mountain terrain and harsh climate. 

106 years old man from Gornja Morača in front of his house. He insisted on changing into his "burial clothes", traditional local dress, before being interviewed by the anthropologist

In 1960's, a typical house from Gornja Morača was a single room stone hut covered with wooden slates. 

The centre of the house was open hearth like this one used for heating and cooking.

When the walls of a new house were built Gornja Morača, just before the roof work began, a lamb was sacrificed on top of the wall to ensure that the house would stand for a long time.

Local church was the focal point of the Gornja Morača community. All important tribal events took place on the plateau in front of the church. Oro (traditional circle dance) was often part of the event.

Tribal graveyard is located on a hill top overlooked by high mountain peaks. The ancient oak in the middle of the graveyard is considered sacred. Cutting it or any part of it is considered sacrilegious. Even collecting naturally fallen branches is forbidden.

The graveyard is very old and has many ancient tombstones of unknown age.

It is the isolated communities like this one that have preserved some of the oldest cultural traits in Europe. No wonder considering that they were literally living hidden from the rest of the world in the land above the clouds...

Slavic pyramids

"As the Sunday dawned in the early morning after the service of the Mass had been completed, Otto, the servant of God, having put on his episcopal headdress and with the standard of the cross borne in front of him, went forth to the multitude of the people in order to preach to them. He took with him Udalricus, who wore a dalmatic, as a deacon, and Adalbert who served as a sub-deacon and others to assist in preaching. There were there some large pyramids surrounded by walls to a considerable height in pagan fashion. The good preacher ascended one of these pyramids with his companions, and through his interpreter Adalbert began to explain the way of truth to those who had gone wrong and to threaten them with eternal destruction if they did not turn from their apostasy."
This is the description of Otto's missionary work among the Slavs of Stettin, from "The life of Otto, apostle of Pomerania, 1060-1139"
Were those "large pyramids built to considerable height in pagan fashion" which Otto saw in the 12th century among the Baltic Slavs, the same pyramids Slavs all over Slavdom still make on St John's day (Summer solstice)
Like this one on the picture:

Basket pottery

Were the first pots made by plastering inside or outside of baskets with clay or plaster and then letting the whole thing dry in the sun? The result would have been a strong container useful for storing dry goods like acorns or grains or nuts.

Putting this plastered basket into a fire would burn the basket off and would produce ceramic vessel which would have "basket or cord like" imprints on the side where basked used to be...

This kind of "pot" would be a very good cooking vessel for cooking acorn porridge, fish and shellfish soups and bone marrow soups. 

Do we have any proof that this theory could be correct?

Well actually could do

"The Advent and Spread of Early Pottery in East Asia: New Dates and New Considerations for the World's Earliest Ceramic Vessels" by David J. Cohen discusses recent data from North and South China, Japan, and the Russian Far East and eastern Siberia on the dating and function of early pottery during the Late Pleistocene period. 

"...Early pottery typically appears in contexts that, except for containing small amounts of pottery, are otherwise similar to Late Paleolithic sites. There is also no evidence of plant cultivation, so clearly in eastern Asia, the old view of pottery's emergence or dispersal as only coming within agricultural societies is no longer viable. Greater consideration needs to be given to the invention and spread of pottery in hunter-gatherer societies... 

...This paper first reviews recent finds of early pottery sites in South China and North China that now clearly show that the pottery first appears in otherwise Late Paleolithic contexts. Excavations and re-dating at Xianrendong Cave (Jiangxi) in South China show that pottery appears there in securely dated stratigraphic contexts dating to ca. 20,000 cal BP, during the Last Glacial Maximum, some ten millennia before sedentary, Early Neolithic villages first appear in China. Yuchanyan Cave (Hunan) has pottery dating to 18,300 cal BP, evidence for processing deer bones to extract marrow and grease, and perhaps evidence of seasonal visits to the site in annual rounds by mobile hunter-gatherer groups... 

In Japan, undecorated Incipient Jōmon pottery with Mikoshiba-type lithics are found in the initial phase of pottery making (Ōdai Yamamoto I, Kitahara, and Maeda Kōji sites, dating ca. 16,500-13,500 BP). Decorated pottery (Phase 2) begins ca.15,700 cal BP during the Bølling-Allerød warming period and rapidly disperses across the archipelago at a time when there may have been significant changes in subsistence and mobility patterns. 

...Russian “Initial Neolithic” early pottery sites, such as Khummy, Gasya, and Goncharka 1 in the Lower Amur River basin, are transitional between Paleolithic traditions and typical Neolithic sites of the Holocene, with pottery and ground stone tools gradually appearing amongst Upper Paleolithic toolkits. As in China and Japan, early pottery production is at a very low scale, with only limited quantities of sherds being found at a few sites. Eastern Siberia early pottery is first present at the Ust’-Karenga 12 site ca. 13,000 cal BP. Pottery may have dispersed westerly across Siberia as forested areas expanded, perhaps resulting in the introduction of pottery into Europe by hunter-gatherer groups..." 

All these cultures produced "bag shaped" pottery with distinct "cord marks" and "basket like impressions"

China

Yuchanyan and Xianrendong Caves are located in South China. Pottery fragments found in these caves have been confirmed to be 18,000 - 20,000 years old, making them the oldest known pottery in the world.

The caves were occupied from Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic times. The findings from the caves show that the people who lived there were primarily fishermen hunters gatherers, although some evidence for early rice domestication has been noted within the Early Neolithic occupations.

On the "Yuchanyan and Xianrendong Caves - Oldest Pottery in the World" page we can read that

"...A total of 282 pottery sherds were recovered from the oldest levels. They have uneven thick walls between 0.7 and 1.2 centimetres, with round bases and inorganic (sand, mainly quartz or feldspar) temper. The paste has a brittle and loose texture, and a heterogeneous reddish and brown colour which resulted from uneven, open air firing. Forms are mainly round-bottomed bag-shaped jars, with rough surfaces, the inner and outer surfaces sometimes decorated with cord marks, smoothing striations and/or basket-like impressions. They appear to have been made with two different techniques: by sheet laminating or coil and paddle techniques..."

Japan

Around 15,000 years ago, in the Northern islands of Japan, lived the Jomon people. Thought to be the forebears of the Ainu people, the aboriginal Japanese of the North, the Jomon were among the very first "sedentary" peoples of the world.  They lived primarily on a diet of fish from the ocean, wild deer and boar which they caught in pit-traps, had a plentiful supply of acorns, nuts and seeds.

Taishō site No. 3 site is located in the southern portion of the Tokachi plain, atop a terrace overlooking the Tobetsu river, a branch of the Tokachi river flowing across the plain, in the eastern part of Hokkaido. Artifacts and features of the Jōmon period were found, starting with artifacts from the Incipient Jōmon, and including pit dwellings of the microlithic culture of the Early Jōmon, plus graves from the final portion of the Early Jōmon. This is the first discovery of a site dating from the Incipient Jōmon in Hokkaido.

Approximately 400 potsherds were recovered, an amount thought to represent more than ten individual vessels. Of these, it is possible to reconstruct the vessel shape for about five items. It appears that all had nipple-like projections at the bottom. The designs include cord impressions and puncture marks of various types including tsumegatamon, and some also have raised belts applied to the surface.

In "A comparative perspective on the ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ Neolithics of Eurasia: Ceramics; agriculture and sedentism" by Kevin Gibs and Peter Jordan, we can read that "pottery on Taishō site was dated to around 15,000 - 13,800 cal BP

Now here are some complete Jōmon pots. Look at the "basket like" impression on the outside wall.

On the "BBC The history of the world in 100 objects: Episode Transcript - Episode 10 - Jomon Pot" we can read that:

"...This Jomon pot is an extremely important pot. It's pretty underwhelming to look at - in fact it's quite dull. It's made of brown-grey clay, a simple round pot about the size of the bucket that children play with on the beach, about six inches high, six inches across at the top, and its got it's got straight sides and a flat base, and it was made about seven thousand years ago in Japan.

When you look more closely, you can see that it was built up with coils of clay and then, into the outside, fibres have been pressed, so that when you hold it, you feel as though you are actually holding a basket. It looks and feels like a basket in clay.

The basket - like markings on this and other Japanese pots of the same time, are in a cord pattern and that's in fact what their name is in Japanese. They are Jomon - or 'cord-pattern' pots. And the word Jomon has come to be used not just for the objects, but for the people that made them, and even the whole historic period in which they were lived. It was the Jomon people living in what is now northern Japan, who created the world's first pots..."

Russia

The most interesting sites containing early ceramics In Russian Far East were discovered in the lower Amur River region.

The pottery was found at the Khummi site, dating to 14,300, Gasya site dated to 14,050 BCE, and Goncharka site dated to 13,400 BCE. These people were hunter gatherers who depended on salmon.

"On Early Pottery-Making in the Russian Far East" by Irina Zhushchikhovskaya talks in detail about the way the pottery from these sites was made.

"...The ceramic was made from paste consisting of clay with nonplastic mineral inclusions (quartz, feldspar) and plant fiber temper. The last is identified by long, rough impressions on the surfaces and in the cores of sherds. In some cases the plant fibers are not burned out completely and are thus carbonized. The ceramic samples are very fragile and weak. The walls of the sherds are uneven and thick. The forming method cannot yet be reconstructed with any precision. I have hypothesized that some kind of moulding or a paddle and anvil technique was used because of impressed basketlike patterns on the outer surface of one vessel...

...The surface of these ceramic samples is unslipped and rough. The outer surface of the simpler vessel has a basketlike impressed pattern. There are deep vertical grooves crossed in some places by horizontally oriented grooves. Previously, impressions were interpreted as the traces of processing by a toothed rough tool (Derevyanko and Medvedev 1994). In my view, the morphology and crosslike pattern of the grooves suggest that they were produced by a tool similar in structure to the basketry impressions...

...A basketlike container may have been used as a mould or a tool may have been wrapped with a woven fabric..."

Middle East

White ware is a crumbly form of proto-pottery dated to 9th millennium BC and commonly found in PPNB (Pre pottery neolithic B) archaeological sites in Syria such as Tell Aswad, Tell Abu Hureyra, Bouqras and El Kowm. Similar sherds were excaveated at Ain Ghazal in northern Jordan. It was made by pulverizing limestone, then heating it to a temperature in excess of 900 °C. This turns limestone to quick lime. This reaction takes place at 900 °C, but a temperature around 1000 °C is usually used to make the reaction proceed quickly. This basically means that it was dropped into a burning campfire. In most instances, campfire temperatures generally average 900 °C but depending on the shape of the hearth the temperature can go over 1000 °C. The average temperature of a campfire tends to vary based on the size of the campfire, with smaller campfires often producing less heat than larger ones. Lime was then mixed with ashes, straw or gravel and made into a white or grey lime plaster. The plaster was initially so soft that it could be moulded, before hardening through air drying into a rigid cement. The plaster was formed into vessels by coiling to serve some of the functions of later clay pottery. 

In the "Barley, malt and ale in the neolithic" by Merryn Dineley we can read that "Imprints of basketry on the exterior of some vessels suggest that some were shaped into large basket shapes". It is possible that all were made by plastering the inside of a basket and then shaking and removing the basket leaving the basket shaped plaster vessel. The basket imprints could then be left or removed by scrubbing and polishing.

In "White ware – Near Eastern plaster container" by Bonnie Nilhamn we can see one of these plaster pots (containers) which literally looks like a plaster basket.

And on another picture we can clearly see the basket imprinted on the basket outside wall.

USA

In USA the best example of this basket imprint pottery is Anasazi pottery which was probably made by plastering the inside of baskets with a layer of clay and then baking the whole thing in a fire. This would have left a distinct basket pattern on the outside of the pot.

This is an Anasazi basket:

And these are Anasazi pots. Do you see the similarity?

On the Penn Museum sit page "Anasazi Pottery - Evolution of a Technology" by Eric Blinman we can read that 

"...Anasazi pottery is distinguished from that of other Southwestern culture areas by its predominant colors (gray, white, and red), a coil-and-scrape man­ufacturing technique, and a relatively independent stylistic trajectory. Specu­lation about its origin has centered around diffusion from Mogollon and ultimately from Mesoamerican cultures to the south, but the stark contrasts between Mogollon brown and Anasazi gray and white pottery have also raised the possibility of independent invention through accidental burning of clay-lined baskets..." 

On Augustana college page "Bowl with impressed basket texture lower body exterior, yellow clay body" we can see an example of an Anasazi bawl. 

On the same page we can also read that Stewart Peckham has identified some of the earliest Southwest "protopottery" as basket liners, "pressed in coiling fashion into the interiors of shallow, coiled baskets"... 

"...Peckham cites pottery examples that have a clear exterior impression of a basket, have no burnishing and seem to have been baked or fired, possibly in an open campfire. For this pot, it seems as if the damp clay vessel was pressed into a basket, and the imprint of the basket's texture remained. While Peckham supposes that the ancient basket liners might have been used as patches to extend the use of a worn basket, or as seed parching trays, he concludes, "Whatever their functions, the basket liners give the impression of being crude attempts to imitate the pottery that early Indians in the Southwest may have seen but did not know how to replicate"..."

Finally, my favourite example. Neolithic esparto grass baskets from South of Spain dated to c. 5,000BC and currently in The Museo Archaeologico National in Madrid.

Now compare this to Bell Beaker, Bronze Age pottery from Spain, dated to 2800-1800BC...

See any similarity here? I would argue that the pots were basically just a ceramic version of the grass baskets...What do you think?

So what do you think about this?