POTTERY
| A. | Banded pottery. |
| B. | 1. Origin of banded ornament from cords suspending a more or less hemispherical vessel derived from the hollow gourd. |
| 2. Corded ornament derived from suspension of flask (Amphora). | |
| C. | Cups and Kugelamphore (globular flask) from Groszgartach. |
The ornament is in circular zones separated by bands of well-polished surface covering the whole outside. It is found in Asia Minor, Egypt, Italy, and in western Europe along the whole zone of megalithic monuments, whence it spread northward and eastward into middle Europe.
The incrusted pottery characterized by incised lines filled with a white material may have had a distinct origin and development, though its technique has often been borrowed and applied to other types. The pottery of the oldest lake-dwellers is crude, coarse, with little or no ornament. Hence it is difficult to connect it with any other type.
Form and shape of pottery are often quite or very persistent. We cannot understand why the base of so many jars was left rounded, or in some old lake-dwellings pointed, when it might easily have been flattened, apparently to good advantage. But even the form, and still more the ornament, changes according to time, place, and fashion; hence these are very useful in tracing periods and cultures and their relations. Where different types meet there is usually more or less change or modification, often difficult to interpret. Our knowledge of European pottery is still small and unsatisfactory, but it has already been of much use in tracing migrations of culture and relations between provinces often widely separated.