Baked clay is much more than a construction material: it is a witness and architect of human evolution Clay is, according to the Dictionary of the Royal Academy, a moldable clay material that hardens by firing, used in pottery and ceramics . Baked clay is a continuous and timeless witness to the History of Humanity. There is evidence of its technological use for twenty thousand years. Approximately, since humans evolved into Homo sapiens. The Neolithic Revolution: water, cereals, meat, fire and baked clay The approximate date on which humans began to use clay (cooked or uncooked) as a technological material is still in dispute today. Knowing at what exact moment it occurred to the first sapiens that a piece of mud could take shape and be left to dry is and will remain a mystery. The oldest clay objects that have been found date from the Upper Paleolithic , although, in these cases, they are symbolic and representative figures , not so much utilitarian. It is not until the Neolithic when we begin to find pots, plates and containers. This prehistoric period is when one of the great revolutions in History takes place. Broadly speaking, during the Neolithic the human being stopped being nomadic and became sedentary, after mastering cultural and agricultural techniques for the first time. This is what is known as the Neolithic Revolution. With the cultivation of the first cereals, come the first surpluses of food. For the first time, people have more food in their hands than they can consume.
The same thing happens with water: when changing from nomadic to sedentary life, the first populations form settlements near sources of drinking water, mainly freshwater rivers, where the land is more fertile and livestock have somewhere to water. We define technology as the set of knowledge, skills and techniques that, applied in combination, allow human beings to solve their problems and satisfy their needs. Our Neolithic ancestors found themselves with the new need to store, transport and protect their new surpluses of food and water. Result: the first vessels. In some archaeological excavations, remains of baked clay vessels with cereals still inside have been found . Mesopotamia: the origin of clay tiles and Western civilization It is believed Belize Phone Number List that the origin of baked clay as a building material, (like the origin of almost everything else), occurred in Mesopotamia. The origin of civilization is traced between the Tigris and the Euphrates, in the valley where the triple border of what is now Iraq, Iran, and Syria converges. The Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian empires and civilizations flourish in the Fertile Crescent. This historic region concentrated most of the first settlements. It is considered to be the site where the Neolithic Revolution of the West took place , since in other parts of the world agriculture also developed in parallel, giving rise to different cultures. In Mesopotamia, wheat, rye and barley began to be cultivated, thus giving birth to Western and Mediterranean culture . In the Mexican highlands, the cultivation of corn did the same with Amerindian civilizations. Rice cultivation in some regions of East Asia gave rise to Chinese culture. And the sorghum plantation laid the foundation for what is now Ethiopia.
The enormous fertility of this area is attributed to the two rivers that surround it. The hydrographic configuration of the valley means that abundant amounts of mud were found in the river beds and banks. And up to here we can trace the first manufacture of bricks and slabs : made of clay and dried in the sun. This material is called adobe, and prehistoric evidence of its use is found all over the world. The first ovens to make clay Curiously, archaeological evidence suggests that the existence of baked clay predates the invention of ovens. Adobe is a versatile and resistant material, but it is not waterproof. Adobe buildings, although they can last a long time if done correctly, always end up deteriorating. For this reason, the most important buildings, such as temples and funerary constructions, began to be covered with a layer of bricks that had been subjected to high temperatures by bringing them closer to open flames. This technique, which is still used in some rural areas of the North Maghreb, made the buildings waterproof and much more durable. Ovens, as we know them now, appeared quite late (in historical terms). Prehistoric civilizations found other ways to cook clay, both for their architectural constructions and for decorative and ritualistic objects. It is not surprising that baked clay has been the material that has accompanied human progress since homo sapiens existed . Not only is it composed of elements present throughout the world (water and land), but its manufacturing process is practically a demonstrative exercise in Darwinian evolution. Whether consciously or intuitively, all cultures in all parts of the world have made use of baked clay as a stone on which to build the foundations of civilizations.