Storage Pot, Beckton Farm
Beckton Farm, Lockerbie
Description A quarter of a large pot reconstructed from several
sherds. The inner rim is decorated with two parallel grooves. The
outside has a row of pierced dots towards the rim, with three less
obvious parallel grooves below, and a series of short lines across
most of the surface.
Excavations at Beckton uncovered groups of pits containing
domestic refuse,including this pot rim. The pit from which it came
appeared to be set at the foot of a palisade or fence of wooden
stakes that divided the interior of an enclosure. Some of the other
pits contained soft grey wood ash and fire blackened and splintered
stones. On the south side of the enclosure there was an area of
black greasy soil filled with carbonised wood and splintered
stones.
Whilst people depended on hunting and food gathering for
survival storage containers were made of light portable materials
such as skin bags or baskets of vegetable fibres. Pottery emerge
when people began to lead a more static existence and agricultural
changes meant that large durable containers for storing grain were
required. The craft of making pottery arrived with the families who
crossed the North Sea and the Channel to settle here.
Neolithic potters built up their pots in spiral coils of clay.
The surface was scraped smooth and sometimes burnished with a
pebble before firing. Pots were usually round bottomed and their
shapes and decorations were often reminiscent of their leather,
wood or basketry predecessors. Until recently there was no evidence
that these prople wore textiles. However, in 1967 a piece of
neolithic pottery was found at Luce Bay in Wigtownshire which bore
a clear impression of a piece of woollen cloth the earliest so far
in Britain.
Object no :
RPD0057
Collection :
Creator :
NA
Place of Production :
NA
Dimensions :
200mm x 300mm
Materials :
NA
Location :
Beckton Farm, Lockerbie
Accession number :
1964.33.1
Copyright :
NA