Cardium pottery

Cardium pottery culture
Geographical rangeSouthern Europe, Near East, North Africa
PeriodNeolithic
Datesc. 6400 BC – c. 5500 BC
Major sitesLiguria, Sardinia, Coppa Nevigata
Preceded byNeolithic Greece, Mesolithic Europe,
Followed byDanilo culture, Kakanj culture, Stentinello culture, Neolithic Italy, Neolithic Malta, Neolithic Sardinia, Neolithic France, Neolithic Iberia, La Hoguette culture
Neolithic expansions from the 7th to the 5th millennium BC, including the Cardium culture in blue

Cardium pottery or Cardial ware is a Neolithic decorative style that gets its name from the imprinting of the clay with the heart-shaped shell of the Corculum cardissa, a member of the cockle family Cardiidae. These forms of pottery are in turn used to define the Neolithic culture which produced and spread them, commonly called the "Cardial culture".

The alternative name, impressed ware, is given by some archaeologists to define this culture, because impressions can be made with sharp objects other than cockle shells, such as a nail or comb.[1] Impressed pottery is much more widespread than the Cardial.[2] Impressed ware is found in the zone "covering Italy to the Ligurian coast" as distinct from the more western Cardial extending from Provence to western Portugal. The sequence in prehistoric Europe has traditionally been supposed to start with widespread Cardial ware, and then to develop other methods of impression locally, termed "epi-Cardial". However the widespread Cardial and Impressed pattern types overlap and are now considered more likely to be contemporary.[3]

  1. ^ "Impressed Ware Culture". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Retrieved 11 May 2008.
  2. ^ "Impressed Ware". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Retrieved 11 May 2008.
  3. ^ William K. Barnett, Cardial pottery and the agricultural transition, in Douglas T Price (ed.), Europe's First Farmers (2000), p. 96.