Ceramics has a long and varied history, developed over thousands of year by many different cultures to one degree or another. With early man roaming across Eurasia the discovery of fire, or, more precisely, the controlled use of fire was one of mans earliest discoveries. Fire's purposes were multiple, some of which were to add light and heat, to cook plants and animals, to clear forests for planting, to heat-treat stone for making stone tools, and to /burn clay for ceramic objects. We don't really know how the idea of heat and clay came about. Was it an accident that an object made of clay fell in the fire, and was discovered to be harder and more permanent?—no one knows . What we do know is that the control of fire by early humans was a turning point in the culture of man. Much of what we know about the development of different cultures is because of the durability of fired clay, and the cultural usage of clay. Carving and artistic forms of ceramic objects do not appear until the last Ice Age about 35,000 years ago; from that time most cultures that had a source of clay have used it to some degree.
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