by Christine Hanna and Amy Mays
Pottery is an ancient craft that developed all over the world. No one knows when or how the first clay pot was made or who made it. A common guess is that people noticed that certain types of clay baked hard along the sides of their fire pits, and this clay was water and fire resistant.
The first pots were probably made for cooking. Cone-shaped cooking pots can be stuck in the coals in such a way that the heat from the coals warms the contents evenly.