Pottery was one of man’s first artefacts. It is the presence of pottery, rather than of the polished stone, that marks the passage from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic Ages, when agricultural peoples settled both in the Mediterranean area and in the Middle East. It is commonly believed that the earliest pottery receptacles copied those of other materials, such as gourds or baskets. From the fingerprints on them, it is possible to deduce that they were made principally by women. Originally, any decoration was indented; that is, patterns were pressed into the soft clay, and it remained so for a long period until new situations, at different times in different parts of the world, produced painted decoration. As a widespread form of culture, permanently bearing in its shapes and decoration the character of individual periods and peoples, the finding of pottery has been of supreme importance to the archaeologist.