ABSTRACT
Most of the earth's solid surface is made up of natural ceramic materials, either as solid rock or as fragments of rock eroded by the forces of nature. The earliest humans undoubtedly used these natural ceramics as they found them. Major breakthrough; first human-made material, achieved by transforming a molded shape of soft clay into a hard stone-like article of ceramic. This first human-made ceramic was a big improvement over dried clay because it did not fall apart in the rain. Other ceramic technologies were developed during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period or perhaps even earlier. On mixing suitable powders with water, chemical setting reactions occurred at room temperature to produce a rigid ceramic body. Another early ceramics invention was lime mortar that was made using a source of lime such as from pulverized heated shells or limestone plus the ashes of salty grasses. The concept of incising led to a completely different use of ceramic-based materials.
