MYSTERY POTS: Archaeologists have discovered hundreds of rhyta at Neolithic sites. But what were the vessels for?
ŠIBENIK CITY MUSEUM
It’s been a longstanding archeological mystery: in many Neolithic sites near the Adriatic Sea, researchers have unearthed cone-shaped clay vessels with four legs on the bottom and a round opening on the side. Were they used for ritual bloodletting? For ferrying embers? For holding salt?
Sarah McClure, a Pennsylvania State University archaeologist, didn’t know what to expect when she and her colleagues set out to analyze residues from sherds of the vessels, known as rhyta, and other pottery excavated from sites of two Neolithic villages on the Dalmatian coast, not far from Šibenik, Croatia. Certainly, though, “finding cheese in those vessels was not something we had anticipated,” she says.
Rather than actively looking for the origins of feta and Parmesan, McClure and Katherine Freeman, also of Penn State, are leading a ...
