Reconstructed Foodstuff Storage Container from Tamins-Crestis, c. 3,000 BC

A brief look at the history of the Earth may shed some light on the significance of this exhibit, at first glance appearing somewhat unspectacular. Until c. 14,000 years ago Ice Age glaciers entirely covered the main Alpine ridges. Climate change eventually caused these glaciers to melt, and the Alpine valleys reappeared. Plants were beginning to grow and animals settled, followed by the first human hunters.
Some 7,000 years ago, during the New Stone Age or Neolithic period, human behaviour began to change fundamentally. In a decisive development known as „Neolithic Revolution“, previously nomadic hunters and gatherers began to settle and became farmers tilling their land and breeding livestock. Our exhibit from Tamins is a vessel used to store the newly harvested cultivated foodstuffs. The use of clay for such purposes is one of the important new cultural techniques from that period. This vessel is made of a mixture of clay and chipped stones, giving it its rough outer appearance.