Grooved ware

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Grooved ware is the name given to a pottery style of the British Neolithic. Its manufacturers are sometimes known as the Grooved ware people.

Early in the 3rd millennium BC, Grooved ware began to appear all over the British Isles. The diagnostic shape for the style is a flat bottomed pot with straight sides sloping outwards and grooved decoration around the top. Beyond this the pottery comes in many different varieties, some with complex geometric decorations others with applique bands added. The latter has led some archaeologists to argue that the style is a skeuomorph and is derived from wicker basketry.

Grooved ware pots excavated at Balfarg in Fife have been chemically analysed to determine their contents. It appears that some of the vessels there may have been used to hold black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) which is a poison but also a powerful hallucinogen. This discovery is briefly explored by the Internet Archaeology Journal of the Council for British Archaeology in the article 'The use of henbane as a hallucinogen at Neolithic 'ritual' sites: a re-evaluation.'

Since many Grooved ware pots have been found at henge sites and in burials it is possible that they may have had a ritual purpose as well as a functional one.

The earliest examples have been found in Orkney and may have evolved from earlier Unstan ware bowls. The style soon spread and it was used by the builders of the first phase of Stonehenge. Grooved Ware pottery has been found in abundance in recent excavations at Durrington Walls in Wiltshire. Smaller quatities have also been found at the nearby site of Figsbury Ring.

Grooved ware was previously referred to as Rinyo-Clacton ware.