Post have been one of the basic utensils of life for thousands of years. Most utensils for cooking, eating, and storing of food and water since the start of the age of farming 8000 years ago have depended on the skills of potters. From historic and ethnographic sources, we know that potting was conducted at the household level in the early stage of development. We also know that potters in most preindustrial societies ware women. Potting only become a man's job when large-scale ceramic production evolved, as in the Near East, and in China during the Tang Dynasty. Mass production of pottery entailed shifts in technology, from handforming to wheel-throwing, and the use of large kilns instead of open bonfires.