After pottery was formed, a thin cord was typically used to detach the base from the potter’s wheel. This pottery-making method is called “wheel throwing.” Pottery made using this technique exhibits a relatively regular shape, with clear parallel lines visible on both the interior and exterior walls. The base also bears marks left by the thin cord used for detachment. For example, between 1958 and 1959, entirely wheel-thrown small saucers were discovered at the Yangshao culture site in Quanhucun Village, Huaxian County, Shaanxi Province. Their well-processed rims and bases serve as reliable material evidence.
In the late Yangshao culture period, pottery making advanced significantly with the adoption of the “slow-wheel finishing method.” This involved placing the already formed clay body on a “potter’s wheel” (a rotating wooden disc) and trimming parts like the rim while it turned. Consequently, this left parallel scratches on the inner and outer surfaces of the rim. Later, the technique further evolved to shaping clay blanks on rapidly rotating potter’s wheels to create round pottery vessels.
During this period, pottery making was no longer primarily the domain of women, as it had been in the earlier hand-forming stage. Instead, the division of labor shifted with the emergence and gradual development of wheel-throwing techniques. By the time fast-wheel throwing became well-established, men had gradually supplanted women, taking the dominant role in pottery production.
