When many of us think of pottery, we think of  American Art pottery - McCoy, Weller, Roseville, etc.  There are, in fact, many kinds, shapes and uses for pottery.
 
Pottery is clay that has been fashioned into a desired shape and then dried to reduce its water content before being fired or baked to fix its form.  The methods of forming pottery are as varied as the artisans who create them. Vessels are formed using either a long piece of clay coiled and then smoothed, or the clay is centered on a potter's wheel that spins the clay while it is being shaped by hand, or thrown.  Also it may be jiggered using a tool that copies the form of a master mold, may be poured into a mold and dried, or cut and stamped into squares or slabs.
 
Pottery is one of the most enduring materials known to mankind.  In most places it is the oldest and most widespread art; primitive people the world over have fashioned pots and bowls of baked clay for their daily use.  The potter's wheel was first used in Mesopotamia sometime between 6,000 and 4,000 BCE.  When Nomadic man discovered fire, the firing of clay pots was not far behind.
 
The oldest known body of pottery dates from the Jomon period (from about 10,500 to 400 BC) in Japan.  Excavations in the near East have revealed that primitive fired vessels were made more than 8,000 years ago.  The civilizations of ancient Egypt and the Middle East utilized clay for building and domestic use as early as 5000 BC.  The ancient Chinese produced pottery by  3,500 BC and closer to 1,000 BC used the potter's wheel and developed more sophisticated  glazes.
 
Pre-Columbian, ancient Iberians, the ancient Romans and the ancient Japanese all created beautiful pottery for domestic use as well as for religious purposes.  The Chinese began their sophisticated production of pottery in the Neolithic period and produced porcelain as early as the 7th century AD.  A distinctive type of earthenware, known as majolica, which was derived from Chinese porcelain, appeared in Italy during the last half of the 14th century.
 
In early 17th century attractive slipwares were produced in England .  A kind of glazed earthenware was also produced in the Netherlands principally at Delf, and thus called Delfware, which was among the first European ware to be decorated with designs inspired by Chinese and Japanese models.  The first European royal porcelain was first produced at Meissen, near Dresden, Germany.
 
Europe's second hard-paste porcelain was produced in Vienna around 1717.  In the late 1700's at the royal Sevres factory in France, potters experimented until they developed a white, finely textured body.  Sevres wares were painted in unique colors that no other European factory could duplicate.  The finest English porcelains, both soft and hard, were made between 1745 and 1775.  English potters in the late 18th century and early 19th centuries became resourceful and inventive.  It was during this period that Wedgwood contributed mainly by developing a much improved creamware, his celebrated jasperware.
 
After Wedgwood, other potters of the first half of the 19th century developed a  number of wares of which Parian was the most outstanding and commercially successful.  By the late 19th century with the development of machinery and the introduction of new technologies, the age of mass production began and the potters art suffered.  This resulting decadence continued into the early 1900's when artist-potters became active arriving at their innovations by way of continuous experimentation with materials and techniques.
 
American Art Pottery flourished in the first half of the 20th century, with works created by a variety of artisans many of whom were employed by companies such as Rookwood, Roseville, Weller, and Cincinnati Art Pottery.  Much of what was produced for decades was created in such styles as art nouveau, arts and crafts and art deco.  However, many native Americans continue today to create pots, etc. from traditional forms.