WHAT IS THE FOOD VESSEL?

A series of pottery vessels found in northern Britain, Scotland, and Ireland; used as the name of one of the two main cultures of the Bronze Age. The Food Vessel culture was a prototype derived from that of the Beaker folk and other Neolithic cultures. The Food Vessel culture people were hunters and farmers, raising sheep and growing corn. They also sold bronze and other metal goods made in Ireland. They buried food vessels with their dead (inhumation, in crouched positions, buried in cists under cairns or barrows). In the graves, too, are found crescent-shaped necklaces of jet and shale beads, and gold necklaces of the same shape (lunula) from Ireland. Then there are bronze halbards, axes, and daggers, earrings of gold and bronze, bone hairpins, and planoconvex flint knives. The culture is dated to 2000–1600 bc.