jan 1, 15500 BC - 15,500 BCE - Vela Spila Pottery (15,500-13,000 BCE), before vanishing completely from the archeological record. 130 metres (400 feet) above the town of Vela Luka, on the western side of the Croatian island of Korcula

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Quote from Cork Uni (link below) -

The oldest Stone Age art in the cave was made during the final phase of Paleolithic Art, and dates to 15,500 and 13,000 BCE. It consists of 36 terracotta coloured sherds of ceramic animal figures, the earliest art of its type in southeastern Europe. The collection is exemplified by a piece of pottery consisting of the torso and foreleg of a deer, which was carefully made with the minimum number of joins, in order to prevent breakage. Overall, the variety and sophistication of the collection indicates that Vela Spila was the heart of an active, if hitherto unknown, artistic tradition, that flourished for about two millennia in the Balkans, before suddenly vanishing around 13,000 BCE

In 2006, while excavating Vela Spila cave on Korcula Island, off the coast of Croatia, archeologists found thirty six sherds of ancient pottery - most of them the remnants of animal figures - dating back to the era of Magdalenian Art (c.15,500 BCE). This cache of clay-fired prehistoric art is the second-largest and second-oldest collection of ceramics in Europe. The oldest and largest collection, dating to about 26,000-25,000 BCE, was unearthed in the Czech Republic. It included the famous clay-fired prehistoric sculpture known as "The Venus of Dolni Vestonice" - one of the best known "venus figurines" of the central European Gravettian. Archeologists believe that Vela Spila was the centre of a community of Stone Age artists and craftsmen who independently invented and produced high quality ceramic art for about 2,500 years (15,500-13,000 BCE), before vanishing completely from the archeological record. Eight millennia passed without any sign of ceramic activity in Croatia, before pottery-making reappeared during the Neolithic age, around 5,000 BCE.

To see how Vela Spila pottery fits in with the evolution of ceramics, from the Paleolithic "Venus of Dolni Vestonice" to the Neolithic "Thinker of Cernavoda" (5000 BCE), please see: Prehistoric Art Timeline (from 2.5 million BCE). See also: Pottery Timeline (26,000 BCE - 1900).

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