Peterborough ware is a decorated pottery style of the later British Neolithic. It is known for the impressed pits made by bone or wood implements in its sides. Whipped cord was also used to make circular 'maggot' patterns. The earliest form of Peterborough ware is known as Ebbsfleet style and had minimal decoration, although this later became more complex possibly through influences from the Beaker people. Peterborough ware may have evolved from the earlier Grimston-Lyles Hill ware, around 3500 BC. Later varieties are known as Mortlake and Fengate sub-styles. These appear to have evolved into later Bronze Age styles. Archaeologists have described the makers of Peterborough ware as the Peterborough culture, but the term has fallen out of favour as further discoveries have cast doubt on the idea that a single unified society produced these artefacts.
