Creamware master potter Thomas Whieldon with coloured stains under the glaze. It served as an inexpensive substitute for the soft-paste porcelains being developed by contemporary English manufactories, initially in competition with Chinese export porcelains. It was often made in the same fashionable and refined styles as porcelain. The most notable producer of creamware was Josiah Wedgwood, who perfected the ware, beginning during his partnership with Thomas Whieldon. Around 1779, he was able to lighten the cream colour to a bluish white by using cobalt in the lead overglaze. Wedgwood sold this more desirable product under the name "pearl ware". Wedgwood supplied
Levantine pottery that may have lasted for over a millennium, although the date of its end is somewhat problematic. The earliest phases of this period are associated with pottery that is little different from the pottery of the Latest Neolithic periods (see Late Neolithic Pottery). While plain wares probably dominate most assemblages, it is the decorated types which have been paid most attention to by scholars. There are few well excavated sites and no good stratigraphic sequences that have produced enough well-stratified pottery to allow for the development of any reliable chronological sequence in pottery styles, although some are claimed. Pottery of