These artifacts date from the seventh century B.C. to the present and illustrate progressions in the development of portable water and food containers, as well as related utensils and fire-making tools. In ancient times, water and food wares were fashioned from gourd, leather, wood, and baked clay. More recently, this list came to include wooden casks, horns, and pewter tableware in the eighteenth century; tin-dipped iron in the nineteenth century; aluminum canteens and mess kits during WWI; WWII-era stainless steel canteens and mess kits with caps and handles of bakelite (the first synthetic plastic); followed by the widespread use of plastics in the later decades of the twentieth century. Basic cutlery also evolved over the centuries from the use of flint to bronze, iron, pewter, tin-dipped iron, aluminum, stainless steel, and plastic. Fire-making tools followed a slower progression, from a vertical hardwood stick spun between the palms to create a friction fire in soft wood, to flint and iron pyrite used to spark a fire, followed by flint and steel, and finally, after 1826, the sulfur match.
Ancient Greek water jug and Phoenician water flask
Ancient Greek shallow bowls on pedestals with remnants of black and red glazes
Ancient Near Eastern flint microliths used as knives
Prehistoric Native American flint knives
Ancient Scythian iron knives
Datoga water gourds from the Great Rift Valley of Africa
Maasai water gourd from the Great Rift Valley of Africa
Replica primitive water flasks made from gourd and leather
Fire sticks of the Hadzabe, top, and Maasai, bottom, from the Great Rift Valley of Africa
Flint and iron pyrite fire sparker
Tarahumara water jugs, hand-coiled and open-fired
Tarahumara madrone-wood bowl
Tarahumara madrone-wood cooking and serving spoons
Mestizo water jugs and cooking pot
Revolutionary War and frontier era wood-stave canteens with wooden and iron hoops
Frontier powder horn; often used to carry water
Revolutionary War era pewter plate and utensils with bone handles
Replica 18th-19th century cook pot; copper lined with tin
Replica 18th-19th century flint and steel fire sparker
Civil War canteen; tin-dipped iron with wool cover and linen strap
Civil War era tin-dipped iron plate, cup, and utensils
World War I aluminum canteen and mess kit, tin-dipped iron utensils, wool blanket, and helmet
World War II stainless steel canteen with cup, mess kit, utensils, and helmet
Vietnam War plastic canteen and stainless steel mess kit and utensils
Boy Scout canteen, mess kit, and utensils, 1970
Plastic and metal water bottles, mess kit, and utensils, c. 2000
Ultralight collapsible flask and bowls, utensils, and titanium cook kit
Ultralight equipment with cook kit set up
Water filter bottle and straw, and purification tablets
David Weston Marshall 