The EH I pottery is handmade and includes vases of a relatively rough clay, thin walls and bright red surface, plain or burnished. Ceramics are mainly bowls with a round or flat base and simple rim (curved or flat) bulging to the interior of the vases and outwards (T shape). The characteristic red burnished pottery includes bowls with a low or high stem and hook-shaped rim as well as shallow or deep basins. The fine vases, are not only burnished (polished), they also bear incised linear decoration.

Deep cooking vessels and storage vases (pithoi) with a low or wide neck are made of coarse, dark clay. These usually bear plastic or impressed decoration.

Toward the end of the Early Helladic I regional variations are observed in ceramic production. The pottery with the red coating is characteristic of the Peloponnese and it occurs on deep bowls with or without a cylindrical stem (fruitstand), which have a wide, angular rim with incised linear decoration. This pottery was recently discovered in sites of the Argolid (Makrovouni, Kephalari, Talioti) and is known as the Talioti phase.