Pottery

I think it's important to start educating the masses on one of the most popular artifacts we encounter in the field: pottery.  Just like how Fort Ancient had multiple time periods, it also had many different types of pottery as well.  It's amazing how the tiniest sherds of pottery can be identified as having this type of temper or this type of decoration.  By being able to observe this under a microscope or just in our own hands, we can tell that these Fort Ancient Indians had a knack for creativity, for wanting to deviate from the norm, for even taking influences from other cultures.  First of all, when observing pottery, it is important to notice what time of temper it has.  I don't mean it's disposition or how easily angry it gets - I mean what type of clay and the materials in that clay are used to make its structure and coloration.  Most of the pottery we pull from the dirt has shell tempered clay.

(I borrowed this picture from another university's website because it's a better image than the ones I took)  As you can see, this piece of pottery has bits of white flakes in it that indicate the use of mussel shells.  This temper preserved well and thus was used more in making pottery.  The only downside to using this temper is that when heating the shaped clay, it tends to shrink from its original size, which could explain the variation in sizes of pottery sherds we have found.  What I find fascinating about shell-tempered pottery is that it is largely indicative of Mississippian cultures, though Fort Ancient is a Hopewell culture.  By observing these meshing of two cultures, we can see a constant theme of influence and recycling.  Mississippian cultures have a lot of influence over Fort Ancient artifacts, and there is some indication of Fort Ancient Indians recycling older and distant artifacts from other cultures.  This could point to the fact that not only were Fort Ancient Indians probably trading with other cultures but were also preserving the notion of recycling by reusing other materials they deemed appropriate.  I will explain this in other posts as well.

Other types of tempering include grit and grog tempered pottery, but these are not as prevalent as the shell-tempered pottery.  Grit essentially means sand while grog is crushed pieces of fired clay.  

(grit tempered pottery)

These are indicative of more Early Woodland periods where the pottery is more plain as opposed to later Fort Ancient pottery sherds. 

Decorations of pottery are usually incised or engraved, meaning that there were different indentations in the clay to create various designs.  One of the most popular yet simple decorations is cordmarked, which is essentially when the person takes a string and wraps it around the clay to make linear lines in the pottery.  

(cordmarked lines and rim sherd)

Other techniques include a guilloche design and line-filled triangle, or sometimes a combination of the two.

(guilloche)

(line-filled triangle - not exactly Mississippian or Fort Ancient, but good enough)

These are very exciting to find in the field other than cordmarked because it shows a level of creativity and desire to deviate from the norm.  And plus, who doesn't enjoy seeing pretty pottery like this?

Different sherds can include a body sherd

a rim sherd (cordmarked, even!)

and a strap handle sherd

or a combination of all of them

Like I said, there's a lot to learn about pottery, but I think a visual will do a much better job explaining than I could ever do.  I hope you learned a little bit about cultural remains of our local ancestors, and don't worry - I'll post more.