INDIAN POTTERY OF THE CAROLINAS OBSERVATIONS FROM THE MARCH 1995 CERAMIC WORKSHOP AT HOBCAW BARONY Assembled and edited by David G. Anderson assisted by John S. Cable, Niels Taylor, and Christopher Judge Council of South Carolina Professional Archaeologists December 1996 Indian Pottery of the Carolinas OBSERVATIONS FROM THE MARCH 1995 CERAMIC WORKSHOP AT HOBCAW BARONY Assembled and edited by David G. Anderson assisted by John S. Cable, Niels Taylor, and Christopher Judge Funding Provided by: South Carolina Department of Archives and History P.O. Box 11669, Capitol Station Columbia, South Carolina 2921 1 Prepared Under the Direction of: Niels Taylor, Principal Investigator Council of South Carolina Professional Archaeologists December 1996 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents Preface Part I. Technical Papers on Indian Pottery of the Carolinas 1 . The 1995 Ceramic Workshop: An Extended Overview David G. Anderson 2. South Carolina Prehistoric Pottery: Reflections on the 1995 Conference at Georgetown, S. C. Christopher T. Espenshude 3. An Analysis of Woodland and Mississippian Period Ceramics from Osprey Marsh, Hilton head Island, South Carolina Thomas G. Lilly and Joel D. Gunn 4. Pottery of the Upper Dan Drainage Jane Eastman 5. An Appraisal and Re-evaluation of the Prehistoric Pottery Sequence of Southern Coastal North Carolina Joseph M. Herbert and Mark A. Mathis Part 11. A Sorting Guide for Indian Pottery of the Carolinas: An Initial Formulation David G. Anderson (With contributions by Christopher T. Espenshade, Jane Eastman, Joel Gum, Joe Herbert, Thomas G. Lilly, and Mark Mathis) References Cited PREFACE This volume was inspired by a workshop on "Prehistoric Ceramics in the South Carolina Area" that was held Thursday through Saturday, March 9- 11, 1995 at the Baruch Institute on Hobcaw Barony near Georgetown, South Carolina. The workshop was sponsored by a Survey and Planning Grant awarded to the Council of South Carolina Professional Archaeologists (COSCAPA) by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History (SCDAH). Niels Taylor, an archaeologist with SCDAH, served as the project principal investigator. Chris Judge, an archaeologist with the Heritage Trust program of the South Carolina Department of Wildlife, served as local arrangements coordinator and handled all of the logistics for the workshop. Technical coordination was provided David G. Anderson and John S. Cable, of the Southeast Archaeological Center of the National Park Service and New South Associates, Inc., respectively. All four of the project organizers owe their employers a debt of thanks for appreciable support throughout the planning and implementing of the workshop, and for assistance in the production of this resulting volume. The purpose of the workshop was to bring interested archaeologists together to examine prehistoric ceramic collections from South Carolina and adjacent areas. The goal was a "hands-on" workshop to acquaint the participants with the variability occurring in prehistoric ceramics in the general vicinity of South Carolina. The meeting proved wildly successful in this regard. Almost everyone attending brought materials. Throughout the course of the workshop some fifty boxes of ceramic artifacts were on display, spread out over some 25 3Ix8' folding tables. The materials included virtually all of the type specimens used to classify prehistoric ceramics in North and South Carolina, a research collection that had never previously been assembled in one place. A great deal of time by all was spent moving around the tables examining and comparing the various specimens, an experience that may have been the most valuable part of the workshop. A debt of thanks is owed to SCIAA, for extending the loan of the state prehistoric ceramic type collection to the meeting, and particularly to Bruce Rippeteau, South Carolina State Archaeologist, and Sharon Pekrul, SCIAA1s collections manager, who used the opportunity to thoroughly update the collection's catalog. Likewise, R. P. Stephen Davis and David S. Phelps are to be thanked for bringing type collections from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and from East Carolina University. Ken Sassaman, COSCAPA President when the workshop was held, and Chris Judge, his successor in 1996, deserve special thanks for assisting with overall project management. Technical assembly and editing of this manuscript was conducted by David G. Anderson and John S. Cable, with logistical support as well as manuscript proofing provided by Niels Taylor and Chris Judge. Besides funding provided by the SCDAH, appreciable support throughout the project has been provided by the Technical Assistance and Partnerships Section of the Southeast Archeological Center (SEAC) in Tallahassee, Florida (formerly Interagency Archaeological Services Division). In particular, the encouragement of John E. Ehrenhard, SEAC Chief, and the technical advice of Virginia Horak, SEAC production editor, is deeply appreciated. Over the course of the workshop, each participant made informal presentations on prehistoric ceramics in their respective areas, and the state of current research. Following each presentation round-table discussion occurred, continuing throughout breaks, during planned general discussion periods that were held at various points, and far into the night Thursday and Friday. Subjects were wide ranging, and included such topics as sorting and identification criteria, spatial and temporal distributions, and approaches to systematics and taxonomy. .. 111 A photographer was present throughout the meeting, who shot many of the specimens, although as a general rule the photography focused on materials that had not been previously illustrated in a professional publication. This triage proved necessary because so much material was brought that photographing every specimen would have likely taken weeks. The entire meeting was videotaped, and copies of the film were used to compile the detailed overview of the workshop, complete with transcripts and summaries of the various presentations, that comprises chapter 1 of this volume. Copies of the film, itself a historical document of sorts, are at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA). This volume consists of two main parts, a series of papers describing the workshop and current approaches to ceramic analysis and classification in the Carolinas, and an initial sorting guide to local ceramics, with major categories listed alphabetically by type. The technical papers consist of an extended overview of the workshop prepared by one of the organizers (Anderson), and a reflection on the events that took place during the workshop, and observations on ceramic analysis in the Carolinas in general, by one of the participants (Espenshade). The other two papers, by Lilly and Gunn and Eastman, are more technical in nature and describe research in particular areas. The sorting guide contained within this manuscript is an admittedly preliminary effort, at present essentially the work of one author, David G. Anderson (with several contributions by Jane Eastman). An original goal of the workshop was the production of a comprehensive sorting guide for the Indian ceramics of the Carolinas. This remains our goal, although the workshop and its aftermath revealed the complexity of this task. It is now evident that a final guide is likely to run to several hundred pages, will require well over 100 plates and an equal number of distributional maps, and encompass three or four times as many types as are described here. Such an effort proved to be far beyond the resources provided for the workshop. What the workshop has done, however, besides bringing people and collections together in positive interaction (itself a major accomplishment), is to show us what is needed to produce such a guide (i.e., far more photography, artwork, and specific information on the materials occurring over the area), and provide clues as to how it should be organized. A simple binomial taxonomic framework is used to describe the Indian pottery types found in the Carolinas in this guide. Beside the classic types, the descriptions include surface finish and paste categories, to aid in the sorting of unidentifiable materials. Once the approach we have taken here has been critiqued by our colleagues, (some of whom we hope will join us in this venture), we will proceed to work toward the larger goal of producing a more comprehensive sorting guide. We encourage our colleagues in the Carolinas and adjoining areas to contribute to this effort. Every contribution received will be edited and incorporated into the overall description for each category, and all of the authors will have the opportunity to examine and comment on the text that is produced. After another one or two rounds of writing, review, and revision, we will have a manuscript that will be submitted for formal publication, probably through one or both state archaeological societies in the Carolinas. All three of the contributed papers in this volume, by Espenshade, Lilly and Gunn, and Eastman, include descriptions of ceramic types or series that occur in the Carolinas. This information is reproduced here exactly as received to indicate the kinds of information the organizers are interested in obtaining to assist in the production of a comprehensive ceramic sorting guide. This information will be incorporated into the descriptions that make up the second part of this manuscript. When the final sorting guide is produced, the authors contributing