Today we excavated a small pit feature that contained portions of a finely cordmarked vessel. Watch the video of its discovery!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
A PPM with Pottery
Speaking of the little things which help us reconstruct the past, one minor but potentially important discovery was finding a rim sherd in a post mold. OK, so what? Well you must realize that we have been cross-sectioning post molds for much of our time in the field this year. This can be a tedious task for the students, since it involves excavating a little hole in a confined space, while kneeling on gravelly soil. Then if the light is not just right, you cannot see the profile easily and must contort your head and neck in various orientations until your supervisor tells you it is just a "root stain" or "rodent burrow" and then instructs you to fill the hole up. Luckily, about a third of the time, the "PPM" (Possible Post Mold) is a good one, and you get to draw a little profile of the thing on a piece of graph paper--a suitable reward for all your efforts. Even more underwhelming is the fact the usually nothing is found in the post mold. So, the discovery of diagnostic artifact in a post mold is a cause for celebration, or at least a pat on the back. This was the case with PPM 17 in unit 505N 509E.
In this medium-sized post mold, Katie M. found several fragments of an Esch Cordmarked rim sherd along with several pieces of FCR. She points to the spot in the image below.
As seen in next image, this sherd is finely cordmarked with a plain lip and slightly out-turned profile which is typical for this Middle Woodland pottery ware. Although you can't see it in this image, the cordmarking is of the S-twist variety (see previous post) which supports its placement in the Middle Woodland period.
We did get some charcoal as well which may permit a date. But why date a post mold? Well, in this case I suspect that PPM 17 may be part of a structure. If so, then discovering a rim sherd in a post mold becomes much more than just a nice break in a day of post mold digging.
In this medium-sized post mold, Katie M. found several fragments of an Esch Cordmarked rim sherd along with several pieces of FCR. She points to the spot in the image below.
As seen in next image, this sherd is finely cordmarked with a plain lip and slightly out-turned profile which is typical for this Middle Woodland pottery ware. Although you can't see it in this image, the cordmarking is of the S-twist variety (see previous post) which supports its placement in the Middle Woodland period.
We did get some charcoal as well which may permit a date. But why date a post mold? Well, in this case I suspect that PPM 17 may be part of a structure. If so, then discovering a rim sherd in a post mold becomes much more than just a nice break in a day of post mold digging.
A Pot with a Twist
Over the past week we made several interesting discoveries. One was the uncovering of a small pottery vessel in Feature 11-19. This pot appears to have been stored or cached in a small pit lined with fragments of gray shale. It was a big surprise to simply find such an artifact just below the plow zone. In fact, it looks like only a small section was taken away by more than a century of cultivation in this field. Although somewhat crushed by the weight of the soil overburden, the little pot was in pretty good shape as shown in the image below.
The accompanying pieces of shale perplexed us at first, until we realized that most of the fragments lay at the sides and beneath the vessel. I suspect that the small pit containing the pot was lined with these fragments. Such preparation of a pit feature may have been necessary to preserve its shape for use as a permanent storage pit or cyst for holding things like this vessel. Little storage pits like this have been found in association with house structures (stay tuned for more on this intriguing inference). Nothing else was found in the pit except shale and pot sherds, in fact there really was not room for anything else. Unfortunately, the lack of bone fragments or charcoal means that we will not be able to obtain a direct date on this feature. One clue to its age does exist, however.
As I examined some of the cordmarked body sherds, I could see that they bore the negative (reverse) impression of an S-twist fiber cordage. Nearly all of the Early or Middle Woodland cordmarked pottery found in northern Ohio exhibits a similar twist pattern. Interestingly, most Late Prehistoric pottery have the impressions of Z-twist cordage. The differences in twist pattern reflect different methods of hand-spinning cordage, which may seem trivial, but appears to be a reliable indicator of culture change and time. This shift in cordage twist is also seen across much of the Midwest and Northeast. With the lack of datable material, the twist pattern may be all we have to place this interesting artifact in a general time frame. In archaeology, we are happy for the little things which help us reconstruct the past.
The accompanying pieces of shale perplexed us at first, until we realized that most of the fragments lay at the sides and beneath the vessel. I suspect that the small pit containing the pot was lined with these fragments. Such preparation of a pit feature may have been necessary to preserve its shape for use as a permanent storage pit or cyst for holding things like this vessel. Little storage pits like this have been found in association with house structures (stay tuned for more on this intriguing inference). Nothing else was found in the pit except shale and pot sherds, in fact there really was not room for anything else. Unfortunately, the lack of bone fragments or charcoal means that we will not be able to obtain a direct date on this feature. One clue to its age does exist, however.
As I examined some of the cordmarked body sherds, I could see that they bore the negative (reverse) impression of an S-twist fiber cordage. Nearly all of the Early or Middle Woodland cordmarked pottery found in northern Ohio exhibits a similar twist pattern. Interestingly, most Late Prehistoric pottery have the impressions of Z-twist cordage. The differences in twist pattern reflect different methods of hand-spinning cordage, which may seem trivial, but appears to be a reliable indicator of culture change and time. This shift in cordage twist is also seen across much of the Midwest and Northeast. With the lack of datable material, the twist pattern may be all we have to place this interesting artifact in a general time frame. In archaeology, we are happy for the little things which help us reconstruct the past.
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