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9. Ceramic Boundaries and Social Spaces
- The University of Alabama Press
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9 Ceramic Boundaries and Social Spaces The foregoing chapters have assessed the temporal and spatial patterning of coastal North Carolina pottery types using key sites and collections. Little has been said, however, concerning the context in which the pots were actually made and used. This chapter attempts to interpret the temporal and spatial patterns in ceramic technology, applying relevant theory to construct reasonable explanatory models. Implications for Coastal Carolina Turning once more to the temporal and spatial patterns described in the foregoing chapters, we may consider them as case studies of the manifestation of ceramic traits expressed in the context of specific environmental constraints, technological parameters, and social practices. The temporal and spatial contexts for each major ceramic series may be used to explore broad-scale patterns. Length of Traditional Periods Looking first at the temporal scale of pottery series, or tempering traditions, we see that series typically occupy periods of 800 to 1,400 years. Ignoring for the moment changes in vessel building technology and decorative finishes that might arise within the period occupied by a single tempering practice, it is useful to explore the implications of the long duration of these traditions. If we assume that a new generation of potters is learning the craft from their cognatic or affinal kin every 25 years or so, in a period of 800 to 1,400 years we can expect there to be 30 to 50 generations of potters. Among the five major temper types, fiber, sand/grit, crushed rock, crushed pottery , and crushed shell, we find that they emerge more or less sequentially, with each technology replicated for 30 to 50 generations. During the period that each series is replicated, we do not observe simultaneous alternative tempering techniques arising from innovations and declining like branches of an evolutionary 190 Chapter 9 tree. Certainly, there are times in which two temper series seem to coexist in a region , and there are even examples of technologies that seem to have very limited historical expression. The Currituck Beaker ceramic technology is a possible example (Painter 1977), but in this case, so very little is known about this archaeological phenomenon that it is impossible to be sure of its temporal range. Perhaps the performance-related properties of tempering materials are so speci fic that they constrain innovations such that within the narrow range of possibilities innovation does not arise very often. One problem with this notion is that there are many effective tempering techniques found globally that did not find expression during the Woodland era in the Middle Atlantic: hair, bark, dung, ash, mica, and crushed bone, for example, are effective tempering agents used with success in other parts of the world. Another problem with the notion that the temper types observed have very specific performance-related criteria that constrain deviation in a functional sense is that several of the aplastic materials used as temper are, from a mechanical perspective, rather poor choices. Calcium carbonates such as limestone, marl, and shell are subject to lime spalling that can destroy or weaken a pot (Rice 1987:97–98; Rye 1981:32–33). Quartz grains also expand up to 2 percent at 573°C (temperatures of 900°C are commonly reached in open fires), when they undergo an inversion that changes crystalline structure, resulting in expansion (Rice 1987:94–96). This would seem to argue against the use of large quartz granules or smaller grains in high proportion, since such use would be apt to weaken the vessel. In the case of grog, however, the temper has expansion properties that are identical to the clay and so this would seem to be the ideal tempering agent. In fact, grog tempering emerges in the Middle Woodland period around a.d. 200 and persists well into the Late Woodland, perhaps as late as a.d. 1100, then declines and disappears. Following the decline in the use of grog, pottery in various areas of the coast is tempered with shell (the Townsend series) and quartz sand (the Cashie and possibly Adams Creek series). The fact that the trend in tempering in this case appears to move from a mechanically more effective solution to a mechanically less effective solution would seem to contradict the notion that it is mechanical properties that are constraining or driving changes in tempering traditions. This apparent contradiction in the adaptionist logic of the development of ceramic technology is no contradiction at all if the standard view of...