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Appendix 4. Ceramic Techniques
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PROTOHISTORIC POTTERY T YPES Four pottery types are important for the Lasley Vore assemblage: Cowley Plain, Deer Creek Simple-Stamped, Deer Creek Brushed, and Womack Engraved. These will be described ¤rst, as they will later be analyzed separately. Cowley Plain This type was ¤rst de¤ned by Wedel (1959:359–361) for sites near Arkansas City, Kansas . It is shell-tempered, with a ¤ne-textured paste. Vessel forms include ovate and globular jars with ®at or rounded bases and deep bowls with round shoulders and bottoms. Appendages, if present, include handles or straps set above the shoulder but below the lip. Exterior surfaces are usually smoothed, while interiors exhibit an uneven surface ¤nish (Hawley and Haury 1994:34). Rims are typically out®aring or straight and unthickened, while lips are usually rounded, although ®attened forms have been reported (Scott 1994). Mohs’ hardness readings for this type vary from 2 to 4—that is, rather soft, and surface color varies between buff, brownish, and gray, while the color of the core is usually slate gray (Wedel 1959:359). Sudbury (1975) has proposed another type, Deer Creek Plain, for the Deer Creek site in Kay County, Oklahoma. The basic difference between this and Cowley Plain is the “higher incidence of strap handles, the tapering [of] strap handles, the lack of angular nodes, and the practice of attaching the handles to the lip on Deer creek site vessels” (Sudbury 1975:113). Although handle placement on Cowley Plain vessels is predominantly below the lip and above the shoulder, lip-attached handles are reported from the Larcom-Haggard site in Cowley County, Kansas (Wedel 1959:Figure 69) and the Bryson-Paddock site in Kay County, Oklahoma (Hartley and Miller 1977:62). Differentiation on the basis of handle placement is not considered suf¤ciently distinctive to warrant an entirely new type. Therefore, we are disregarding the Deer Creek Plain type and placing all pottery of this nature into the Cowley Plain type. I should note that the location of handles and a nonquanti¤ed estimation of greater temper density are also the features distinguishing Cowley Plain from Woodward Plain, a shell-tempered type associated with the late Prehistoric Neosho Appendix 4 Ceramic Techniques Joe B. Thompson This appendix is abstracted from Thompson (1995), a master’s thesis completed for the Department of Anthropology, University of Tulsa. That document should be referred to for additional supporting information. Provenience data not contained in Thompson’s thesis have been added to this appendix. Focus and Fort Coffee Phase of eastern Oklahoma (Brown 1971:141–146; Freeman 1962; Freeman and Buck 1960; Hall 1951; Rohrbaugh 1982a:57, 1982b:415–420). Deer Creek Simple Stamped This is a relatively rare, shell-tempered type reported from several sites in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas (Hartley and Miller 1977; Rohn and Emerson 1984; Story et al. 1967; Sudbury 1975). The distinguishing attribute of this type is the presence of sur¤cial corrugations produced by pulling a wrapped paddle or ¤ngers across the moist (predominantly outside) surface of the vessel, usually perpendicular to the rim. General technological attributes appear similar to those of Cowley Plain, with interior and exterior colors varying from orange to tans, browns, grayish brown, and gray, while cores exhibit tan, brown, and gray hues; lips may be ®attened or rounded. Although few whole vessels have been reported, vessel form appears limited to jars. Handles are present on some vessels, and ®at basal sherds have been reported from the Deer Creek site. Deer Creek Brushed The Deer Creek Brushed type was proposed by Hartley and Miller (1977:68) for shell-tempered ceramics having a brushed exterior surface treatment. An extensive collection was reported from the Deer Creek site, though considerably fewer were illustrated from Bryson-Paddock. A sand-tempered, Geneseo Brushed globular jar was recovered from the Paint Creek site in McPherson County, Kansas (Scott 1994:73,76), while exterior brushing was noted on shell-tempered sherds from the Gilbert site in Texas (Story et al. 1966). Brushing may be used with other forms of surface decoration, such as combing, incising, and simple stamping. A particularly clear example of this technique can be seen just under the rim of a partially restored curvilinear-incised vessel from the protohistoric Deshazo site in northern Texas (Fields 1995:Figures 60–63, 71). Technologically, Deer Creek Brushed resembles Cowley Plain, having a compact and homogeneous paste with a dark gray core. The interior surface is typically smoothed, with a dark grayish-brown color, and the exterior...