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Swift Creek Lineage and Diffusion David W. Chase Of all the Woodland archaeological complexes in the North American Southeast, few are more intriguing in terms of origin, geographic extent, and ultimate fate than the prehistoric entity that is known now as Swift Creek. The concept became a part of the literature with its ¤rst recognition by Arthur R. Kelly (1938) and with a later and more detailed evaluation by Smith and Kelly (1975). In reviewing published data on the subject, one cannot overlook references to the several non–Swift Creek archaeological complexes that somehow played a signi¤cant role in the shaping of its con¤guration as a society. These neighboring complexes, I believe, had a very positive impact on their lifeways and their fate. Some of these complexes involve Marksville, Deptford, and, interestingly enough, Hopewell. In its ¤nal form, Swift Creek seems to have maintained its closest ties with Weeden Island and possibly Napier archaeological cultures. Many scholars have added bits and pieces to the Swift Creek scenario over the years since Kelly’s type-site ¤ndings. This chapter will cite many of those who made signi¤cant contributions toward the understanding of the Swift Creek culture largely through its most visible artifact—complicated stamped pottery. This tradition marked, for all practical purposes, the very beginning of Swift Creek and lasted as a ceramic technique until early European -contact times. Through its speci¤c de¤nitive attributes, decorative motifs , and style, southeasternists can now readily identify this pottery. Thanks to Snow (1977) and Broyles (1968) archaeologists now have a better grasp of the issue of paddle carving and tradition exchanges. 5 Origins of Paddle-Stamped Pottery Paddle-stamped pottery dates from very early times in North American ceramic prehistory. Blanton (1979:51) describes his Satilla series as containing “relatively thin, simple stamped and check stamped or plain ware tempered with a composite of ¤bre and sand.” He suggests that this ware represents a transition from ¤ber-tempered to Deptford stamped types. This ceramic type appears in the upper Satilla River basin in southeastern Georgia . Blanton suggests that check-stamped and simple stamped pottery may have had simultaneous beginnings. At any rate, one is inclined to agree that check-stamped and simple stamped ¤nishes represent the earliest examples of paddle stamping. Walthall (1980:87) indicates that simple stamped ¤ber-tempered pottery occurs in the Wheeler culture (Broken Pumpkin Creek phase) in the upper Tombigbee drainage area. He gives a temporal position of this ceramic as sometime between 1000 and 800 b.c. This indicates that the tradition, if it diffused from the Georgia Atlantic coast, must have left connecting traces elsewhere through the Tennessee River valley and into the Georgia Piedmont ; however, curiously enough, little if any evidence of ¤ber-tempered pottery is known in Georgia above the Fall Line. Innumerable sites that produced both check-stamped and simple stamped pottery have been found along the Atlantic coast and westward into the Georgia Coastal Plain. A common taxon for the form has been Mossy Oak Simple Stamped, which Caldwell (1958:35) states is “so far the earliest of the manifestations we consider directly in the Southern Appalachian Tradition .” Mossy Oak, with its artifact assemblage containing Archaic lithic material (Fairbanks 1952:286), is projected as a very early paddle-stamped pottery possibly earlier than the check-stamped form emerging in the Deptford cultural arena. Today it is known that all simple stamped pottery is not Mossy Oak. Elliott and Wynn (1991) have de¤ned what appears to be a Late Woodland simple stamped ware from the Vining site excavated in the 1930s and refer to a number of sites elsewhere in Georgia that produced simple stamped pottery that appears to be too late to be classi¤ed under the taxon Mossy Oak, which still survives in the literature as an Early Woodland type. Paddle stamping was not con¤ned to the application of a carved wooden stamp or other decorating instrument. Another technique apparently inLineage and Diffusion 49 volved the wrapping of a stamping instrument with woven material and pressing it into the wet clay in the ¤rst stages of pottery making. Other forms of fabric impressing involve cord marking and net impressing; both occur prominently from New York southward to Florida. Ceramics made with the use of a fabric-wrapped paddle occur in the early stages of Georgia Woodland development; a good example is Dunlap Fabric Impressed, a basic ceramic of the Kellog phase (Caldwell 1958:23). The technique of...

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