Early Pottery in the Southeast: Tradition and Innovation in Cooking Technology

6. Social and Economic Contexts of Early Ceramic Vessel Technology

CHAPTER 6 Social and Economic Contexts of Early Ceramic Vessel Technology In this chapter I present evidence for the distribution ofLateArchaic sociocultural entities in the Savannah River Valley region and data on the flow of soapstone among them. Combined with the chronological and technofunctional evidence presented earlier, this information is then used to evaluate propositions presented in Chapter 2 about social factors in the development and spread of fiber-tempered pottery. Stylistic Variation of Fiber-Tempered Pottery in the Savannah River Valley Region Discrete sociocultural entities within Late Archaic populations of the Savannah River Valley region have been inferred by some researchers from patterned variation in the spatial distribution of fibertempered pottery (e.g., Anderson 1975; Waring 1968a; Widmer 1976). Discussion along these lines has been largely devoted to broad stylistic attributes such as random punctation, separate linear punctation, drag and jab punctation, incision, and the like. Other dimensions of variability, including lip form, incidence of multiple design techniques , and type of punctation stylus, have received little attention. This is perhaps not surprising because of the seemingly infinite variation such fine-grained analyses would entail. Taking into consideration variability of the more fine-grained attributes, one is hard189 CONTEXTS OF EARLY CERAMIC VESSEL TECHNOLOGY pressed to find two identical decorated pots in a particular assemblage . Given such fundamental diversity, which dimensions of variability might be sensitive to sociocultural boundaries or territories in the study area? A recent study of southern African fiber-tempered pottery by C. Garth Sampson (1988) is instructive in detecting spatial patterns of stylistic variation. In its incidence and variety of punctation, southern African pottery has uncanny similarity to fiber-tempered pottery of the South Atlantic Slope. Sampson found that the type of stylus used to punctate pottery varied across subregions of his study area, and he combines several lines of evidence (including the distribution of raw materials) to suggest that the stylistic clusters represent sociocultural entities. Within the Savannah region punctation was the chief form of pottery decoration. The technique is observed in all assemblages with decorated vessels, and it spans the entire duration of fiber-tempered pottery manufacture. Temporal trends in the use of punctation have been noted, of course, and these provide effective means of relative dating. That the type of stylus used to punctate pottery might reflect significant synchronic variation among potters, related to group signaling or bounding, has not been adequately considered (d. Widmer 1976). There is some suggestion that differences in styli are fortuitous, reflecting more the local availability of materials than cultural preference for particular types of styli (Trinkley 1980b). Support for this assertion is drawn from the apparent exclusion of shell-punctated pottery from interior sites. Because most shell-punctated pottery on the coast is made with marsh periwinkle, the lack of this decoration within interior assemblages is argued to be the simple result of a lack of periwinkle in freshwater settings. In contradiction to this argument stand a considerable number of shell-punctated pots among the earliest assemblages of the interior Savannah River Valley. These pots were decorated with freshwater gastropod shells, an example of which is depicted in Figure 38. That the use of freshwater gastropod shells did not persist in the interior during the fourth millennium was a cultural choice, not a matter of the availability of shell, because these species continued to be used during this time, presumably for food, by occupants of Stallings Island and the surrounding contemporaneous shell midden sites of the Fall Zone. As for nonshell styli, there is some evidence to suggest that punc190 CONTEXTS OF EARLY CERAMIC VESSEL TECHNOLOGY Scm Figure 38. Shell point punctate sherd (upper left) and clay impression of design (upper right) made from freshwater gastropod shell (lower right), as exemplified by clay impression (lower left). Sherd and shell from Fennel Hill. tation styli were sometimes formal, curated tools used over a long period of time, perhaps even passed down from generation to generation . An example of such a tool was found on the surface of Stallings Island by Daniel R. Robinson (personal communication 1988). The implement is a long bone fragment (presumably deer) with two distinct worked ends (Figure 39). One end was beveled to form a subtriangular, pointed tip. Obvious traces of polish on this end indicate that it was used to punch or groove relatively soft material. The 191 3cm 5cm Figure 39. Bone tool from Stallings Island postulated to be stylus for making subtriangular pOinted punctations on pottery and clay impressions of variation...