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8. In the Beginning: Social Contexts of First Pottery in the Lower Mississippi Valley
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Jaketown abruptly as a fully developed complex.” In other words, the earliest Tchefuncte levels at the Jaketown site contain, again, numerous sherds and essentially the full suite of Tchefuncte types. In summary, we suggest that most, if not all, of the Tchefuncte pottery was not manufactured at Poverty Point and, consequently, like many of the other artifacts, it may have been brought into the site as part of the exchange network. This, of course, raises questions about the site or region from which the Tchefuncte pottery at Poverty Point derived and,ultimately, the place(s) of origin of the series. This brings us full circle back to our initial research questions on the technological and stylistic development of the earliest pottery in the LMV—unfortunately without any clear answers. Future research on this question could focus on the only known locations to have produced the earliest radiocarbon-dated Tchefuncte assemblages:the Catahoula Basin and coastal Louisiana. The Catahoula Basin, located about 135 km south-southwest of Poverty Point (see Figure 7.5), contains the Cross Bayou site (16CT354) (see Figure 7.1), a locale with a Tchefuncte occupation dated initially to 2680 b.p. (Gibson 1991; McGimsey and van der Koogh 2001). Sites of the Pontchartrain phase in coastal Louisiana, such as Bayou Jasmine with its deep, thick, and relatively early Tchefuncte deposits that have produced calibrated radiocarbon dates between 3370 and 2730 b.p. (Hays 1995, 1997; Hays and Weinstein 2000; Kuttruff et al. 1993), also may be good candidates for discovering the origins of Tchefuncte. Finally, sites of the McGary phase in the Yazoo Basin (Williams and Brain 1983:355) and/or the so-called Teche cluster (Weinstein 1995) in south-central Louisiana (see Figure 7.5) may provide keys to understanding the development of Tchefuncte pottery. These sites, including such locales as Meche-Wilkes (16SL18) and Ruth Canal (16SM20) (Gibson 1976, 1990a) (see Figure 7.1), contain some of the largest assemblages of ¤ber-tempered pottery from the LMV , plus signi¤cant quantities of Tchefuncte ware. Although the exact relationship between the ¤ber-tempered and the Tchefuncte pottery is not yet known, these locations may contain clues to the origins of early, locally produced pottery within the LMV . FUNCTION We initially attempted to evaluate the function and usage of the pottery by determining vessel shape and looking for the presence of sooting on the sherds (see Gibson and Melancon, this volume, for another discussion of early Poverty Point–era pottery vessel function). These efforts, however, produced little useful information. Since most of the sherds are relatively 164 / Hays and Weinstein small and fragmentary, we were able to re¤t only a few of them, and there are only 11 rim sherds in the sample. Consequently, we were only able to determine vessel shape for 11 sherds: 10 bowls and one jar. None of the sherds in the sample has clear evidence of sooting on the exterior or interior . This suggests that, if the vessels were used for cooking, the source of heat was indirect, probably from some type of hot-rock heating. Alternatively , the vessels may have been used primarily for serving or storage. Since we have relatively little direct information on vessel function, we address the issue obliquely from two angles. First, the small amount of early pottery found at Poverty Point strongly suggests that it played either a very minimal or very specialized role in the society. Speci¤cally, it seems clear that pottery played, at best, a very minor role in the culinary tool kit of the Poverty Point people.This is particularly apparent when the amount of pottery at the site is contrasted with the ubiquitous Poverty Point Objects, whose primary function is attributed to earth-oven cooking (Ford and Webb 1956). For example, the Goad excavations recovered ca. 9,925 g of Poverty Point Objects in features alone (Connolly 2001:113), whereas the total weight of the early pottery from all locations in the Goad excavations was ca. 520 g. This observation, however,raises the question,If the Poverty Point people knew of pottery and how to make it, why did they not produce it in large quantities for use in cooking and other utilitarian tasks? One possibility is that steatite may have served as the primary container for the Poverty Point people and, thus, it may have obviated the need for pottery. However, as Gibson and Melancon (this volume) note, given the undoubtedly high cost of importing steatite vessels from the...