James B. Stoltman

The Role of Petrography in the Study of Archaeological Ceramics

Petrographic microscopy is a venerable geological technique that has been used in the service of archaeology at least since the 1930s (e.g., Shepard, 1936, 1939). Compared to newer, sophisticated, “high-tech” approaches to the study of the compositional analysis of ceramics (e.g., neutron activation or acid extraction), petrography surely rates the appellation “old fashioned.”The goal of this chapter is to describe and evaluate critically the current status and potential of ceramic petrography as an approach to the compositional analysis of archaeological ceramics, especially in light of the increasingly widespread and successful application of newer technologies for determining the elemental composition of ceramics that might be seen as rendering petrography obsolete (useful earlier reviews of ceramic petrography may be found in Freestone, 1991 and 1995; Peacock, 1970; Williams, 1983).

Place of origin of prehistoric inhabitants of Aztalan, Jefferson co., Wisconsin

The archaeological site of Aztalan in southeastern Wisconsin is a large, palisaded complex of mounds and other structures along the banks of the Crawfish River in Jefferson County. The unusual nature of this settlement has been noted for many years and the origin of the inhabitants has been the subject of considerable debate. The similarities between the materials at Aztalan and other Mississippian period sites to the south in Illinois have long been noted. The largest center of the Mississippian culture at Cahokia near East St. Louis, Illinois, has often been cited as the likely home of the founders of Aztalan. Using strontium isotopes in human teeth and bone we examine the question of migration and the possibility of nonlocal individuals among the skeletal remains from Aztalan. Our results suggest that there were a number of foreign individuals among the locals. The isotopic signal for some of the foreigners matches values from Cahokia, but does not prove that this was their place of origin.

On the logic of archaeological inference: Early Formative pottery and the evolution of Mesoamerican societies

The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. and Flannery et al. to which Neff et al. (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al. (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups derived from an extremely unsystematic collection of sherds from only seven localities, Blomster et al. claim that the Olmec received no carved gray or kaolin white pottery from other regions; they also claim that neighboring valleys in the Mexican highlands did not exchange such pottery with each other. Not only can one not leap directly from the elements in potsherds to such sweeping culture-historical conclusions, it is also the case that other lines of evidence (including petrographic analysis) have for 40+ years produced empirical evidence to the contrary. In the end, it was their commitment to an unfalsifiable model of Olmec superiority that led Blomster et al. to bypass the logic of archaeological inference.

New evidence in the Upper Mississippi Valley for Premississippian Cultural interaction with the American bottom

The recovery of anomalous (red-slipped, shell/grog/sandstone-tempered) pottery from three sites in the Upper Mississippi Valley (UMV) prompted a petrographic analysis of thin sections of 21 vessels from these sites. The goal was to evaluate their possible derivation from the American Bottom, the nearest locality where such pottery commonly occurs. Among the 12 UMV vessels tempered with shell (nine red slipped), ten were determined, based on comparisons to thin sections of stylistically similar pottery from the American Bottom, to have essentially identical physical compositions. Additionally, four vessels suspected of being limestone-tempered were determined to have been tempered with a type of sandstone that out-crops only farther south in Illinois and Iowa. Of the three UMV sites, only the Fisher Mounds Site Complex (FMSC) produced the presumed exotic pottery in undisturbed, dated contexts. The petrographic evidence is consistent with the C-14 age and lithic assemblage at FMSC in suggesting an actual influx of people from the American Bottom into the UMV. The time of this influx, the Edelhardt phase of the Emergent Mississippian/Terminal Late Woodland period, ca. cal A.D. 1000-1050, is earlier than previously believed, i.e., precedes the main Mississippian period in the American Bottom.

Ceramic Production in Shang Societies of Anyang

This article describes the results of petrographic analyses of ceramic thin sections from the Shang sites of Huanbei and Yinxu in Anyang, Henan, China. The initial goal was to determine the physical composition of locally produced ceramic artifacts. This was accomplished by focusing upon gray wares, the most common ceramic class in Shang contexts at Anyang, and comparing the findings to local, clay-rich sediments in both qualitative and quantitative terms. The resulting data provide objective bases for distinguishing imported ceramic items, notably those with exotic rock tempers and/or distinctive, low-silt pastes, and for making further inquiries into the role of ceramic production and exchange in the development and functioning of Shang society. The study revealed an unexpected amount of compositional diversity within Shang gray wares and indicates that at least three local sediments and three different technologies were utilized in the manufacture of ceramic objects. For most ceramic objects utilized in daily activities, such as storage and serving vessels and drainpipes, untempered loessic sediments were employed. By contrast, for cooking vessels, alluvial sediments tempered either with sand or grit (crushed rock, some of which was exotic) were normally employed. A third technology, for bronze piece molds, utilized loess, which was untempered, but apparently processed so as to concentrate the silt content thus increasing porosity and minimizing shrinkage, properties that would reduce flaws in cast bronzes.

Poverty Point Objects Reconsidered

In this paper we examine the enigmatic but plentiful hand-molded, baked-clay objects known as Poverty Point Objects (PPOs) from a number of different facets. Although the vast majority of these Terminal Archaic artifacts are found in the Lower Mississippi Valley, they also are found at sites as far north as Clarksville, Indiana, and as far east as the Atlantic Coast of Florida. Although most archaeologists generally assume PPOs were used primarily for roasting food, we consider a variety of other possible functions, including their use in boiling water and as symbolic tokens linking the far-flung Poverty Point culture area. We demonstrate that even though a few other archaeological cultures in the world used round clay balls for cooking, the Poverty Point culture was unique in the care, variety, and standardized forms of its baked-clay objects. We discuss the various PPO types and their possible functions in nine distinct regions in the southeastern United States and, based on our thin-section analyses of 66 samples, we demonstrate that PPOs circulated among different sites in these regions.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE CADES POND CULTURE IN NORTH-CENTRAL FLORIDA: THE RIVER STYX SITE (8AL458)

Abstract The River Styx site was an important Middle Woodland ceremonial center in north-central Florida that included a horseshoe-shaped earthen embankment, a burial mound containing only cremations, and diverse nonlocal artifacts. The site was recorded more than forty years ago but a report was never written. This article presents a summary of excavation results at River Styx and analysis of the pottery assemblage based on archived notes and collections at the Florida Museum of Natural History. From the pottery assemblage, 24 vessel lots, consisting of mostly partially reconstructed vessels, are described in terms of form, surface treatment, and mineralogical constituents characterized by petrographic analysis. The provenance of each vessel is inferred, and more than half of the analyzed assemblage is judged to be nonlocal.

Petrographic Analysis of Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian Ceramics at the Iva Site (47Lc42), Onalaska, Wisconsin

The Iva site contained a rare effigy mound and Middle Mississippian (Ramey horizon) component within the Late Woodland Lewis phase territory of the Upper Mississippi River valley. Salvage excavations in 2002–2003 recovered fragments of numerous Angelo Punctated, Powell Plain, and Ramey Incised vessels, including examples of Angelo and Ramey in direct association. Petrographic analysis was conducted on seven grit-tempered and six shell-tempered vessels, eight of which are stylistically Mississippian. The results indicate that four of eight Mississippian vessels were likely manufactured in the American Bottom, with the other half being local imitations of Mississippian styles. These data are compared to contemporaneous Ramey horizon components in the Driftless Area of Cahokias northern hinterland.