Ceramic and Native Americans
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What do ceramic wares mean in terms of Native Americans? Up until now we have been talking about ceramics and not about people. This is where the fun begins and the disagreements among archaeologists are many! For years archaeologists have defined wares as it they represented a particular group of people that are inferred to be linguistically, socially and politically connected. But is this the case? In the past twenty years, however, accumulating evidence suggests that the distribution of wares do not correlate consistently with the boundaries of linguistic or political units. However, they do represent the day-to-day interaction between adjacent people and the increased regionalization of cultures in the Late Woodland Period.
A ware seems to spread along a river system and across a particular geographical province. Ware distribution seems to reflect more everyday social and economic interaction, and less linguistic distributions and political units. In Virginia the distribution of ceramics wares and their blended attributes reflect the degree of cultural fluidity, relationship, and interaction—social (marriage, ceremonial, warfare) and economic (trade). Three examples will now be presented to illustrate cultural interaction and fluidity: the Algonquian speaking Powhatan Chiefdom from the Coastal Plain, the Siouan speaking people from the southern Piedmont and Ridge & Valley, and the Siouan/Muskogean/Iroquoian speaking people from extreme southwest Virginia.
Coastal Plain
The Algonquian speaking Powhatan Chiefdom covered a large region in the Coastal Plain of Virginia at the time of English contact, from the Potomac River in the north to Virginia Beach in the south, the Eastern Shore west to the Fall Line at Richmond. For that part of Virginia dominated or influenced by the Powhatan Chiefdom four major wares occur during the Late Woodland Period and into the initial period of English contact. From north to south the wares are Potomac Creek, Townsend, Gaston, and Roanoke. Please see the ware descriptions for details of their attributes.
Potomac Creek Ware is found in the Interior Coastal Plain of Maryland and northern Virginia north of and including the Rappahannock River drainage. The ware also occurs in small amounts along the Potomac River in the Piedmont and in the northern Shenandoah Valley. The core region of its distribution seems related to the Conoy/Piscataway in Maryland and the northern most region of the Powhatan Chiefdom.
Townsend Ware was initial defined in Delaware and continues south along the Atlantic coast into the Virginia Beach area. An identical ware, Colington, was defined for North Carolina. Also, Townsend Ware occurs in the Interior Coastal Plain, and a few sherds were identified along the James and Rappahannock rivers in the Piedmont. Accept for local variation in the style of decoration, the ware is amazingly uniform in the Coastal Plain from Delaware to North Carolina.
Gaston Ware, first defined in the Roanoke Rapids area of North Carolina, occurs in the Interior Coastal Plain of Virginia south of the James River where it is associated with both the Powhatan Chiefdom and the Iroquoian speaking Meherrin Indians. The ware, however, is found as far west as Clarksville in the Piedmont of Virginia, and may be associated with the Siouan speaking Occaneechi Indians.
Roanoke Ware was first recognized in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina at the 16th century English settlement at Roanoke. In the Outer Coastal Plain in northern North Carolina it forms a type under Colington Ware. The ware exists in the Outer Coastal Plain of southeastern Virginia, but is not found north of the Rappahannock River.
These four wares couldn’t be more different in temper, surface treatment and decoration, but yet they all represent regional expressions of the Powhatan Chiefdom. Obvious they don’t correlate exactly with the Powhatan Chiefdom, an expanding polity, or even with the Algonquian language family. But, vastly more importantly, they correlate to both the regionalization and fluidity of Native American culture during the Late Woodland Period that crosses linguistic and political division. As early as 1985, Daniel Mouer, while looking at the ceramic variability near the Fall Line, remarked that the Powhatan Chiefdom may have blended ethnic groups, and that the boundaries between these groups were not necessarily territorial.
Southern Piedmont & Ridge and Valley
The second region illustrating the difficulty in directly associating wares with Native American people is the southern Piedmont and the adjacent Ridge and Valley of Virginia. There the association between wares and political and linguistic boundaries is harder to compare, because, on the one hand, there are numerous wares, and, on the other hand, only scant historical references to the Siouan speaking Occaneechi, Saponi, and Totero. For that portion of Virginia--Fall Line to Smyth County--there are six defined wares, all part of the Eastern Woodland Ceramic Tradition. There exist only slight attribute changes, similar to facies change in geology, in surface treatment and decoration as one travels from east to west.
Clarksville Ware is the pottery furthest to the east. As one moves west Dan River Ware is more common. As one enters the Ridge and Valley, the closely related Wythe Ware is more common. All three of these wares have similar paste and temper. However, the surface treatment and rim decorations vary slightly as one travels from east to west. But, once one enters the Ridge and Valley region ceramics become much more complex. There the surface treatments and decorations remains relatively constant, but the temper changes. Radford Ware is limestone tempered, New River Ware is shell tempered, and Smyth Ware is soapstone tempered. Please see the ware descriptions for details of their attributes. It is very common to find a number of these wares on the same site in relatively even percentages, especially Radford, Wythe, and New River wares. What does it all mean in terms of the people? As early as 1980, Paul Gardner hypothesized that societies of the southern Piedmont and Ridge & Valley were rather loosely bounded units sharing a common culture and language. Relatively free unstructured social interactions such as visiting or trading between people of separate groups will blend their material culture. Sharply demarcated ceramic wares are unlikely to develop.
In general, the distribution of Clarksville/Dan River/Wythe wares are associated with the documentation of the closely related Siouan speaking Occaneechi, Saponi, and Totero Indians. The closely related western Radford, New River and Smyth wares, their main difference being temper, also probably represent Siouan speaking people, maybe the Totero. The mountains of southwestern Virginia have sliced and diced up the region. Plus, four major rivers originate there, James, Roanoke, New, and Tennessee, creating easy avenue for communication. The mountains and the rivers explain in part the complex mixture of related wares, illustrating the increased regionalization, but also the fluidity, and blending of people in southwest Virginia during the Late Woodland Period. If this ceramic complexity isn’t baffling enough, wait until we travel to extreme southwest Virginia.
Extreme Southwest Virginia
In extreme southwest Virginia one encounters many of the same wares listed above--Wythe, Radford, New River, which represent part of the much larger Eastern Woodland Ceramic Tradition. However, other wares, representative of the Mississippian Shell Tempered Ceramic Tradition and the Southern Appalachian Complicated Stamped Ceramic Tradition, indicate contact with quiet different cultures outside of the region.
Dallas Ware is a Mississippian Shell Tempered ceramic originating in eastern Tennessee, associated with Muskogean speaking people. Dallas Ware, linked with substructure mound sites in Virginia, predominantly occurs along the Powell River drainage in Lee and Scott counties. It indicates the arrival of a different people. Occasionally, Dallas Ware is found further east along the Clinch and Holston river drainages as exotic trade vessels. Pisgah and Qualla wares, representative of the Southern Appalachian Complicated Stamped Ceramic Tradition, were defined in western North Carolina and represent the Iroquoian speaking Cherokee. These wares occur in extreme southwest Virginia and further to the east as trade vessels. They may be found on the same sites as Dallas Ware. However, certain attributes, the complicated stamped motifs as well as the distinctive rims of Pisgah and Qualla wares, have been identified on local wares, especially Radford and Wythe. One is left with the conclusion that intense ceramic mixing occurs in extreme southwest Virginia, reflecting the social, political, and linguistic blending and fluidity of the Siouan, Muskogean, and Iroquoian speaking peoples.
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