As I have mentioned, Jim is working on the analysis of the Aboriginal pottery. We just had a brief discussion about what he has been looking at and so I am going to share with you a little bit of that. While some Early (BC900-300) and Middle Woodland (AD200-900) pottery has been uncovered, the majority of the pottery coming from the site has been Late Woodland (AD1300-1650), specifically Potomac Creek and Moyoane types.
Moyaone is a Late Woodland ware, characterized by fine grained sand and mica temper, soft texture, compact paste, and smoothed interior and exterior surfaces.
(www.jefpat.org)Potomac Creek is a Late Woodland ware, characterized by a crushed quartz or sand temper, cord-marked exteriors, and rim strips (collars).
(www.jefpat.org)We have talked about the different pottery types before so I won't go into specific details. When we were out in the field, most of the pottery we found was thought to be Potomac Creek pottery. Because of the similarities of the two types it can be hard to identify until it is been cleaned and looked at closely (under a microscope if necessary). The pottery was found in every locus except the Jailhouse Locus. So if we look at what we have, it suggests that we have different occupations of Port Tobacco from around BC900-AD1650. What kind of occupation I can't say. It may have been a seasonal camp or something more permanent. Port Tobacco is on a floodplain and has good land for cultivating crops which would make it an attractive area for Native Americans to settle.
For detailed information about each of the pottery types, I direct you to the Jefferson Patterson Park website.
Jim will have more to say on this topic once he has finished the analysis of the pottery.
- Peter
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