Ancient Digs! + In Situs!

[BIRDDOG]

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[BIRDDOG]

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[riverdiver]

Although my first love is bottles, I cant get enough of this thread so I have to put my 2 cents in and show off my Pre-contact pottery shard. This was recovered from the bottom gravels of a river in New Hampshire while scuba diving for bottles. It is approx 9" x 5".

ENJOY!

 

[GEEMAN]

EXCELENT thread Lex. It brings back some great memories. I used to live in Mt Vernon IN 30 years ago and we hunted arrowheads from Evansville,IN to Cairo,IL on the north side of the Ohio River and from Cairo to Henderson KY on the south side. We hunted 100+ sites easily (Probably more) but barely scratched the surface as to the number of sites that were really there. Best day I had was a freind and I hit a BIG Mississippian site in southern IL and found 110 arrowheads between us.The vast majority were the typical Mississipian triangles but it was by far the best day we ever had.Found stuff from every time period from Paleo (a nice Dalton) to the first European contact = trade copper and a few gun flints. Broke my heart to leave that all behind when I moved away but that's the way life goes sometimes.


Nice shard RD. The white specs on/in it are crushed shell used to temper the clay for firing = give the pot strength. Hard to say how old it is without seeing it up close but I would say Lex is on the right trail = Mississipian roughly just before contact with Europeans. It could also be from first contact times as well.
Don't know the historical Indians in your neck of the woods but a quick search of your states Historical Society should give you good idea as to a time frame.
The peice is incised (the lines) and puntated (the row of small holes poked below the rim) and were done before firing the pot.The hole through the pot looks to be drilled after the pot was fired. Like Lex said, it could be for suspension or an attempt at a repair. Either way it's very cool and a nice find.

 

[lexdigger]

Thanks for sharing riverdiver. That is one Huge shard! We usually find smaller sized shards in the fields here in Ky. One time my friend pulled about half a pot out of the wall of a basement on a construction site! We searched for the rest of it, but it was obliterated!

Here's some of what we usually find.

 

[lexdigger]

One of the nicer shards I've found. It's incised and Thin... would have been a NICE piece of pottery!

 

[lexdigger]

This is most definitly the coolest piece of pottery I've ever found! It's a section of the stem from a pottery pipe! These types of pipes are usually tapered and straight... often refered to as a cloudblower or chillum.

 

[lexdigger]

The hole is not drilled through, it's fired into the clay. Most likely they used a piece of straw or something that would burn out during the firing process. Wish I could have found the other pieces to it!!!

 

[riverdiver]

Hi GEEMAN,

Thanks for the info about the shells in the clay, that makes alot of sense as many points and shards are recovered from shell middens here in NH. When I found these shards I took them to the NH Archaeology Bureau for identification and all they said was "nice shards", they are pre-contact and might be up to 1,300 years old. I offered it to them along with the location they were found and they were not interested, so as they say, finders keepers!

LEX, I love this post as it brings back childhood memories of fossil and point hunting in Southern California, thanks for reviving some great memories!

 

[lexdigger]

Funny you should mention fossils... I collect them as well!