I see tons of photos of arrowheads and stone artifacts, but rarely see anything on pottery. Here are a couple of pottery bowls I have come across in my travels. Thought they might be of interest. The black one is a Caddo piece made by low oxygen firing. The polish is applied by using a stone and rubbing the clay when it is still "greenware" unfired. Design is engraved. The small tan bowl is also a Caddo piece found near Toledo Bend Reservoir. It is cracked and glued, but finding pristine pottery is difficult in the extreme. Hope these pics turn out as I had to compress them. Red pigment in pots in the bottom photo is red ochre...it was used as a dye. Extracted from natural rocks and minerals. I have seen it in red, black, yellow, pink, white, and pale blue.
I used to have alot but when I got devorced the x took some of our best pots, I have a couple that I found I will post them later I have to take some pictures of them I love pots they are hard to find but well worth the effort
Those are some Mighty FINE finds. I have found lots of pottery pieces, but nothing bigger than a silver dollar. Wow, I cant get over those finds. I always wondered what they would look like. Thanks a lot for sharing those beautiful pieces. Looking forward to the next posts. HH
Here's some of mine...I have more. I would like to trade it for silver if anybody is interested. I also have some "sack" pots that still need to be put together, including some more nice Hohokam pieces.
"A culture truly grows great when old men plant trees in who's shade they know they will never sit"
Looks like they might have come from a plowed field judging from the way the rim is damaged on them all. Its hard to find whole pottery vessels.....even finding all of a broken one is sometimes difficult. I don't know about your area, but I find this to be the case here...you find large pieces of broken pottery they are always plain (undecorated), you find a piece with wonderful decoration, it will be tiny.....go figure!
Here is a little Bossier Focus pot...Caddo I, I dug up.....it happened to be in a road that was used by many skidders (large equipment used in logging).....largest piece was the bottom plate. Enough left to tell what it was and thats about all.
I think the broken stuff put back together is just as neat to tell you the truth- adds a bit of charachter. I really like that last one you posted. You ever restore the missing areas? If you're interested I can save you a lot of time and effort with a couple of tipss. Finding an entire pot around central wisconsin is impossible I think- I've looked my whole life and never found one. I've never found all the pieces to one even, the soil here is very acidic. Shell tempered stuff is all but completely gone and even grit tempered is hard to find much of. I have spent countless hours in sites that were about to be destroyed (like for a cranberry bog in one case) and the most I ever found was about 15-20% of any sigle pot. I have thousands of pieces from hundreds of vessels but never a whole thing. I'm starting to think I'll never get a whole one from around here. Even that one you found where the skidder was driving (I used to drive one) would have caused me to stop dead in my tracks and excavate a huge area in hopes of more, I guarentee it!
"A culture truly grows great when old men plant trees in who's shade they know they will never sit"
Well to be honest, I did a huge excavation at that spot....yielded a couple of broken points...the front part of an axe.....a caddo pipe missing most of the stem and several fragments of other pots...... I honestly cant explain how it managed to survive mostly intact, but I know there was an old village area there on a ridge overlooking a creek....the soil was a very coarse sand, so guess it just got buried over time and being smallish didn't break...until the skidders of course. The general area was also home to an old dump site.....so you were finding broken sprite bottles, spark plugs, asphalt shingles and beer cans at the same time......wonderful thing stratigraphy....LOL
No, I normally dont try and restore old pottery nor rechip points for that matter, but any suggestions on the pottery would be appreciated. I have tons of broken stuff...some decorated some plain depending on the site.
I'll have to email ya the tips on restoration I have learned, would take up way too much space here- I can post pics too. And with the broken points- you don't have to rechip a point to restore it, some of the same stuff I use for pottery works on points, even wax will work, soften it up, color it to match the rock, mould it to fit, let it cool and trim it down to match and there you go, point is just like new without damaging it at all.
"A culture truly grows great when old men plant trees in who's shade they know they will never sit"
Here is my largest and best pot so far. It is Quapaw and was found in 1979 in NE AR.
It was upside down with nothing else around it. It has 2 pressure cracks in it and a hole about the size of a quarter in it. Should I get it repaired or leave it like it isd2
That's a nice piece. I personally wouldn't worry about repair... I would just display it with the hole hidden. If you do repair it you could easily do it yourself because that type of repair is relatively easy. I use a two part putty similar to bondo (don't recall the name off hand but can get it for you if you want) you mix small amounts of part A and part B and fill the hole in like you would with playdough.. smooth it out to match the other surfaces and then match the color with acrylic stains (can get these at a ceramic store). Matching the color is the hardest part but if you just try a small area at a time until you have the color matched it's not too bad.. The cost of the putty and paints would probably outweigh the benefit of repairing this particular piece.. if you have more with similar problems I would consider it. If you run into any problems let me know.
As far as the pressure cracks go... I guess this is a similar situation. I wouldn't personally worry about it. If you want you can treat the whole piece. I found some pottery that was rapidly crumbling away so what I did is mixed some 527 Gluco Cement with paint thinner (not too much or you will end up with a white film on the piece) and soak the pottery in it. The paint thinner dissapates the glue enough that it can soak into the pottery and when it dries the piece is a lot stronger. You should play around with the amount of cement vs. thinner on some shards first though because like I mentioned if you aren't careful you can end up with a film on the pottery. The pieces I have treated like this have stopped crumbling and you can't really tell that they have been treated in such a way.
"A culture truly grows great when old men plant trees in who's shade they know they will never sit"
Hello, I'm just an old time head hunter from South Ark who gets lucky from time to time.
Lately, I've been searching a timber cut by an old creek and found a caddo camp site. A lot of pottery pieces and small bird points.
I did build a probe and while walking the site would probe for solid objects up to 18 inches deep. That's when I found this pot, my first. Others who also walk this area must have picked up the rest of the pot as it was in pieces and I had to do the digging over a period of a week because of the weather.
Still, I'm happy with what I got. I also have buckets of pieces of pottery with fantastic marking on them.
I hope to share some of my hunting experences both metal dect. and head hunting, in the future.
Hoss
Atlantis - those are some nice Caddo pieces. One of my favorite cultures for pottery, although they can be a pain to restore sometimes.
Cannon - Those are some wonderful southwestern pieces that you have displayed there. I would be interested in any pottery you may wish to get rid of. Sack pots or vessels! I can't seem to get enough pottery (even though my wife would disagree), it can be more addicting than even flint.
D2 - That's a whopper of a short necked Mississippian water bottle! If mine, I wouldn't bother patching a couple of tiny flaws...they add character. What are the dimensions on that? I've noticed that "blonde" pottery seems to come apart or warp easier than some of darker Neeley's Ferry paste or Bell.
Hoss - As stated above, I sure do love Caddoan Pottery. That one looks to be a Belcher Jar. Did you happen to find it in Lafayette or Miller Co? Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks a lot for sharing those beautiful pieces. Looking forward to the next posts. HH
d2
