Ceramics question

[Older The Better]

I hunt for artifacts regularly In se Kansas, there is only one spot where I find ceramics, which is also the only spot bone is preserved. I believe it is due to the mussel shells also in that spot helping to preserve them.

My question is this, I thought ceramics were fairly durable and should survive burial well, can a fired vessel deteriorate in certain soils? Is it dependent on other factors like temper or climate?

 

[newnan man]

I don't know much about pottery but here in Florida it is very common and seems to hold up well. Almost no complete items, all are just shards.

 

[joshuaream]

There are a couple of factors at play.

The first is likely to coincidental in many areas, and that is a bit of salt allows you to fire shell tempered pots at a hotter temp which makes for a better earthenware. So lots of shards come from states that have more salt in their environment. It is thought that the Mississippian peoples figured this trick out.

The second factor is farming. 100 years of plowing tends to breakdown shards into stuff that looks a lot like dirt. About the only place I found shards in Northern Indiana were construction sites or by digging below the plow zone. They were surprisingly common, but made of relatively 'earthy' feeling material. (They felt more like a very hard dirt clod than a chunk of ceramic floor tile.)

 

[smokeythecat]

Woodland period pottery does hold up very well, however, with enough time, it will turn to dust.

 

[Older The Better]

I can’t really figure out the temper in the stuff I have. Clearly mussel shells were available but I really don’t see anything. Farming would account for some spots but I’ve got some in upland bluffs that are rocky and to my knowledge always pasture... maybe trampling? I was also wondering if freeze thaw cycles would break them down too.

 

[joshuaream]

I can’t really figure out the temper in the stuff I have. Clearly mussel shells were available but I really don’t see anything. Farming would account for some spots but I’ve got some in upland bluffs that are rocky and to my knowledge always pasture... maybe trampling? I was also wondering if freeze thaw cycles would break them down too.

Absolutely, freeze/thaw would help speed the crumbling of them. A lot of the pottery was grit, sand or fibre tempered. Those are a lot less durable than shell as I understand it.

 

[ToddsPoint]

I knew an old guy from Edwards Co. IL., deceased now. When he was a kid, his dad broke out a field that had never been farmed. He and his brothers job was to walk behind the plow and break up all the Indian pottery that was coming out. Back then, it was no big deal. They destroyed thousands of dollars worth of pots and didn't know any better. Gary

 

[monsterrack]

Pottery in the lower MS. valley seems to hold up very well. We have some creeks due to multiple occupation over the years that you can fill a 5gal bucket with broken pottery in a 1 day walk.

 

[Older The Better]

It’s a good day if I get a single pice

 

[joshuaream]

I knew an old guy from Edwards Co. IL., deceased now. When he was a kid, his dad broke out a field that had never been farmed. He and his brothers job was to walk behind the plow and break up all the Indian pottery that was coming out. Back then, it was no big deal. They destroyed thousands of dollars worth of pots and didn't know any better. Gary

Back in the 80's when I lived in South America people collected pottery and stored them in orange sacks (those net bags that they sell oranges or onions in at roadside stands in some places.) Breaking them was also a common option.

 

[Lone Star]

Here on the Texas Coast the pottery is the most common thing found followed by bone, with flint being as scarce as hens teeth. I've seen sand tempering and shell tempering mostly. Every once in a while you will see crushed pottery as tempering too. Just about everything has traces of asphaltum on it. It was used for waterproofing and decoration

 

[Older The Better]

I’m the opposite, these are all flint flakes I’ve picked up, I keep them to get an idea what materials were used and how common/rare it is in the area... vs probably around 15 pieces of pottery

 

[monsterrack]

View attachment 1777044
I’m the opposite, these are all flint flakes I’ve picked up, I keep them to get an idea what materials were used and how common/rare it is in the area... vs probably around 15 pieces of pottery

In my area we also can pick up a lot of flakes and I use to flip them over and not a point I would go on. Now after finding many flakes with micro chipping I pick up all of them an check for an type of extra flaking.

 

[Older The Better]

In my area we also can pick up a lot of flakes and I use to flip them over and not a point I would go on. Now after finding many flakes with micro chipping I pick up all of them an check for an type of extra flaking.

Yep that’s why they are dumped out, now that I’m better at identifying artifacts I’m going back and double checking for tools I may have missed before