Shifting priorities apparent in Middle and Late Woodland ceramics from Nova Scotia

Abstract

In the Maine–Maritimes Region, the Late Woodland (1350–500 BP) Period is thought to have been accompanied by a decrease in ceramic quality because of less-skilled potters. Although ceramics made during the Late Woodland tend to physically degrade easier than earlier ceramics because of coarser pastes and less well-joined coils, the reasons for the change in manufacturing practices have not been explored. Using the ceramic assemblage from the Gaspereau Lake Reservoir Site Complex in King’s County, Nova Scotia, Canada, this study used simple statistical techniques to suggest that potters increasingly used more expedient manufacture through time. These practices would have enabled potters to turn out pots under tighter deadlines to support large-scale gatherings that probably became more prevalent during the Late Woodland Period.

A Direct-Dated Ceramic AMS Sequence from the Gaspereau Lake Reservoir Site Complex, Maine–Maritimes Region, Northeastern North America

“…Indeed, this corresponds to what has been called the Middle-Late Woodland Transition, an enigmatic and controversial time in the prehistory of the Northeast and adjacent areas (e.g., Black 2004;Hart and Reith 2002;Hart and Brumbach 2009;Curtis 2004;Custer 1991). The data presented here and elsewhere (Woolsey 2017(Woolsey , 2018 shows that ceramic production changed significantly from the earlier Middle Woodland at this time, but that the change was gradual, in contrast to the abrupt transition at the Early-Middle Woodland transition (Allen 1980). This is in agreement with Black (2002), who also found that a transitional period should be recognized in the Quoddy Region of New Brunswick and Maine.…”

“…After 1450 BP, both rough and smooth coil breaks became more prevalent, whereas after 1300 BP, the majority of ceramics are characterized by smooth coil breaks. This shows that potters reduced the amount of paddling on each vessel through time (see Woolsey 2018) and that this change occurred over several hundred years, manifesting first as rough coil breaks and evolving to smooth coil breaks, rather than abruptly, suggesting in situ evolution of the ceramic tradition.…”

“…In 2011 and 2012, the Gaspereau Lake Reservoir Site Complex was excavated, yielding the largest ceramic assemblage in the Maine-Maritimes Region (Sanders et al 2014;Woolsey 2018). At more than 18,000 sherds, the assemblage consists of ceramics that could potentially come from all three Woodland periods; however, as with most sites in the region, the Early Woodland Period is represented by only a few sherds.…”

“…A Ceramic Sequence from Nova Scotia 421 of ceramic attributes from the Gaspereau Lake Reservoir (GLR) assemblage and acquired 10 AMS dates directly from ceramics (Table 1) to identify chronologically significant attributes and attribute clusters 1 using both statistics and qualitative classification techniques. Elsewhere, I demonstrated a statistical method using manufacturing attributes to build a classification (Woolsey 2018). This was done both to build a chronological model for comparison with other sites and to develop a picture of how and why ceramics changed through time.…”