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Pottery is an amazing artifact. There are many types, all with different designs or no design at all. Designs come from the potter’s imagination or his beliefs. All have different tempers, some of grit or small pebbles, some of Spanish Moss that has burned away, leaving only a trace of its existence. Some types are tempered with sand and some with clay; others with what some would call no temper at all, only to discover that there are small, microscopic sponge spicules that hold it together.
Think about this. Pottery is a lot like people. Each one was fashioned by the Potter’s hand, each uniquely designed from the Potter’s heart. Some were designed for daily use while others were designed for special occasions and celebration. All were tempered, but all have a different temperament. How has the Potter designed you and tempered you? What was His special plan and purpose? We are clay in His hands. Many are like much of the pottery we find, broken and discarded by the world, but there is still hope. Like the pot sherds that were broken and cast aside, then recovered and rounded into gaming stones to become the center of joy in an Indian’s life, our broken lives can be renewed to become the center of joy in the Potter’s heart.
For more detailed information on these and other pottery types within the Southeastern United States, please see our “Publications” page to order Lloyd Schroder’s Field Guide to Southeastern Indian Pottery (Revised & Expanded).
This amazing new book contains over 500 pottery types, each explained in very readable terms with thousands of illustrations and maps of distribution. The volume has earned the acilades of senior archaeologists like David Anderson of the University of Tennessee and well-known Georgia archaeologist Jerald Ledbetter. No serious student of archaeology should be without it.
Ocmulgee National Monument
Temper: Grit, rarely crushed shell
Distribution: In Florida, North and Northwestern Florida near Georgia borders.
Age: Historic, Leon and Jefferson counties Leon-Jefferson period
Vessel forms: Casuela with in-curved rims and open bowls with out-flaring rims.
Decoration: Narrow incised lines which appear to have been partially smoothed over. Designs are scrolls, guilloches, combined scrolls and straight lines, chevron elements, and horizontal lines parallel to lip. Decoration confined to rim area of casuela forms or the upper and interior surfaces of flaring rims on open bowls.
a. Florida Museum of Natural History, b. C. B. More, c. Lloyd Schroeder collection
Temper: Diatomaceous earth
Distribution:Occurs sporadically through the middle and lower St. Johns and Oklawaha River basins, Also in central Florida and the Lake region.
Age: Middle Woodland, St. Johns 1a period or slightly later
Vessel forms: medium sized bowls and jars.
Decoration: Bold, simple geometric and curvilinear designs, crudely executed with broad incisions, often 7-7 mm in width.
Florida Museum of Natural History
Temper: sand
Distribution: Glades region
Age: Glades IIa, A.D. 750-900
Vessel forms: Most vessels in the Glades region are bowls with incurved walls and rims
Decoration: Loops or arches incised below the lip in vertical rows with open sides down continuously around the rim. Each vessel has the same number of loops per stack, but pots may differ as to the number of loops in each stack. As many as 11 loops in a single stack have been found.
a. Lloyd Schroeder collection b. Florida Anthropologist
Temper: Fiber, most likely Spanish Moss
Distribution: From the southern coast of Georgia south along the Florida coast into southeastern Florida
Age: Late Archaic Orange period into Early Woodland
Vessel forms: Deep bowls, most with flat bottoms. Rims are simple and straight with rounded or slightly flattened lip.
Decoration: Designs include nested chevrons, nested squares and diamonds, hatched oblique lines in a band, or triangular area with oblique hatching.
C. B. More
Temper: Diatomaceous earth
Distribution: Central west coast and manatee region around and south of Tampa Bay, Florida
Age: Weeden Island I & II Late Woodland period
Vessel forms: Large jar with folded rim only definite shape evidence
Decoration: Diagonal incising like Carrabelle Incised
C. B. More
Temper: Diatomaceous earth. Temper and distribution are the key differences between Papys Bayou Incised and Weeden Island Punctated.
Distribution: central coast and Manatee region. Also extends eastward into peninsular Florida as a minority type.
Age: Weeden Island I & II, but most common in Weeden Island II, late Woodland
Vessel forms: a few effigy forms, flattened-globular bowls and jar shapes most common.
Decoration: Like Weeden Island Incised, but the range of design is not as great. Fine line incising. Emphasizes conventional design as seen in the Weeden Island Incised during the Weeden Island II period.
a. Florida Museum of Natural History b. C. B. More
Temper: crushed live shell. There is also a little sand and grit. Paste is sometimes compact; sometimes laminated and control. Paste core usually is gray and surfaces usually bluff or red-buff. In some cases pottery was fired gray-black throughout.
Distribution: found mainly in western Northwest Florida, but extends to the east and south as a minority type.
Age: related to the Fort Walton period.
Vessel forms: comparable to those of the Fort Walton series. Rim was usually unmodified except for an occasional heavy, rounded exterior fold. Lips are range from flat to round-pointed. Basis were rounded. Appendages may be small vertical loop handles and ornamental notes beneath the rim.
Decoration: declaration about the same as for Walton incised except there seems to be a little more emphasis on incision with less punctuation. Some design suggestive of highly stylized “death’s-head” motif.
Temper: shell
Distribution: Western and of Northwest Florida and probably south and central Alabama. May extend to South Mississippi to merge with distribution of Natchez types.
Age: related to Fort Walton period, middle Mississippian period.
Vessel forms: comparable to Point Washington incised.
Decoration: Four incised lines (having three parallel strips between them). Designs may be straight or curvilinear. Designs parallel Point Washington Incised designs, except that it is shell tempered.
a. Gordon R Willey, b. Florida Museum of Natural History
Temper: Sand and lumps of crushed limestone
Distribution: Perico Island and the area of Tampa Bay, Florida
Age: Middle Woodland, coeval with Deptford, pre-Weeden Island. May cross-date with Glades I or II
Vessel forms: Bowl with incurved rim or jar with short collar.
Decoration: Sharp incised lines made with fin-edged tool on wet paste. Design arranged in border band below rim. Two motifs known. One of these has opposed series of parallel diagonal lines. The other has horizontal parallel lines with diamond-shaped insets. The insets are filled with triangular punctations.
Lloyd Schroeder collection, Gordon R. Willey, Jackie Fuller collection
Look for poor execution in comparison to Point Washington. Punctation is often part of the design element. Designs are linked and limited to the upper portion of the vessel while designs are often independent in Point Washington pottery and may cover the body of the vessel. Look for one or more lines below the rim.
Temper: Sand
Distribution: Central Coast and Manatee region
Age: Safety Harbor related (Willey), Late Mississippian
Vessel forms: Big collared ollas or bowls, simple open bowls with lightly incurved or straight rims, and casuela bowls. Rims are unmodified or slightly thickened. Lips are indentations or pinching on exterior rim edge. Base is rounded. Appendages are vertical loop handles with nodes at the top.
Decoration: Medium to broad line incision and small to large punctuation made in soft or wet paste of vessel before firing. Design is much more limited in range than safety Harbor incised. Single-line arcade encircling vessel below the rim with a row of heavy, often rectangular, punctations above is a common motif. Rectilinear-curvilinear guillotine or meander with backgrounds sometimes filled with punctuations similar to Fort Walton, parallel incised lines and volutes and running scroll or wavy bands composed of two or three lines are other designs. In general, execution is slovenly. Designs are almost always confined to the upper exterior portion of the vessel.
a. Florida Museum of Natural History, b.
Ocmulgee National Monument
Look for independent design, better incising than Pinellas Incised, the absence of punctation and bared ovals.
Temper: fine sand
Distribution: Northwest Florida coast. Seems more common to the western end of this range. Probably extends into coastal Alabama and interior Alabama.
Age: Fort Walton related (Willey), Middle Mississippian
Vessel forms: Shallow bowl or dish, flattened-globular bowl, casuela bowl (most common), collard globular bowl, short-colored jars, bottles (common), double bowl, jar with cambered rim, simple bowl with effigies of fixed, gourd-effigy form. Most rims thickened except for a preceptable thinning at the lip edge. Long, thin folds are common. These are usually underlined within incised line. Lips are rounded-pointed.
Decoration: Incising in soft vessel surface. Use of series of two, three, or four lines to carry out all designs. Like figures in isolation, complicated scroll patterns, running scrolls, ovals intersected with crossbars, diamonds and the shape figures, and the combination of curvilinear and rectilinear elements into composite patterns are the principal design motifs.
Florida Museum of Natural History
Temper: Ranges from fine sand to medium-coarse sand to diatomaceous earth
Distribution: Manatee and Tampa Bay region and for an unknown distance north
Age: Safety Harbor related (Willey), Late Mississippian
Vessel forms: Bowls with slightly incurved rims, flattened-globular bowls, deep bowls with recurved rims and flat base, beaker-bowls, short-collared jars, long collared jars, bottles
Decoration: Incised line and dot punctations made in soft or wet surface of vessel before firing. Crude, poorly drawn rectilinear and curvilinear designs which are essentially geometric. Volutes pendant from rim, concentric diamond elements, parallel lines in curvilinear formations, encircling wavy or zigzag bands, X-shaped elements with scroll ends, continuous intertwined bands, and filfot cross elements. Punctuations used as a filler for designs. Indentation and fluting and low-relief modeling are sometimes seen as decorative features. Highly stylized naturalistic designs used.
Florida Museum of Natural History
Temper: Fine grit or sand
Distribution: St. Marys region and some in the Leon and Jefferson County areas
Age: 17th century historic Spanish mission period
Vessel forms: Medium and deep pots, shallow bowls, globular jars, Spanish soup bowls
Decoration: Incising is curvilinear and rectilinear along rims and upper portions of vessels.
a. Florida Museum of Natural History b. Donated by Paleo Enterprises c. Jim Tatum collection
Temper: Diatomaceous earth
Distribution: Manatee region of Florida north to Tampa Bay with occasional occurrences in St. Johns region of Northeastern Florida.
Age: Englewood related (Willey), Weeden Island II and Safety Harbor periods, Late Woodland
Vessel forms: Flattened-globular bowls, open bowls with slightly incurved rims, and jars. Rims are unmodified. Lips flat to rounded-pointed.
Decoration: Medium to fine incising and triangular-shaped or teardrop punctations made in soft vessel surface. Designs are bands arranged diagonally to vertical axis of vessel and filled with punctations, interlocking rectilinear bands and chevron arrangements alternating plain and punctate-filled, triangles pendant from rim filled with punctations, and series of triangles point-to-point or nested and filled with punctations.
a. Lloyd Schroeder collection b. Florida Anthropologist
Temper: Diatomaceous earth
Distribution: same as St. Johns Plain throughout Northeast Florida, Tampa Bay and the Manatee region, and South Florida
Age: Middle Woodland, St. Johns 1 period
Vessel forms: the most common vessel forms are large bowls.
Decoration: incised designs include nested Chevron’s, nested squares or diamonds, hatched lines in a band, or triangular area with hatching.
See Biscayne Roughened
This is a recently recognized type from the reanalysis of the Deptford site (9CH2) in Chatham County, Georgia
Temper: Diatomaceous earth
Distribution: known only from Chatham County, Georgia, and presumably Northeast Florida
Age: Middle Woodland, St. Johns 1 period
Vessel forms: unknown
Decoration: Shell scraping on surface of St. Johns paste
Gordon R Willey (1949)
Temper: Sand tempered with compact, granular paste core. Core is gray-black; surfaces are usually buff-fired.
Distribution: all of Florida Gulf Coast, but seems to be more common around Tampa Bay. The type appears as a minority one in all regions and contexts.
Age: Weeden Island II related and probably Englewood. May extend into Fort Walton period. Late Woodland
Vessel forms: mostly collared jars. Rims unmodified.
Decoration: incised lines made in soft clay before firing. Lines are arranged horizontally on vessel, incircling neck or body below the rim. Lines very from faint and sharp to deep and broad. Spacing of lines ranges from 5 mm to 1 cm. Quite often the incised lines have an “overhanging” or “clapboard” appearance when viewed in profile.decoration appears on the upper portion of the vessel.
Florida Museum of Natural History
Temper: Fine sand
Distribution: Southern Florida in and around Broward County
Age: Glades III, A.D. 1200 – 1400
Vessel forms: Deep bowls with thickened, squared rims that extend beyond the sides of the vessel.
Decoration: One or more incised lines below the rim on the outer surface.
The Florida Anthropologist
Temper: plant fibers
Distribution: This is a minority type in the St. Johns Valley, found only at six sites: Mt. Royal, Silver Glen Spring midden, Bluffton, Tick island, Enterprise, and Black Hammock. Even at these sites it is not as numerous as Orange Incised.
Age: Temporarily, this type fits in the Orange Period, but its exact position within that horizon is not certain. James B. Griffin (1945 the: 222) suggests that this type may be later than Orange Incised, but other data tend to negate this hypothesis.
Vessel forms: Unknown
Decoration: the distinction of this type lies in the nature of the designs. They are often curvilinear, and usually the incised zones are replaced by punctate-filled areas.
a. University of Georgia collections b. Florida Museum of Natural History
Temper: Fine sand
Distribution: the Florida Gulf Coast area from Pensacola to the Little Manatee. Probably extends west of Pensacola for an unknown distance. Occasionally found in the St. Johns area through trade.
Age: Weeden Island related (Williey)
Vessel forms: Known vessel forms are open bowls, bowls with slightly in curved rims, flattened-globular bowls, and simple jar forms. In burials, forms include squared-globular bowls, collard globular bowls, squared and cylindrical beakers, double-and single-Globe and jars both plain and in semi-effigy form, Gourd effigy bowls with single lateral projecting handle, Lobed or melon bowls, and miscellaneous forms. Rims include a variety of in curving forms, some which are abruptly recurved near the margin. Out-slanting rims of open bowls or beakers are less common. Folding or thickening are more common than interior folding. Incised or linear punctate lines often encircled the fold on the side. Lips are usually underscored by incised line. Lips are pointed or flat-round and also flat. And incised linear-punctuated line often encircles the vessel on top of the lip. Bases are round, flat-circular, and flat-rectangular. Triangulate lateral rim projections, often bearing decorations on their interior surfaces, arranged for to an open bowl.
Decoration: Decorations are a combination of incised lines, and small dots or triangular punctuations. All decorations are made before firing. Basic design principle is one of contrasting areas with the featured design expressed in the negative, or in undecorated areas. Hatching, crosshatching, and feilds or rows of punctuations are used as backgrounds. Background areas and plain areas are separated by incised line. Designs are essentially curvilinear and include continuous meanderings and simple and compound lobate forms. Decoration is often confined to a zone encircling the upper half of the vessel exterior; however, the decorating of the entire exterior surface, with the exception of the base, is often noted.
