Menu
Courtesy of the Alabama Archives Division
David Chase defined this type in 1959, naming it for the Averett site in Georgia.
The type is tempered with grit and is decorated with fine brush strokes that run parallel to the rim. Nodes, which are small round bumps of clay, may appear along the rim. The vessels are semi-conoidal or globular jars with shoulders. Globular jars have incurved rims while semi-conoidal jars have out-curving rims. The lips of the rim may be pinched, rounded or squared.
Averett pottery belongs to the Averett phase of the Late Woodland period. The type is distributed from the western central part of Georgia to eastern central Alabama along the central Chattahoochee River Valley.
Chase, David. The Averett Culture. Coweta Memorial Association Papers 1. Columbus, Georgia.
Ripley Bullen defined this type in the 1950’s, naming it for Historic period sites along the Chattahoochee River. The Creek Indians that made this pottery during the late 17th and early 18th century tempered it with sand or grit. The surface of this pottery is decorated with brush lines that run primarily horizontal to the rims of the vessel. Vessel forms include globular jars with straight collars and simple rims with out-curving rims and rounded lips.
The Creek indians that made this pottery lived in central Georgia and eastern Alabama. Later, many of them moved into northern and central Florida where they were known as Seminole Indians, taking their pottery making skills with them.
Recovered from coastal Georgia sites
This type was not formally named, but the term has been in use by archaeologists working along coastal and southern Georgia to describe a brushed type that repeatedly occurs in Deptford sites. The type has assumed the name of the context in which it occasionally appears. Sand is more often used for temper in Florida and southern Georgia while grit was used elsewhere. The entire surface of the vessel was covered with fine brush marking. Brush strokes seem to at least be horizontal. Deptford pottery usually takes the form of deep, straight-sided jars with rounded or flattened rims. Vessels often have short tetropodal legs that are most often decorated. Deptford pottery is part of the Middle Woodland period dating between 200 B.C. and A.D. 400. It is found over a wide range from the South Carolina Coast across Georgia and parts of eastern Tennessee and eastern Alabama and northern Florida as far south as the Tampa Bay area. The brushed type might appear in any one of these sites.
Etowah Brushed, Wayne Porch collection
Etowah Brushed pottery was defined by William Sears in 1958. It is known from the Etowah Mound complex located on the Etowah River in northwestern Georgia, but was spread over most of Georgia and surrounding areas by the Etowah people. The people of Etowah tempered this type with grit and decorated the entire surface of the vessel with brush strokes, probably using a bundle of pine needles. Recovered sherds of this type have not been sufficient to determine the direction of the strokes with any certainty. Known Etowah vessel forms include wide-mouth conoidal jars, globular jars, bowls, and cylindrical vases. The vessel rims were flared, vertical, out-curved, or in-sloping. The Etowah type belongs to the Middle Mississippian, Etowah period.
This type originated at the Etowah site in northwestern Georgia but was spread in small quantities by the Etowah people throughout Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and probably western North and South Carolina.
Sears, William, The Wilbanks Site (9CK-5), Georgia. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 169:129-194. Washington, D.C. 1958
Winter Park Brushed, Dr. Jim Tatum collection
This type was named by John Goggin in 1953. Goggin’s research was done on Seminole sites in north-central Florida. The Seminole people who lived in this area during the Historic period between the 18th and early 19th century tempered their pots with limestone and decorated it with brush strokes that crossed to look like a mesh design. They caried on the Creek tradition of decorating the rims with pinching or incising along an applique strip that was added to the rim. Known vessel forms include low, open bowls with slightly incurving rims or globular jars with a round bottom and a constricted neck with an out-flaring rim. The vessel lips were flattened, tapered, or rounded.
This pottery was made by the Seminole people of Florida, but not by the Creek people that remained in Georgia because it is only found in northern Florida and perhaps the very southern edge of Georgia.
1953 Seminole Pottery. In Prehistoric Pottery of the Eastern United States, edited by James B. Griffin, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor.
