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RESEARCH: Keith H. Ashley discussed this type among others of the San Pedro series during his further study of the St. Marys Region and related areas of northeastern Florida in 2007. The type is probably named for the mission of San Pedro de Mocama on Cumberland Island in Camden County, Georgia.
TEMPER: This is a pottery type that is tempered with grog or clay (crushed pot sherds) and some sand.
SURFACE DECORATION: This variety is void of decoration, but is a plain surface on paste tempered with crushed sherds and/or sand in the St. Mary’s region early Spanish mission sites. This is the most common variant of San Pedro pottery.
VESSEL FORMS: While forms are not noted, San Pedro vessels are much heavier or thicker than the St. Marys Cord marked pottery that preceded it.
CHRONOLOGY: This type belongs to the very early Spanish mission period (1560’s to post 1587). The type may have predated Spanish missions as examples were recovered with maze cobs dated to A.D. 1250-1310. Other Florida recoveries in the St. Marys region dated from 1405-1455 and 1490-1640. The related point types are brass Kaskaskia points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: San Pedro pottery has also been found in coastal areas and associated inland sites in Camden County, Georgia and Nassau and Duval counties, Florida.
RESEARCH: This was named by Frankie Snow in 1977 in south-central Georgia and was named for the Satilla River.
TEMPER: This is a very early paste mix that was semi-fiber tempered. It was fiber tempered with the addition of sand. The external surface of the sherds is tan or buff. The core color is the same as the exterior.
SURFACE DECORATION: The surfaces of these vessels was left plain.
VESSEL FORM: Vessel forms are unknown. Sherds are thin, averaging .3cm in contrast to other fiber and sand-tempered pottery that averages .7cm in thickness. Lips are rounded.
CHRONOLOGY: This may represent a transitional series from fiber tempered to sand-tempered pottery and would date from the Late Archaic to the Early Woodland period. Related point types include Savannah River, Culbreath, Clay, Santa Fe, Citrus, Hernando, Yadkin, and Greenville points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: The type is named for the Satilla River because it was discovered along the sandy mound banks of that river. It is suspected to range through the interior coastal region and perhaps into south central Georgia.
RESEARCH: This type was named by Joseph Caldwell and Antonio Waring in 1939. It was named for the Savannah River and the city of Savannah from research done in sites along the mouth of the Savannah River.
TEMPER: The temper of this type is fine sand and/or grit. The paste core is gray, but the exterior can range from bright yellow through red and buff to gray, all with fire mottled shades.
SURFACE DECORATION: The surface and interior may be smoothed, polished, or burnished. Smoothing marks are often visible. The exterior is usually burnished or polished while the interior is smoothed. Waring noted that the carinated bowl form has vertical or slanted tooling (above) as an added decoration. No other decoration is present on any other form. Occasionally typical vessel shapes are relived by oval depressed areas modeled inward, perhaps similar to the way Moundville Engraved-Indented is done.
VESSEL FORMS: The most common forms are carinated, shallow, and hemispherical bowls. Rims are incurving or straight and sometimes flaring. Lips are rounded, squared, or rounded-squared. The forms are illustrated above.
CHRONOLOGY: This type belongs to the Middle Mississippian, Savannah period. Related point types include Mississippian Triangular and Guntersville points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: Williams has suggested that this type is found over the entire state of Georgia. It occurs at least in areas indicated in north Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and perhaps Alabama.
RESEARCH: This type was defined by Wesley Hurt in 1975. The name was dropped by SEAC in 1968. This type was named for the city of Seale in east-central Alabama. Research was done as part of the Walter F. George Reservoir survey.
TEMPER: Sand or grit was used as temper in this pottery
SURFACE DECORATION: The vessel surface is plain and without decoration.
VESSEL FORMS: Known forms include globular open bowls with out-slanting rims and rounded lips.
CHRONOLOGY: Hurt believed this type belonged to the Late Woodland, Weeden Island period. Related point types include Woodland triangular, spike forms, and Yadkin points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: The type is found along the central Chattahoochee River valley in Georgia and Alabama.
RESEARCH: Stallings Island pottery was defined by James B. Griffin in 1943. Antonio Waring used the name Stallings Island Plain and has now been shortened to Stallings Plain. This type has been known for a long time from the Stallings Island site near Augusta in the Savannah River.
TEMPER: This is fiber-tempered pottery. Along coastal Georgia and South Carolina and up the Savannah River, archaeologists have concluded that the plant fiber used was Spanish Moss.
SURFACE DECORATION: The surfaced is plain and undecorated with a roughly smoothed or smoothed exterior. Various investigators have reported several “accidental” decorative motifs appearing along the basal portions of some vessels including fabric marking, net marking, cord marking and the like.
VESSEL FORMS: Known vessel forms include bowl shapes with straight rims. Rims normally slant outward, however inward slanting rims are known at the Stallings Island site. Lips are most often rounded.
CHRONOLOGY: Stallings pottery belongs to the Late Archaic period. Related point types include Savannah River, Adena, Allendale, Thelma, Culbreath, Clay, and Santa Fe points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: This type is known along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to St. Simons Island and up the Savannah River well into the Piedmont area and across central and southern Georgia.
RESEARCH: This type was first recognized by Joseph Caldwell in the late 1960’s and was named for St. Catherines Island.
TEMPER: This is clay/grog-tempered pottery.
SURFACE DECORATION: This pottery has a smooth exterior surface that is burnished, but the interior surfaces remain poorly smoothed and lumpy with clay particles.
VESSEL FORM: Known vessel forms include hemispherical bowls, deep straight sided jars, and cazuela bowls. The bases are rounded. Rims are straight or incurving and lips are squared or rounded.
CHRONOLOGY: This type belongs to the Late Woodland to Early Mississippian period. Related point types are Woodland and Mississippian Triangular, spike forms, and Guntersville points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: This type is distributed along the Georgia coast from St. Catherines Island to the southern South Carolina coast.
RESEARCH: The St. Johns series of pottery was defined by John Goggin in 1952 from his work in sites along the St. Johns River, for which this series is named, and throughout south Florida where the name Biscayne ware had been used by Willey in 1949.
TEMPER: St. Johns pottery is tempered with diatomaceous earth or soft silky clay that has microscopic fresh water sponge spicules in it that act as temper. The sherds of pottery have a soft, chalky texture, referred to as “chalky ware” as early as 1891, so that the ware can be recognized by feel alone. There was an increasing amount of sand in sherds of this type from late St. Johns II sites.
SURFACE DECORATION: The vessels are not decorated by any surface treatment although certain vessels with sculpturing, modeling, and appendages are included in this category.
VESSEL FORMS: Large bowls with straight out-sloping sides are the most common vessel form, although vessels with constricted mouths are also common. Small necked, pear-shaped or gourd-shaped jars appeared during the St. John’s I period. Small vessels of unusual shape and flanged or pointed rims appeared. During the early St. Johns I period, vessels appeared with four, three and in one case two basal supports. Supports varied in form from simply pinched-up of the surface to fully developed supports. Boat-shaped vessels with lugs were numerous in the St. Johns region of Florida. Eccentric forms such as flanged tubs, spool-shaped objects, and four-legged miniature stools also appeared in the St. Johns region. Many plain vessels were made with smoothly finished basal perforations or “kill holes” in them for mortuary purposes.
CHRONOLOGY: St. Johns pottery dates from the Early Woodland to Historic times, from Florida’s Orange period to the St. Augustine period. Related point types could include Citrus, Hernando, Duval, Pinellas, Taylor, Jackson, Tallahassee, Bradford, Columbia, Sarasota, Florida Spike, Leon, Ichetucknee, and Safety Harbor points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: St. John’s Plain pottery is found in southeastern and coastal Georgia and most of peninsular Florida.
RESEARCH: Originally named the “Early” series by Patricia Holden, this was renamed as the Swannanoa series by Keel in 1976 based on his work in Cherokee related sites in North and South Carolina. The type is named after the Swannanoa River.
TEMPER: This type is tempered with large pieces of crushed quartz (56%) or with coarse sand. The tempering material in either case accounts for nearly half of the paste material. The exterior color of the fired paste is red to reddish-brown or light brown.
SURFACE DECORATION: This is a hand-smoothed finish over the entire vessel with no other decoration.
VESSEL FORMS: Known vessel forms include large to medium sized conoidal jars and hemispherical bowls. The rims are vertical or slightly inverted and the lips are rounded or flattened, with a very small percentage notched or cord-marked. The bases are conical, some with a nipple-like protrusion; or are jars and are rounded to slightly flattened on bowls.
CHRONOLOGY: This is the earliest Woodland pottery series in western North Carolina, dating to the Early to Middle Woodland period. Related points are Badin Crude Triangular, Coosa, Swannanoa, Swan Lake, Camp Creek, Copena, Yadkin, and Greenville points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: This type is found in western North Carolina, western South Carolina and, perhaps, extreme northeastern Georgia.
RESEARCH: This is plain pottery found in a Swift Creek context that was brought to light by Arthur Kelly at the Swift Creek site in 1938. This term takes into consideration both early and late types with rim treatments and vessel forms being the distinction.
TEMPER: This is a sand-tempered pottery.
SURFACE DECORATION: The surface is plain. Context, rim treatment and vessel form are the determining factors.
VESSEL FORMS: The vessel forms would conform to the vessels of the period that are found in the same context.
CHRONOLOGY: Both early and late types belong to the Middle Woodland period. Related point types are Woodland Triangular, spike forms, Copena, Baker’s Creek, Camp Creek, Yadkin, and Swan Lake points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: This type would be found in association with Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery that would share the same distribution pattern.
RESEARCH: This type was named by Eugene G. Waddell in 1963. Waddell’s research encompassed most of South Carolina.
TEMPER: Generous portions of fine sand were generally used as temper in this type with some rare examples of grit-tempering. Some examples of apparently temperless paste are also known. External colors range from tan to brown-orange to darker shades of brown. Core colors are usually tan to dark gray to black.
SURFACE DECORATION: The surface of this type varies from smoothed to polished depending on the tempering material being used. The interior surface was in most cases smoothed after decoration to remove any unevenness from punctations.
VESSEL FORMS: Known forms are hemispherical and globular bowls and jars with rounded, pointed or flattened lips and rims that were straight or slightly incurving, but rarely flaring. No appendages are known.
CHRONOLOGY: This type is considered a Late Archaic to Early Woodland type, underlying the Deptford pottery, but above Stallings pottery. Related points are Savannah River, Allendale and Thelma points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: This type is known within south and central South Carolina, but is rare south of the Savannah River into Georgia.
RESEARCH: This type was named for Upatoi Creek at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia by David Chase in 1959. Jerald Ledbetter did further work on the type while excavating the Victory Drive site in 1996.
TEMPER: This pottery was tempered with sand or grit.
SURFACE DECORATION: The surface is void of any decoration.
VESSEL FORMS: Known vessel forms include a straight-sided cylindrical vessel with a conoidal base and simple rim and a globular jar form with slight shoulders and a straight rim.
CHRONOLOGY: This is a Late Woodland pottery type. Related point types are Woodland Triangular and Jack’s Reef Corner Notched points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: The distribution for this type is west-central Georgia and probably eastern Alabama.
RESEARCH: Gordon Willey named this type in 1949. Willey’s researched focused along the Florida Gulf Coast.
TEMPER: Fine sand with only rare coarse particles of grit or lumps of clay were used as temper. Micah is observed in most sherds. Surface color varies according to the firing from light buff, red-buff, gray, and mottled black are the most common.
SURFACE DECORATION: vessel surfaces are plain and undecorated except that some vessels considered plain had punctated lines along the center and/or base of the folded rim. Fire clouding is frequent. Both interior and exterior surfaces are well smooth or polished. The rim fold, or thickened margin, is often underlined with a single incised line. Occasionally there are two incised lines with one encircling the inside of the fold.
VESSEL FORMS: Known forms include medium-deep, hemispherical and shallow open bowls, jars with simple, short collars, and square collars. There are also unusual-shaped vessels that are mortuary ware, some made with holes for ceremonial purposes. These forms include multi-compartment trays, double bowls, single-globed jars, double-globe jars, gourd-effigy bowls, various forms of bowls and jars with effigy figures or adornments, semi-effigy bowls and jars, human-figure vessels, globular bowls with multiple body lobes, and miscellaneous eccentric shapes. Rims are commonly thickened at or near the vessel orifice. Rims are thickened with exterior or interior folds or are thickened without folds. Conventional shaped vessel rims are in curved (globular bowls) and out-slanted (open bowls). Occasionally globular bowl rims are sharply recurved. Rim folds are rounded, rectangular and triangular. Lips are both flat and rounded. Incised or linear punctated lines on top of the lip may occur. Bases are both rounded and flat. Appendages are rim projections, usually four. These may be triangular or ovate-triangular and may extend horizontally or are angled upward from the vessel mouth and can vary in size.
CHRONOLOGY: This type belongs to the Middle and Late Woodland, Weeden island I and II periods. Related point types are Pinellas, Leon, Taylor, Copena, Bradford, and Columbia points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: This pottery is found on the entire Florida Gulf Coast area and into southern Alabama and Georgia.
RESEARCH: This type was first defined by Haag in 1939 and redefined since that time. Caryn Hollingsworth reported on his research including this type from the Sheeps Bluff shelter site in Franklin County, Alabama in 1991.
TEMPER: This type was tempered with plant fiber added to the clay, leaving creases over the vessel surface. Later forms of Wheeler pottery included limestone, with or without the presence of fiber.
SURFACE DECORATION: The surface is described as plain, but it is covered with creases where fiber was included as temper, but was burned out during the firing process.
VESSEL FORMS: Louis D. Tesar (1980) suggested that these vessels might have been fashioned after the steatite vessels that preceded them. The Sheeps Bluff site held sherds with straight rims and rounded lips.
CHRONOLOGY: Hollingworth called this type the marker for the Middle Gulf Formational state in northern Alabama dating between 1200 and 500 B.C. Related point types are Savannah River, Coosa, Yadkin, and Swan Lake points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: Tesar’s estimation of Wheeler distribution include western and northwestern Georgia all of Alabama except southwestern Alabama, eastern Tennessee and western South Carolina.
RESEARCH: William Sears named this type in 1958. This type was named for the Wilbanks site located in Cherokee County, Georgia prior to the formation of Lake Allatoona.
TEMPER: This is grit-tempered pottery with very thick walls.
SURFACE DECORATION: The decoration of this type is plain, but the distinction is that the walls of the vessels are very thick. The exterior of the pottery is rough and poorly smoothed.
VESSEL FORMS: The only known vessel form is an elongated jar shape. The vessel rims are moderately flared. The lips are rounded or squared.
CHRONOLOGY: This type belongs to the Middle Mississippian, Wilbanks period. Related point types are Mississippian Triangular and Guntersville points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: This type is found in northwestern Georgia along the Etowah River valley and may appear in extreme northeastern Alabama, southeastern Tennessee, or western North and South Carolina.
RESEARCH: The combined research of Robert Wauchope and Joseph Caldwell Robert Wauchope identified the Woodstock site in Cherokee County, Georgia and named the type, however documentation of their work has subsequently been lost. The type was named after the town of Woodstock, Georgia.
TEMPER: This type is tempered with either sand or grit. The paste is usually gray in color, but may be a dark tan.
SURFACE DECORATION: The surface of this type is plain, but should be recovered with other Woodstock Complicated Stamped sherds for positive identification.
VESSEL FORMS: Known vessel forms include cylindrical beakers with out-curving or in-curving rims, globular jars, bowls with flaring or straight walls, deep pots with straight, out-slanting walls that turn upward below the lip. Lips are flat or rounded. Rims may also be scalloped with a broad, shallow notching.
CHRONOLOGY: This type belongs to the Late Woodland, Woodstock period. Related point types are Woodland Triangular, Jack’s Reef Corner Notched, Ebenezer, and Yadkin points.
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION: This type is found in northwestern Georgia and may appear in eastern Alabama.
