Schwerdt Site (20AE127) Ceramics: a Berrien Phase Ceramic Asssemblage in Allegan County, Michigan

Summary

The Schwerdt ceramic assemblage from southwest Michigan presents a local variant of a larger, diverse cultural and ceramic complex known as the Upper Mississippian. This is a Late Woodland temporal phenomenon beginning as early as 700 A.D. (Overstreet 1978) in some areas and continuing into proto-historic times.

The temporal and spatial placement of the Schwerdt ceramic assemblage was a highly complex task. It would be an understatement to say that it was just a little confusing to try to sort out the often contradictory and/or vague data. Nevertheless, the relationships are intriguing, and the assemblage can be discussed with reference to a series of expanding spheres of relationships.

It was my goal to describe the Schwerdt ceramic assemblage on these varying levels. I attempted to: (1) describe the assemblage as part of the Berrien Phase ceramic tradition in southwest Michigan; (2) organize it on the basis of Bettarel and Smith's (1973) classificatory scheme; (3) analyze its relationships to other assemblages within the region during late prehistoric times; and (4) include the raw data (Appendix A) for future research.

In order to address myself to these goals, it was necessary to understand the character of the site with respect to considerations other than ceramics. The subsistence-settlement system which Schwerdt is hypothetically a part of, provided a model to work with as I attempted to reconstruct the cultural pattern as it is reflected in the ceramics.

The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• National Archeological Database (NADB)

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Record Identifiers

NADB document id number(s): 5604956

NADB citation id number(s): 000000241460

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