Technological Variability in Woodland and Plains Village Period Ceramics from Central and Eastern North Dakota

Summary

This paper explores technological variability in Woodland and Plains Village period ceramics from central and eastern North Dakota. Research objectives include 1) assessing compositional variability within Woodland period assemblages, 2) establishing whether or not ceramics could have been produced from local "clays," 3) exploring continuity in pastes from Woodland period to later Plains Village pottery, and 4) comparing Devils Lake "clays" to materials from the Missouri River drainage. This detailed technological study focuses on ceramic characteristics such as paste and temper composition, construction, and firing methods through the use of neutron activation analysis (NAA), performance and workability studies, and basic attribute analysis. It establishes a baseline for the region and technological understandings of resource use, methods of manufacture, and performance qualities of ceramics from the Middle Woodland to Late Plains Village in the Northeastern Plains.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Those Dam Sites: Recent Archaeological Research in the Dakotas

Keywords

Spatial Coverage