Incised Lines: Mortuary Ceramics and Their Role in Defining Protohistoric Chronologies in the Far Northeast 1900–1960

Summary

The first half of the twentieth century saw the creation of many professional and avocational archaeological institutions in Eastern Massachusetts. These institutions were motivated to both understand the prehistory of the Northeast, and to build large museum collections for comparative and public engagement purposes. The drive to acquire largely intact objects led to the excavation of many graves throughout New England and the Maritime Provinces, but the frequent discovery of graves in Eastern Massachusetts due to urban expansion led to their heavy representation within the literature. A large body of incised ceramic vessels from grave contexts thus entered institutional collections during this period, and formed the core of what scholars and avocationalists used to define Protohistoric ceramic technology. This paper seeks to evaluate the persistence of these chronologies in the twentieth century, address later research which demonstrates the inappropriateness of applying these chronologies to much of the Far Northeast due to the contemporaneous use of cord impressed ceramics in areas of Maine and the Maritimes, and to serve as a starting point for future research concerning ceramic diversity in the Protohistoric Far Northeast.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21377