A Serpent Runs through It: Toward an Interpretation of the Curvilinear Guilloche Design of the Fort Ancient Culture in Southwest Ohio

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The curvilinear guilloche design on pottery necks is one of the key criteria that has served to define the Fort Ancient culture in the Great Miami Valley of southwest Ohio. Yet, surprisingly, no one has attempted to fully interpret its meaning. Here we take a holistic approach to understanding the symbolic meaning of this design, beginning with foundational literature review assessing the global interpretations behind the meaning of similar design forms. The second portion of our research summarizes an ethnographic literature review of descendant and closely related tribes with ties to the Southeastern U.S. - particularly Central Algonquin and Dhegiha Siouan speakers - with a special focus on associations between similar designs and cosmology. The third portion of our project incorporates specific aspects of the landscape along this river drainage to explore the relationship between the potential meanings with specific aspects of nearby rivers and topographical features.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52981