Southwestern Idaho Pottery Sites: A Summary of the Data

Summary

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

In southwestern Idaho, pottery becomes common in archaeological contexts during the Late Archaic Period, at approximately 1,000 years ago. This pottery is generally referred to as Shoshoni Ware or Intermountain Brownware. A review of the current data indicates that sites that have ceramic vessels occur throughout upland, riverine, and non-riverine lowland settings and have a high degree of assemblage variability. Based on the assemblages, sites are defined as either residential or temporary camps. The dataset consists of a total of 83 precontact sites across five counties in southwestern Idaho. Temper sourcing studies from other parts of the Great Basin are used to supplement the lack of significant sourcing studies in Idaho. The results of the study indicate that pottery in southwestern Idaho is expediently manufactured as needed and is generally not transported between site locations. Furthermore, the wide distribution across ecozones and the high assemblage variability demonstrates that pottery was likely used to process a wide array of resources, beyond the purported ethnographic uses. This study emphasizes the value in combining data from both academic and management contexts in pursuit of understanding the archaeological past.

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): 53888