Part 1 (1/2)
Ancient Pottery of the Mississippi Valley.
by William H. Holmes.
INTRODUCTORY.
This paper is the third of a series of preliminary studies of aboriginal ceramic art which are intended to be absorbed into a final work of a comprehensive character.
The groups of relics selected for these studies are in all cases of limited extent, and are such as can lay claim to a considerable degree of completeness. It is true that no series of archaeologic objects can ever be considered complete, but in exceptional cases the sources of supply may be so thoroughly explored that the development of new features of importance cannot reasonably be expected. If any series of American ceramic products has reached such a condition, it is that of the middle portions of the Mississippi Valley; yet, even in this case, I consider it unwise to attempt a monographic study, and prefer to single out a particular collection, making it the subject of a thorough investigation.
When the idea of preparing such a paper was first conceived, the collection presenting the greatest advantages was that of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Davenport, Iowa, which was, therefore, chosen.
Other museums, especially those at Cambridge, Saint Louis, and Was.h.i.+ngton, were rich in material from this region, but none of these collections were so h.o.m.ogeneous and satisfactory.
The National Museum has recently received important accessions from the Mississippi Valley, through the agency of the Bureau of Ethnology, and ere the publication of this paper will probably excel all others in the number and variety of its mound relics. Some of its material has already been published by Dr. Charles Rau, Prof. C. C. Jones, Dr.
Joseph Jones, and myself, and several additional examples are given in this paper.
Professor F. W. Putnam has described and ill.u.s.trated many pieces belonging to the Peabody Museum, and Professor W. B. Potter and Dr. Edward Evers have issued an important work on the Saint Louis collections, in Contributions to the Archaeology of Missouri.
This study is intended to pave the way to a thorough cla.s.sification of the mult.i.tude of relics, and to the discovery of a method of procedure suited to a broad and exhaustive treatment of the ceramic art.
I do not expect to discuss ethnical questions, although ceramic studies will eventually be of a.s.sistance in determining the distribution and migrations of peoples, and in fixing the chronology of very remote events in the history of pottery-making races.
Some of the results of my studies of the evolutionary phase of the subject are embodied in an accompanying paper upon the ”Origin and Development of Form and Ornament,” and a second paper will soon follow. Before the final work is issued I hope to make close studies of all the princ.i.p.al collections, public and private. In such a work the importance of great numbers of examples cannot be overestimated.
Facts can be learned from a few specimens, but relations.h.i.+ps and principles can only be derived from the study of mult.i.tudes.
I shall probably have occasion to modify many of the views advanced in these preliminary papers, but it is only by pus.h.i.+ng out such advance guards that the final goal can be reached.
Since the original issue of this paper in the Proceedings of the Davenport Academy of Sciences, a careful revision of the text has been made and much additional matter and a number of ill.u.s.trations have been added.
I wish in this place to express my obligations to the officers and members of the Davenport Academy of Sciences, and especially to Mrs.
M. L. D. Putnam and Prof. W. H. Pratt, whose generous aid has been of the greatest service to me.
CERAMIC GROUPS.
In studying the collections from the Mississippi Valley, I find it convenient to cla.s.sify the ceramic products in three great groups, which belong to as many pretty well-defined districts; these I have named, for convenience of treatment, the Upper Mississippi, the Middle Mississippi, and the Lower Mississippi or Gulf provinces. Other pottery occurs within the limits of these areas, but the examples found in the museums are so few that very little of importance can be learned from them.
The three groups enumerated are not equally represented. The great body of our collections is from the middle province. The ware of the Lower Mississippi or Gulf district, of which we have but a small number of pieces, has many features in common with the pottery of the middle district, and at the same time is identical in most respects with that of the Gulf coast to the east. No well-defined line can be drawn between them; but the ware of the north is wholly distinct and need never be confounded with the other groups.
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI PROVINCE.
DISTRIBUTION.--It must not be inferred that there is perfect uniformity in the pottery of this, or any other, extended region; local peculiarities are always to be found. The products of contiguous districts, such, for example, as those of Mississippi County, Arkansas, and New Madrid County, Missouri, have much in common, and will at once be recognized as belonging to the same family, yet the differences are so marked that the unskilled observer could point them out with ease.
As indicated by decided family resemblances, the wares of this group extend over the greater part of the States of Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee, cover large portions of Mississippi, Kentucky, and Illinois, and reach somewhat into Iowa, Indiana, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. The types are better marked and the products more abundant about the center of this area, which may be defined roughly as including contiguous parts of Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee, with a pretty decided focal center, at least in the abundance of relics, at Pecan Point, Arkansas.
The borders of the district are necessarily not clearly defined.
The characters of the art products blend more or less with those of neighboring sections. This is a usual phenomenon, and is probably due to a variety of causes. The mere contact of peoples leads to the exchange of ideas, and, consequently, to similarities in the products of industry. A change of habitat, with its consequent change of environment, is capable of modifying art to a great extent. Groups of relics and remains attributed by archaeologists to distinct stocks of people, may, in cases, be the work of one and the same people executed under the influence of different environments and at widely separated periods of time.
Mixed conditions in the remains of a locality are often due to the presence of different peoples, synchronously or otherwise. This occurs in many places on the outskirts of this district, a good ill.u.s.tration being found in East Tennessee, where three or four distinct groups of ware are intermingled. As would naturally be expected, the distribution is governed somewhat by the great water-ways, and pottery of this province is found far up the Ohio, Tennessee, and Arkansas Rivers.