CERAMIC PETROGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF THE INTERMOUNTAIN WARES OF EARLY SHOSHONE PEOPLE IN THE GREATER YELLOWSTONE AREA

Archaeologic ceramics are fundamentally geological samples with two primary components, clay paste and mineralogical temper, which are diagnostic of a geologic source area. Clay geochemistry is obtained with Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) and the temper is categorized with petrographic analysis. In the interior of western North America, pottery is rare among mobile hunting and gathering societies in the last 2,000 years. Source analysis of pottery provides insights into mobility and trade patterns, assuming that source areas are geographically and geologically defined.

This study builds on recent provenance analysis of 50 Intermountain Ware pottery sherds from four archaeological sites in the Greater Yellowstone Area (Finley et al., 2018). That study found meaningful geographic differences in pottery found in the Wyoming Basin and Absaroka Mountains based on different geological histories. While promising, the petrographic results were preliminary and based primarily on qualitative attributes. This study provides robust quantitative petrographic data such as point counts, QFL diagrams, and mineralogical descriptions of pottery thin sections.

Geologic history is meaningful and applicable in understanding source proximity for pottery found in the Central Rocky Mountains. These results refine understandings in the development of Indigenous mobility and exchange networks in the centuries leading up to and following European contact in the early 19^th Century.

References

[1] Douglass, A.A., Schaller, D.M. 1993. Sourcing Little Colorado White Ware: A Regional Approach to the Composition of Prehistoric Ceramic in Geoarchaeology 8, 177-201.

[2] Eerkens, J.W. 2003. Residential Mobility and Pottery Use in the Western Great Basin in Currently Anthropology.

[3] Finley, J.B., Scheiber, L.L., Ferguson, J.R. 2018. Compositional Analysis of Intermountain Ware Pottery Manufacturing areas in Western Wyoming, USA in Archaeological Science 18, 287-295.

[4] Ownby, M.F., Huntly, D.L., Peeples, M.A. 2014. A Combined Approach Using NAA and Petrography to Examine Ceramic Production and Exchange in the American Southwest in Archaeological Science 52. 152-162.po