| This dissertation concerns the ceramic traditions of prehistoric Native Americans who inhabited the Coastal Plain and Sandhills provinces of North Carolina from about 2000 B.C. to. A.D. 1600. The study begins with a consideration ceramic taxonomy. Several currently existing typological schemes are synthesized into a single taxonomy for the entire coastal region. Pottery assemblages from stratified midden deposits at the Bandon, Whalen, and Cape Creek sites provide data critical for sequencing types on the northern coast. Net-impressed and cord-marked, sand-tempered and sand-and-granule tempered New River and Mount Pleasant series wares appear early in the sequence. Granule-tempered net-impressed wares are among the earliest, with coarse sand-tempered ware being more common through the middle period. Occurring throughout the sequence, fabric-impressed wares are most frequent in the middle period. Flexible-warp textiles are more common early in the order with rigid-warp fabrics occurring more frequently later. Shell-tempered Townsend series wares occur late in the range along with a sand-tempered series, as yet undefined.; Thermoluminescence (TL) dates for samples from sites in the Sandhills and lower Cape Fear River basin, combined with petrographic data, allows the development of a pottery type sequence for the southern coast. New River series sherds (2000 B.C.–A. D. 400) exhibit dense (>15%) sand/grit-temper, with net-impressed or cord-marked (parallel, over-stamped) surfaces. Cape Fear series sherds (400 B.C.–A.D. 400) are tempered with a low or moderate proportion (<15%) of sand/grit temper and exhibit parallel cord marking (more common from 400–200 B.C.), rigid-warp fabric impressing, and perpendicular cord marking (more common from A.D. 200–400). Hanover I (A.D 400–800) is characterized by sand/grog temper (more sand than grog) with cord-marked, check-stamped, or fabric-impressed surfaces. Hanover II (A.D. 800–1500) is grog/sand tempered (more grog than sand) and primarily fabric-impressed.; Distributional maps indicate that pottery series and types occurred over vast geographic regions, almost certainly encompassing many disparate ethnic and linguistic groups. Archaeologically observable geographic boundaries of ceramic technological styles reflect the limits of transcultural communities of practice in which the social contexts of reproduction played a central role in shaping the patterns observed archaeologically. |
