History of American Indian Clay Pots

Early American pottery was plain and unadorned.

American Indians make clay pottery today using methods developed over centuries. These containers have long been used as practical everyday tools for cooking, carrying water, storing food and preserving seeds, and over the years they also became vessels for religious purposes. Today after centuries of refining and developing local designs and styles, creating different techniques such as glazing and adding color, they have become decorative as well.

Age

American Indians made pottery from the time they came into America. Whether coming from Asia by the land bridge over the Aleutian Islands as most scholars believe today or by migrating through South America, Indians have existed in the Americas since before 25000 B.C. In fact, a former director of the Southwest Museum of Los Angeles, Dr. Carl Dentzel, claimed to have carbon-dated North American Indian pottery from 30000 B.C.

Significance

Since fired clay has, in many instances, remained the only evidence of the existence of early American Indians, the shards of pottery found at Indian village excavation sites today offer archaeologists their only conduit into the life of these prehistoric people.

Development

From the beginning, pottery makers (almost always women) made small pots for utility reasons only, and as the nomadic tribes settled down in areas for farming purposes, began molding them into shapes that made them easier to tote water and hold seeds, and enlarged them to store liquids and grain. The flat-bottom cooking pots that sat on the rocks near the fire developed later.

Description

The early pots had no real symmetry or artist design. Each pot shape depended on its use. The water-carrying jugs were molded to fit the shoulders that would be toting them, and the large storage vessels were molded to fit together to fill the intended storage space. As can be expected, the earliest containers did not have flat bottoms. Although some exteriors sported stippling, roping and pinching techniques, most were unadorned. Over time, Indian villages developed their own distinctive shapes, colors and decorative styles.

Construction

Clay used for the pottery usually came from local stream beds, or from other local sources. The amount of pots made from a particular type of clay found in a site indicates to archaeologists if the pots were made locally or imported.

Early American Indians constructed fragile thin-walled pots by hand, employing the old coiling and pinching method. Some theorists believe that originally, clay was used to line woven baskets so water could be toted and boiled, but when the basket was placed near fire to dry foodstuff such as corn, the basket burned away leaving the more durable fired-clay interior. Noticing the vulnerability of the clay that had a tendency to break during this firing process, potters began to add previously fired pottery shards and volcanic ash into the raw clay to protect it from thermal shock.

References

• Purdue University: History of American Indian Pottery

Resources

• "When Clay Sings"; Byrd Baylor and Tom Bahti; 1987