ANCIENT POTTERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 1 23 



ANCIENT POTTERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 

 VALLEY. 



A Study of llie Collection of tlie Davenport Academy of Sciences. 



BY \VILLIAM H. HOLMES. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



For many years the mounds of the Mississippi Valley have been 

 regarded with deep and general interest and scores of writers have 

 hastened to solve the problem of their origin and office, but specu- 

 lation has so permeated the discussion that the small nucleus of 

 actual knowledge has been overshadowed by errors which have 

 crept, one after another, into literature. Investigation has now 

 reached a point, however, at which a correct solution of many im- 

 portant problems can be looked for with confidence. Science is 

 applying herself earnestly to the work of original research, and at 

 the same time a vigorous onslaught is being made upon the false 

 gods of the theorist. There is still need of much detailed work 

 upon the monuments themselves, and the multitude of works of art 

 deposited in and around them must be studied with the most pains- 

 taking care. 



Objects of clay are among the most enduring works of men, and 

 their forms and ornaments are of such a character as to afford im- 

 portant keys to the distribution of races and to their accomplish- 

 ments in the whole circle of the arts — including those even in the 

 most perishable materials. They probably afford a more complete 

 index of the grade of culture reached by prehistoric races than any 

 other class of relics. 



Vast numbers of articles of clay have been recovered from the 

 burial places and dwelling sites of the mound-building peoples, and 

 to these it is proposed to devote the following pages. Unfortun- 

 ately for science, exhumations have generally been carried on in a 

 most unsystematic way, and such small fragments of the collections 

 made as have been preserved in our museums are often without 

 proper record as to locality and mode of occurrence. There are 



[Proc. n. A. N. S., Vol.. IV.] 10 [Dec-. 24, 1884.] 



