50 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



opposite the mouth of Marsh Run. Crushed stone had served as 

 tempering material in both specimens from the Rappahannock, which 

 are very hard and of a reddish-brown color. The " parallel corrugated 

 indentations " appear to have resulted from the use of a basket in 

 forming the vessel, thus preserving on the outside of the pottery 

 vessel the impression of the inside of the rigid basket. 



When the surface of a bit of pottery has become partly worn 

 away, it is difficult to distinguish between the markings made by a 

 roulette and the impressions caused by contact of the plastic clay 

 with woven textiles or the surface of a basket. Coiled baskets are 

 thought to have been unknown to the historic Siouan and Algonquian 

 tribes of Virginia, but they had evidently been made and used by 

 others who had preceded them, by wl-kom the early earthenware vessels 

 had likewise been fashioned. 



Two fragments of pottery found on the right bank of the Rappa- 

 hannock below the mouth of the Rapidan bear the impressions of 

 basketry, appearing to have been of the coiled variety. Of these, the 

 specimen found opposite the falls, shown in plate 3, d, is the more 

 interesting. Although the surface has become considerably worn and 

 smoothed the impression left by the basketry in the plastic clay 

 remains clearly defined. The second of the two examples (pi. 7, o) 

 was found a few miles up the river on the Forest Hall site. This at 

 first glance suggests the impression of a roulette, but it is believed 

 to be that of a basket. Several very good examples of similar ware 

 discovered farther up the Rappahannock at Rogers Ford are likewise 

 believed to have belonged to a period that preceded the coming of the 

 historic Siouan tribes to the Rapidan-Rappahannock area. 



Fragments of ware that bear on the surface clearly made im- 

 pressions of coiled basketry have been discovered on the Anacostia 

 site in the District of Columbia. Other examples have been found in 

 North Carolina, in the vicinity of Albemarle Sound in the northeastern 

 part of the State, in Carteret County (U.S.N.M. No. 140929) 

 midway down the coast, in New Hanover County just north of the 

 mouth of Cape Fear River/" and in Granville County near the 

 Virginia line. Farther south, fragments of pottery bearing similar 

 impressions have been reported from near the mouth of the Santee 

 River, midway down the coast of South Carolina ; in the vicinity of 

 Montgomery, Ala. ; and in Clarke County (U.S.N.M. 331027) and 

 Oktibbeha County (U.S.N.M. 369327), Miss., both in the eastern 



^Bushnell, David I., Jr., Notes on the archaeology of New Hanover County. 

 In Cape Fear Chronicles, by James Sprunt, Raleigh, N. C, 1914. 



