52 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



mile above the mouth of the Rapidan, and are figured in plate 9. It 

 was to this type of ware that Holmes referred when he wrote (pp. 

 154-155) : ^' "This pottery is found in more or less typical forms 

 intermingled with the ordinary varieties of ware on sites extending 

 from the Yadkin to the Delaware." He was then describing a sherd 

 discovered in the great shell heap at the mouth of Popes Creek, on 

 the left bank of the Potomac, some miles below Washington, D. C, 

 and had previously written, when comparing the latter with fragments 

 found near the Yadkin, in North Carolina: "The materials are the 

 same, the shape, size, degree of rudeness, treatment of surface, and 

 decoration are the same, even the netting and the practice of partially 

 obliterating the net impressions on the whole or a part of the vessels 

 are the same." It is interesting to find at Richards Ford specimens 

 on which the net impressions had likewise been partially obliterated, 

 but in some instances this may have been caused by the wearing 

 away of the surface during long use of the vessel. 



Later discoveries seem to extend the net-marked ware still farther 

 south. An illustration in the account of the partial examination of 

 the great mound on Stalling's Island, in the Savannah River near 

 Augusta, Georgia,^^ shows one fragment of pottery that appears to 

 bear the impression of a net (Claflin, pi. 27), but it is not described, 

 nor are any dimensions given. 



As shown by comparison with material from other localities, the 

 fragments of pottery from the Rapidan-Rappahannock area, which 

 have already been mentioned, represent types of ware and forms of 

 decoration that are widely distributed, though not very plentiful, 

 and which have, in some instances, been discovered under conditions 

 that prove their comparatively great age. It is now believed that 

 all such ware encountered on sites along the Rapidan and Rappa- 

 hannock should be attributed to a tribe, or tribes, who had inhabited 

 the region before the coming of the historic Siouan and Algonquian 

 groups, and who extended over a wide region both north and south 

 from Virginia. Obviously, other pottery found on the same sites 

 belonged to a much later period of occupancy. 



There is a remarkable similarity between certain sherds shown 

 in plate 3, from the site on the right bank of the Rappahannock 

 facing the falls, and many pieces found at Stalling's Island. The 

 same form of decoration was employed at both sites, and in some 

 instances the roulette, punctate, and incised designs were used in 



^^ Holmes, op. cit. 



''Claflin, William H., Jr., The Stalling's Island Mound, Columbia County. 

 Georgia. Papers Peabody Mus., Harvard Univ., vol. 14, no. i, 1931. 



