Rlv. Bas. Sur. deMERY SITE — ^WOOLWORTH AND WOOD 131 



Pap. No. 34] 



recurved rims from Demery decorated with opposed diagonals and 

 finger pincliings or pmictates (Group 9) . There are even greater cor- 

 respondences between certain of the Demery pottery and the Hughes 

 Group, as the horizontally incised and plain rims of this group are 

 closely analogous to the Group 1, or Talking Crow Straight Rims, 

 and the Group 2 rims from Demery. In brief, there are enough simi- 

 larities in rim form and decorative elements in these sites to indicate 

 participation in a common tradition, if not contact or contempo- 

 raneity. 



Since the cord-roughened pottery comprises such a small percent- 

 age of the Demery sample, and since cord-roughening seems to be an 

 early trait, we may infer that Demery is later in time than Arzberger. 

 The large number of rims decorated with cord-impressed lines at 

 Demery clearly sets the site apart from Arzberger, since the five cord- 

 impressed rims from Arzberger appear to be trade sherds from a 

 "Middle Mandan" source. The angular and curvilinear "rainbows" 

 on the cord-impressed and incised Demery rims may be duplicated in 

 both the Thomas Riggs and Huff Foci, but it is more likely that 

 Demery acquired these designs from the latter source: the recurved 

 rims carrying these designs at Demery more closely resemble the 

 S-shaped Huff rims than they do the collared Thomas Riggs rims. 

 In sum, Demery appears to postdate Arzberger, for which there are 

 two carbon-14 dates: A.D. 1461 and 1529 (samples M-1126 and M- 

 1126a, run by the Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Michigan, 

 from samples provided by the University of Nebraska as part of the 

 Missouri Basin Project Chronology Program) . 



The pottery complex at Demery is most closely related to sites of 

 the Chouteau Aspect (Stephenson, 1954). Among the foci assigned 

 to this aspect are the La Roche (Hurt, 1952) , the Shannon (Smith and 

 Grange, 1958), and the Akaska (Hurt, 1957). The outstanding ce- 

 ramic trait of this aspect is the horizontally incised design applied to 

 straight to outflaring rims. The Group 2 rims from Demery, which 

 comprise 35.1 percent of the site sample, carry this rim design in its 

 most characteristic form. The Demery pottery most closely resembles 

 the type Grey Cloud Horizontal-Incised at the Spain site, which has 

 protruded T- or L-shaped lips that are lacking in Demery. The type 

 Wheeler Horizontal-Incised from La Roche Focus sites (Hurt, 1952, 

 p. 76) similarly differs from the Demery pottery in having protruded 

 lips. The type Nordvold Horizontal-Incised, from the Akaska Focus 

 Swan Creek and Payne sites (Hurt, 1957, pp. 44-45 ; Wilmeth, 1958, 

 p. 5) has brushed necks, a trait wholly lacking in the Demery sample. 

 The Group 1 sherds at Demery are tentatively identified as Talking 

 Crow Straight Rim, a common type in sites of the Chouteau Aspect 

 (Smith and Grange, 1958). At Demery, this type comprises 35.6 



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