rhea tens ARCHEOLOGY IN BRITISH GUIANA 101 
HoToKWAI PLAIN 
PASTE: 
Method of manufacture: Coiling; breakage along coil lines quite distinct; 
coil with 1.0-1.8 cm. 
Temper: Crushed steatite schist. Samples of steatite schist rock found in the 
refuse and the crushed material in the pottery were analyzed by EH. P. 
Henderson, Division of Mineralogy, U.S. National Museum. The steatite 
schist crushes easily into irregular shaped fibrous particles ranging from 
fine, flourlike material to large 3-6 mm. hunks. There was no attempt to 
sift out the larger hunks from the fine particles so that irregularity of 
temper particle size is one of the characteristics of the pottery type. Paste 
includes a high percentage of temper; the fine silky particles permeate 
the clay. 
Texture: Fine, silky, silvery particles of temper throughout the paste give 
a slick, silky, talclike feel. Good tensile strength; not friable. Cross 
section of sherd always has a fibrous appearance. 
Color: Very irregular and spotty color patches throughout the paste, ap- 
parently caused by the size of the steatite temper particles and unequal 
heat transfer. Half the sherds are mainly a tan to brown to orange 
throughout the entire cross section; others have orange to tan to brown 
bands 0.5-1.0 mm. wide along the exterior and interior with a gray core. 
All sherds have a mottled appearance due to the contrast between the gray 
silky fibers of the steatite temper and the splotchy orange, tan and browns 
of the clay. 
Firing: Oxidized, incomplete to complete; fire clouds common. 
SURFACES : 
Color: Interior and exterior are the same color on most sherds, but for the 
type there is a range from tile orange to orange to tan to brown to gray 
with a few black fire clouds. The silky gray sheen of the fibrous steatite 
schist temper stands out against the background color, giving a distinctive, 
unmistakable appearance to the sherd surfaces. Some of the sherds with 
an unusually high percentage of temper tend to have a light steel-gray 
hue. 
Treatment: Both surfaces are smoothed and scraped, erasing the coil lines 
but leaving scraping lines visible. On the whole the surfaces are fairly 
smooth to the touch, but irregularity of body wall thickness on the same 
sherd is typical. The thinner walled sherds (4-7 mm.) usually have better 
smoothed and more even surfaces than thicker sherds. Occasionally a 
lump of steatite temper protrudes from the surface; small pits often occur 
where the clay was not smoothed over or scraped well. 
Hardness: Majority 2.5; a few 2, and a few 3. Those sherds with the highest 
percentage of well pulverized steatite-schist temper tend to be 2.5-3 while 
those with unpulverized hunks of temper tend to be 2. Hardness of the 
steatite temper particles is 2-2.5. 
Form: 
Rim: Direct with rounded, flattened or tapered lip; exteriorly thickened with 
a flat top; sharply everted, tapering or expanding to rounded or flattened 
lip. 
Body wall thickness: 4-15 mm. ; majority 6-8 mm. 
Body diameters: 24-40 cm.; majority 26-384 em. 
