HOLMES] DISTRIBUTION OF POTTEKY 23 



pi'osperous sedentary people may be undeveloped or entirelj- neg- 

 lected by a people wandering from place to place in the barren, icy 

 regions of the North; yet, could we for a generation exchange the 

 environments of these peoples, the potter's art would still })e found 

 practiced and flourishing in the more salubrious climate and neglected 

 and disused in the rigorous one. 



QUANTATIVE DISTRIBUTION 



Earthenware relics are very generally distributed over the country, 

 but the distribution is far from uniform. Whei'ever pottery-making 

 tribes dwelt, wherever they wandered, camped, sought water, collected 

 food, conducted ceremonies, or buried their dead, there we find the 

 relics of this art. Usually, no doubt, localities and regions occupied 

 by prosperous sedentarj" peoples are marked by greater accumula- 

 tions of such remains. The native tribes, no matter whence they 

 came, distributed themselves along the great waterways, and the more 

 favorable spots along such rivers as the Ohio, the Tennessee, the 

 Mississippi, and the Red river possess almost inexhaustil)le supplies 

 of ancient ware. A broad region, including the confluences of the 

 great streams of the Mississippi .system, the Missouri, the Ohio, the 

 Tennessee, the Cumberland, and the Arkansas, seems to be the richest 

 of all, yet there are less-extended areas in other sections almost equally 

 rich. The observation has been made that an arid environment encour- 

 ages the vessel-making arts, but here we have a region abounding in 

 moisture which is richer than any other section in its supply of clay 

 vessels. 



MANNER OF OCCURRENCE 



Since pottery was made very largel}' for use in the domestic arts, 

 its remains are everywhere associated with household refuse, and are 

 found on all village, house, camp, and food-jsroducing sites occupied 

 by pottery-making peoples. It is plentiful in the great shell heaps 

 and shell mounds along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and abounds in 

 and around saline springs where salt was procured. Found under 

 such conditions it is usually fragmentarv, and to the superficial 

 observer gives a very imperfect idea of the nature and scope of the 

 art, but to the experienced student it afiords a very satisfactory 

 re CO I'd. 



Nearly all peoples have at some period of their history adopted the 

 practice of burying articles of use or value with their dead, and the 

 aborigines of this country were no exception. It is to this mortuary 

 usage that we owe the preservation of so manj- entire examples of 

 fragile utensils of clay. They are exhumed from ))urial mounds in 

 great numbers, and to an equal extent, in some regions, from common 

 cemeteries and simple, unmarked graves. The relation of various 



