HOLMES] POTTERY OF THE GULF COAST 105 



Speculation as to the peojiles to whom these wares should be attiijj- 

 uted will for the present lie practically unavailing. It is probable that 

 the Muskhogean tribes occupied the coast rather fully b(>tween the 

 delta of the Mississippi and Tamyja bay, but several linguistic stocks 

 must have had access to this important source of food supply. Even 

 the Siouan family was repi'esented (b\' the ancestors of the Biloxi of 

 to-day), and it is not impossible that some of the ware, especially that 

 embodying animal figures, may be due to the presence or influence of 

 this people. Strangely enough, in the national collections from south- 

 western Alabama there is a lot of sherds exhibiting typical features of 

 the peculiar pottery of New York state, which seems to belong to the 

 Irocjuoian tribes. It is possible, however, that the Museum record 

 maj' be defective and that the association is accidental. 



Mobile-Pensacola Ware 



The leading gi'oup of ware found along the great northern curve of 

 the Gulf coast is well represented by the contents of mounds situated 

 on Mobile, Perdido, Pensacola, and Choctawhatchee bays. The 

 National Museum has a large series of vessels from a mound on Perdido 

 bay, obtained by Francis H. Parsons and other memliers of the United 

 States Coast and Geodetic Survey about the year 1889. Recent 

 explorations conducted by Clarence B. Moore at several points along 

 the tidewater shores of the Gulf have supplied a wonderful series of 

 vases now preserved in the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sci- 

 ences, Philadelphia. These collections have been very generously 

 placed at my disposal by j\Ir Moore, and as they belong in the main to 

 the .same ceramic group with the Parsons finds, all will be presented 

 together. The range of form in this group is quite wide, but not 

 ecjual to that in the pottery of the Arkansas region. If the collec- 

 tions were equally complete from the two regions, this relation might 

 be changed, yet it is still apparent that the western ware has the 

 advantage in a number of essentials. In the Mobile-Pensacola district 

 few traces of painted vessels have been found, and there is apparentlj'' 

 less symmetry of outline and less refinement of finish than in the Ijest 

 products of the West. There are cups, bowls, shallow and deep pots, 

 and a few bottles, besides a number of ccmipound and eccentric forms, 

 but the deep pot. the tripod vase, and the slender-necked bottles are 

 practicalh" absent. Such pots as occur show, as they do in the West, 

 indications of use over fire, and it is worthy of remark that some of 

 them correspond to western cooking vessels in being provided with 

 handles and in having hands of crude (irnamentation incised or 

 relieved about the rim and neck, while others, occurring always in 

 fragments, approach the eastern type, which is without handles and 

 is characterized by an oblong- body, somewhat conic below, and by 

 stamp-finished surfaces. 



