IJC) AUOKIUUNAI- POTTKKY OF EASTERN UNITED STATKS [i;th.ann.20 



their rcspcctixc culluro.s hfciiiiu' in a liii-<^-c iiiciisili-o bloiidod. Tills 

 appai'iMit intorniiiiolino- of clcinont.s would ,seein to jwrtain to a late 

 ratlicr tiian to an early j)ei'iod. 



CllUONOI.O(}V 



Questions of anticjuit}' naturally pivsent themselves for consideration 

 in this place, but very definite answers can not l)e given. We may 

 reasonably anticipate that in time the ceramic evidence will materially 

 assist in determining the succession of peoples and also in arriving 

 at a somewhat d(>finitc chronology of events. The ware emltedded in 

 successive layers of midden refuse gives hints of change and progress, 

 and tile a))sence of sliei'ds in the subordinate strata points apparently 

 to a lime wlien i)ott(>ry was not used by the tribes rei:iresented. Then 

 again tlie liigher forms of ware appear well up in the strata and pre- 

 vail over the surface of th(^ country in general. Mr Moore refers to 

 the topic in the following language: 



When after a long and careful search in a shell heap no pottery is liroufjht to li,L'ht, 

 it may he considered that the makers of the heap lived at a time when its methoil 

 of manufacture was unknown. Pottery filled so great a want in the lives of the 

 aborigines and was so extensively used by the makers of the shell heaps, where it is 

 found at all, that it seems impossible to account for its absence upon any hypothesis 

 other than the one suggested. One fact relating to pottery which Professor Wyman 

 neglects to state is that in many shell lieaps pottery is found to a certain depth only, 

 after which it disappears. In other shell heaps, pottery plain and ornamented is 

 found in association for a time, after which unornamented pottery alone is found. 

 These points in connection with the pottery of the shell heaps have been noticed in 

 so many scores of ca.ses that the writer is convinced tliat many shell heaps were in 

 process of formation contemporaneously with the first knowledge of the art of pot- 

 tery making and its subsequent development. * * * It is well known that later 

 Indians occupied the shell heaps as places of residence long after their completion, 

 some doubtless cultivating them, and hence distance from the surface is a most 

 imjjortant factor in determining the origin of shell-heap relics of all sorts." 



Kanok of the Wakk 



The pottery in our collections from Florida comprises a wide range 

 of teclinic and esthetic characters. There are specimens rivaling the 

 best work of the Lower Mississippi region, and otliers so I'udimentarv 

 as hardly to deserve the name of earthenware. There ai'o also numer- 

 ous varieties resulting apparently not so nmch from difl'erences in 

 peoples and tiin(> as from tiie divei'se uses to which they were applied. 

 One grouj) is wholly uniqiu', consisting in the main of toy-like forms 

 of rude workmanship, and exhibiting decidedly abnormal characters. 

 Tiiere is good reason for supposing that it was manufactured exclu- 

 sively for mortuary oHerings, as it is associated almost wholly with 

 burials. Again, the shell heaps furnish an inferior variety of ware 

 quite i)ecviliar to them. It is dillicult to say just how nmch of this 

 inferiority is due to antiquity and lu)w nmch to the fact that midden 



n Moore, Clarence B.. Certnin shell heaps of the St Johns river, American Naturalist, November, 

 1892, p. 910. 



