THE CERAMIC REMAINS FROM NORRIS 



BASIN, TENNESSEE 



By James B. Griffin 



Ceramic Repository, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan 



Introduction 



The pottery discussed in this report was obtained from 10 of the 

 sites excavated in the Norris Basin. When the field work was com- 

 pleted in June 1934 a representative series of sherds from these 10 

 sites was selected and shipped to the Ceramic Repository for study. 

 It was not until the main portion of this report was completed that 

 the writer knew the geographical or cultural relationships of these 

 sites. In other words, the pottery analysis and comparison was con- 

 ducted without any knowledge of the other material found at the 

 sites. 



As has been explained in the main body of the report on the exca- 

 vation of the Norris Basin sites, a complete examination of none of 

 the valley sites was possible. At some of the places it was only 

 feasible to dig the mound areas and at others only the village site or 

 limited portions of it. Furthermore, the burial grounds, which might 

 have contained considerable ceramic material, were in most instances 

 not discovered. The manner in which the domiciliary mounds were 

 constructed and their long period of cultivation has made it prac- 

 tically impossible to recognize any change in pottery type at any 

 given site. The pottery itself gives no clue that any such shift in 

 ceramic styles occurred at any of the sites discussed except in a few 

 rare instances, and these might better be explained by some other 

 hypothesis. 



For the above reasons I have not deemed it advisable to rely very 

 heavily on a statistical comparison of the various pottery types found 

 at the different sites. Had a larger proportion ,of each site been 

 explored, and if all of the ceramic material had been available for 

 study, such a procedure would have been much more valuable. 



In spite of these difficulties, this study of the Norris Basin pottery 

 has been made possible because a representative sample of the total 

 ceramic complex at each site was available. The number of the 

 sherds analyzed from each site and the fact that the sites are from 

 a limited, hitherto relatively unknown, area enables the report to 



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