Doctoral Dissertation Research: Prehistoric Ceramic Traditions of the Southern Coastal Plain of North Carolina

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

For his doctoral dissertation research the PI will develop an archaeological ceramic sequence for the coastal plain of North Carolina. While excavations indicate that this region has a long history of Native American occupation and document both an earlier hunting and gathering and later agricultural way of life, research has been severely hindered by lack of a cultural chronology. Many sites are contained within loosely consolidated sandy soil which results in vertical movement in material. Thus detailed stratigraphic reconstruction is often difficult. Because of the chemical composition of such soils, organic material is rarely preserved and radiocarbon dating is rarely possible. The PI wishes to remedy this situation through the construction of a detailed ceramic chronology which is anchored in time by thermolumenescence dating. This technique measures time dependent radiation damage within individual potsherds and preliminary analysis has produced internally consistent and archaeologically reasonable results. A series of sherds from stratigraphically secure contexts will be studied. Changes through time in method of manufacture, as determined through petrographic and compositonal analysis, as well as stylistic attributes will be described and the resultant sequence will be anchored with thermolumenescence dates. Once this is accomplished, materials from surface and disturbed sites can be incorporated and the PI can then plot spatial distributions to delineate prehistoric cultural groupings and determine how they changed over time. The coastal North Carolina plain is of archaeological interest because although its inhabitants incorporated maize agriculture into their hunting and gathering way of life when this cultigen became available, in contrast to most other Native American groups they apparantly did not adopt a settled village way of life but continued a highly mobile lifestyle. For the many archaeologist interested in the development of cultural complexity and the sedentization which usually accompanies this, the region provides an important study case. However lack of a securely dated sequence severely limits research. The PI's work should help to remedy this situation