Determinación Cromatografíca

As I argued in Chapter 2, although widespread, the demographic, economic, and social changes that wracked Indian communities across the Southeast during the English Contact period did not amount to a singular process that affected all communities equally (e.g., Bowne 2005, 2006; Ethridge 2006; Gallay 2002; Ramsey 2001, 2003; Smith 1987; Usner 1992; Worth 2006). Tracing out the local histories of Indian communities,

however, has proven difficult when research has been extended beyond historically documented sites (e.g., Knight 1994; Smith 1987, 1989, 1994, 2002a). Indeed, for most of the English Contact period, historical documents pertaining to the interior Southeast contain at best brief sketches of a few Indian communities. Archaeology has great potential to address how this tumultuous period played out among the untold number of undocumented Indian communities across the Southeast, but in order to do this we must first create reliable ways of identifying seventeenth- and eighteenth-century occupations in the archaeological record (e.g. Smith 1983, 1987; Waselkov 1989). Fortunately, this challenge requires that archaeologists tackle a very familiar and foundational problem – that of chronology. In this chapter, I synthesize a chronology of diagnostic Cherokee pottery and glass trade bead assemblages that encompasses the English Contact period (ca. A.D. 1670-1740). For the pottery component of the assemblage, I outline previous research associated with the construction of the current ceramic chronology for Cherokee

assemblages. To this, I add my seriation of glass trade bead assemblages from sites with occupations spanning a broader period ca. A.D. 1607-1783. The results of this research provide a reliable method for identifying undocumented seventeenth- and eighteenth- century Cherokee communities.

The Overhill and Qualla Ceramic Series

The Overhill and Qualla pottery series are taxonomic systems that were created in order to identify and classify geographic and temporal variability among historic (and prehistoric) Cherokee pottery assemblages (Baden 1983; Bates 1986; Egloff 1967; Hally 1986a; Keel 1976; Lewis and Kneberg 1946, 1995; Riggs and Rodning 2002; Rodning 2004; Ward and Davis 1999; Wilson and Rodning 2002). The most obvious differences between the two series involve the types of aplastic materials used as tempering agents in vessel construction and the types of surface treatments applied to vessel exteriors. These differences are often summarized by saying that Overhill-series vessels were tempered with crushed mussel shell and had smoothed or scraped exterior surfaces while Qualla- series vessels were tempered with grit and had carved paddle-stamped exterior surfaces. The repetition of this statement has resulted in the common belief that these series reflect clear differences in long-held traditions practiced by potters in Overhill Cherokee

settlements, on the one hand, and those in the Middle, Valley, Out, and Lower settlements on the other (Dickens 1979; Egloff 1967; Schroedl 1986a).

As detailed below, however, the Overhill and Qualla ceramic series must also be seen as the products of two separate long-term Cherokee research projects at the

3). The research conducted by University of Tennessee archaeologists focused on historically documented mid-eighteenth-century Overhill Cherokee communities in the Lower Little Tennessee River valley and resulted in large datasets covering a very narrow time span. The research of archaeologists at the University of North Carolina, by

contrast, was focused on large-scale regional surveys among the Middle, Valley, and Out Town settlements and excavations aimed at characterizing the long-term chronological development of Cherokee communities in western North Carolina. In contrast to the University of Tennessee, this work resulted in smaller datasets with relatively great geographic breadth and temporal depth (ca. A.D. 1300-1908 for the Qualla series versus ca. A.D. 1700-1838 for the Overhill series), but with little eighteenth century coverage (Figure 4.1). Consequently, one must be careful not to mistakenly attribute differences between these ceramic series to differences in potting traditions of equal time depth.

The Overhill Ceramic Series

The first formal description of Overhill Cherokee pottery was penned by Lewis and Kneberg in their classic works on the Hiwassee Island site excavations and the Chickamauga Basin survey (1946:98-99, 1995:117). These initial descriptions of Overhill Cherokee pottery were interesting for several reasons. First, Lewis and

Kneberg's descriptions of Overhill pottery only covered shell- and grit-tempered sherds with check stamped and complicated stamped surfaces. It did not include shell-tempered sherds with smoothed surfaces (i.e., plain) – later known as a diagnostic hallmark of the Overhill-series. This omission was most likely due to the fact that plain shell-tempered Overhill series body sherds were (and still are) indistinguishable from those associated

with the earlier Mississippian period. Also, even though Lewis and Kneberg's descriptions of Overhill pottery appeared in the reports for Hiwassee Island and the Ocoee site, they were not based on the pottery assemblages recovered from these sites. Hiwassee Island's assemblage contained three possible Overhill sherds and the Ocoee site assemblage included approximately 30 rims with notched rimstrips and 30 complicated stamped body sherds. Instead, Lewis and Kneberg formulated their descriptions of Overhill pottery from samples excavated at the sites of Chota and Fort Loudon, the latter being a mid-eighteenth-century English trading fort located in the lower Little Tennessee River valley.

It appears that the primary reason that the authors included these descriptions in the Hiwassee Island and Chickamauga Basin reports was to present their model for Cherokee origins. Drawing attention to the similarities between the paddle-stamped wares found at Fort Loudon and those at other historically known Cherokee settlements like the Peachtree site (Little Hiwassee), Nacoochee, Kituhwa, Nununyi, and Nequassee, Lewis and Kneberg (1946:98) put forth the argument that the Cherokee were an intrusive group of immigrants that entered western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee in historic times replacing local Muskogee-speaking Mississippian groups. The

replacement, they argued, was supported archaeologically by the apparent replacement of plain, cord marked, and incised shell-tempered pottery with check stamped and

complicated stamped pottery.

Brian Egloff's (1967) M.A. thesis research provided a large leap forward in understanding historic Cherokee pottery, particularly in linking the geographic distribution of plain shell-tempered pottery with the Overhill Cherokee. The goal of

Egloff's study was to examine the variability among pottery assemblages from a number of different Cherokee sites. Egloff's study included samples from sites in each of the five historically documented Cherokee settlement divisions (i.e., Overhill, Middle, Valley, Out, and Lower). Surface collections from the eastern Tennessee sites of Citico and Great Tellico composed the Overhill Cherokee portion in the study. While this study did not adequately consider time as a source of variability among pottery assemblages, it nevertheless succeeded in recognizing that the majority of Overhill Cherokee pottery was shell-tempered with plain surfaces, and that this pottery was largely restricted to sites located west of the Appalachian Summit occurring only in very small frequencies among the other Cherokee settlement divisions (Egloff 1967:43-44, 73).

By far the largest contribution to the development of the Overhill ceramic series came as part of the Tellico Archaeological Project. This project, carried out by

archaeologists at the University of Tennessee, included a survey of the lower Little Tennessee River valley and excavations at numerous sites prior to the construction of the Tellico Dam. Between the late 1960s and late 1970s excavations were carried out at a number of Overhill Cherokee towns documented in Lieutenant Henry Timberlake's journal and map drafted in A.D. 1762. These towns included Citico, Chota-Tanassee, Mialoquo, Tomotley, Toqua, and Tuskegee (Baden 1983; Chapman and Newman 1979; Guthe and Bistline 1981; Polhemus 1987; Russ and Chapman 1983; Schroedl 1986a). The Tellico Archaeological excavations expanded the corpus of Overhill pottery from a few thousand sherds to well over 500,000 sherds (King 1977:154-155). This large sample allowed for analyses at an unprecedented scale including studies of Overhill

vessel forms (King 1977) and more detailed descriptions of surface treatments and rimstrip morphology (Baden 1983; Bates 1986; Russ and Chapman 1983).

Since little research regarding the Overhill ceramic series has been conducted in recent years, in the following description I draw upon the primary sources of the Tellico Archaeological Project (Baden 1983:37-62; Bates 1986:289-305; King 1977; Russ and Chapman 1983:69-83). It is imperative to keep in mind that these sources report on Overhill pottery assemblages primarily associated with the English Colonial and Revolutionary War periods (ca. A.D. 1746-1794). As presented in these reports, the Overhill ceramic series was dominated by plain shell-tempered pottery with minority surface treatments including (in order of typical frequency), check stamping, simple stamping, complicated stamping, incising, cob marking or roughening, and cord marking. In samples from Chota-Tanasee, Tomotley, and Mialoquo, plain shell-tempered sherds comprised 89%, 65%, and 33.5% of the total pottery sample respectively. Check stamping occurred on between 0.5% and 11% of the Overhill sherds at these sites and exhibited considerable variation including square-, rectangular-, and diamond-shaped grids with individual checks ranging in size from two to six millimeters. Complicated stamped sherds comprised between 0.5% and 5% of the sample at these sites and included both curvilinear and rectilinear motifs, although the latter tended to be more common. Rectilinear motifs included concentric squares, triangles, and diamonds, and zig-zag or herringbone patterns, while curvilinear motifs included concentric circles and wavy lines (Figure 4.2). Incised motifs were predominately rectilinear and consist of line-filled triangles (Figure 4.3). Cord marking made up the smallest minority in these Overhill assemblages, occurring in less than 1% of each site's pottery sample.

Figure 4.2. Stamped motifs applied to Overhill-series and Qualla-series vessels.

Unfortunately, vessel forms were not reported consistently in the various Tellico project publications. Neither Bates (1986) nor Russ and Chapman (1983) provide detailed discussions of Overhill vessel form or tallies of different vessel forms in their reports on the Chota-Tanasee and Mialoquo excavations. King (1977) collaborated with a number of contemporary Cherokee speakers and noted potter Amanda Swimmer in an innovative attempt to define vessel classes for the Tellico Archaeological Project Overhill pottery assemblages. Combining data recorded from whole vessels with suggestions provided by his collaborators, King (1977) came up with ten vessel classes for the Overhill series including small bowls, medium bowls, wide shallow bowls with flaring rims, wide slightly deeper bowls with less flaring rims, large cazuelas and hemispherical bowls, small globular jars, medium globular jars, large globular jars, very shallow flat- bottomed pans or plates, and medium-sized flat-bottomed pans. At the site of Tomotley, Baden (1983:57) utilized a much less detailed vessel classification system reporting that jars were by far the most abundant vessel form (n = 671), followed by hemispherical bowls (n = 148), flat bottomed pans (n = 117), and cazuelas (n = 5).

Another diagnostic attribute of Overhill series vessels was a coil of clay that was added around the entire circumference of a vessel just below the lip or shoulder. These decorative additions, known collectively as "rimstrips," were typically either modeled from the final vessel coil, by folding, or applied as a separate coil, by a technique know as "filleting." Various decorative techniques were applied to rimstrips including finger pinching, punctating, and notching with a sharp stylus. Such variability suggests that differences in rimstrip decoration may be associated with different vessel forms or that these decorative techniques may be temporally sensitive. Like vessel form, there was

little consistency in how rimstrip decoration was recorded in the various Tellico Archaeological project reports, making the identification of patterning in particular rimstrip treatments impossible with the current dataset. The impression one gets from the reports, however, is that stylus notching was much more frequent than either pinching or punctating in the mid- to late eighteenth-century assemblages.

The Qualla Ceramic Series

In contrast to the temporally and geographically restricted Overhill ceramic series, the Qualla ceramic series was constructed with data from regional surveys and

excavations at a number of historic and prehistoric sites in western North Carolina. Consequently, it offers a much broader culture history framework. Indeed, in forty years of research in western North Carolina, archaeologists have been able to demonstrate that the Qualla ceramic series represents a 500-year long South Appalachian pottery tradition (Egloff 1967; Hally 1986a, 1994; Keel 1976; Riggs and Rodning 2002; Rodning 2004; Ward and Davis 1999; Wilson and Rodning 2002). Thorough histories of the

development of this ceramic series can be found in other works (Riggs and Rodning 2002; Rodning 2004); therefore, here I offer a brief summary.

Egloff (1967) first defined the Qualla series in his M.A. thesis. In this work, Qualla-series pottery was distinguished by grit tempering, surface treatments including carved paddle stamping and bold incising, and folded and pinched rimstrips (Egloff 1967:34-35). Egloff found that Qualla-series pottery was distributed primarily in the Middle, Valley, and Out Town Cherokee settlement divisions and not in the Overhill and Lower settlement divisions. It would later be shown that the lack of Qualla-series pottery

in the Lower Cherokee settlement division was a spurious finding that resulted from sample bias (Hally 1986a). The bias resulted from Egloff's selection of excavation contexts from sites in the Lower Cherokee settlement division that were much earlier than samples from the other settlement divisions (Hally 1986a:109-110). A decade later Keel's (1976) analysis of the pottery assemblage from the Tuckaseegee site (in the Out Town area of western North Carolina) confirmed Egloff's definition of the Qualla series and expanded it to include brushed surface treatments.

After this initial period of establishing the definition of Qualla-series pottery, research shifted focus to exploring how variability within this series might relate to the temporal dimension. Dickens (1979) took the first step in this endeavor by proposing a distinction between an early (ca. A.D. 1450-1650) and a late (ca. A.D. 1650-1838) subdivision of the Qualla archaeological phase. This separation reflected the distinction between pre- and post-Contact time periods, but unfortunately Dickens never explained how this temporal split was materialized in the Qualla ceramic series. Some twenty years later, Ward and Davis (1999:180-183) established three subdivisions for the Qualla phase. They extended the beginning of the Qualla phase backward in time by conjecturing an unidentified Early Qualla phase that predated A.D. 1450. They hypothesized that this subphase would include pottery styles similar to Early Lamar ceramic series like Wilbanks in northern Georgia and/or Dallas in eastern Tennessee. Later analyses by Riggs (et al. 1997) and Rodning (2004; Riggs and Rodning 2002) would confirm the existence of this provisional phase. The Middle Qualla phase (ca. A.D. 1450-1700) was characterized by carved paddle stamped jars with notched rimstrips and the appearance of incised cazuelas. The Late Qualla phase (ca. A.D. 1700-1838)

ceramic assemblages were described as having very similar surface treatments to Middle Qualla phase assemblages; however, Ward and Davis (1999:181, 268) noted that

curvilinear motifs gradually replaced rectilinear motifs through time. Late Qualla phase assemblages were also characterized by the absence of the cazuela vessel form and the introduction of the "rolled" rim. As will be discussed below, the recent work done by Riggs (Shumate et al. 2005) and Rodning (2004; Riggs and Rodning 2002) has done much to further refine the Qualla ceramic series by identifying more fine-grained diachronic patterns of change involving surface treatment, vessel form, and rimstrip morphology.

After considering the radiocarbon dates calculated for features at the Coweeta Creek site in western North Carolina, Rodning (2004:312) made slight alterations to the calendrical date ranges assigned to the three Qualla phases by Ward and Davis (1999). Rodning's (2004:312) new phase ranges include: Early Qualla Phase (ca. A.D. 1300- 1500), Middle Qualla Phase (ca. A.D. 1500-1650), and Late Qualla Phase (ca. A.D. 1650-1838).1 The portion of the ceramic series related to the Early Qualla phase was defined by assemblages recovered from the Cherokee Casino site and the Coweeta Creek site (Riggs et al. 1997; Rodning 2004). These assemblages contained both curvilinear and rectilinear complicated stamped surface treatments, with the latter tending to be more numerous. Less numerous but highly diagnostic Early Qualla phase surface treatments included diamond check stamping, red filming, and wiping that resulted in the extrusion of temper particles to the vessel surface (called "coarse plain"). Sherds having a compact sandy paste, rimstrips with "saw-tooth" notching, and unmodified rims (i.e., lacking rimstrips) were also highly diagnostic of this subphase (Riggs and Rodning 2002:39;

Rodning 2004:314). Early Qualla vessel assemblages contained everted-rim jars with and without rimstrips, tall-neck jars with unmodified rims (resembling late Savannah phase jars), and small red filmed bowls with simple incised motifs. Incised cazuelas were rare.

Middle Qualla phase ceramic assemblages were dominated by curvilinear and rectilinear complicated stamped surface treatments. During this subphase, however, curvilinear motifs including scrolls (so-called figure "9" and figure "P"), concentric circles, keyholes, and wavy lines were much more frequent (Figure 4.2). Minority surface treatments included cord marking, smoothing (i.e., plain), and cob roughening, and Middle Qualla phase assemblages lacked the distinctive diamond check stamping of the previous subphase (Rodning 2004: 314). Also, incising became a much more

prevalent surface treatment during the Middle Qualla phase with both curvilinear and rectilinear motifs being present (Riggs and Rodning 2002:43-44). The increase in incising as a surface treatment was due to a dramatic increase in the frequency of the cazuela vessel form in Middle Qualla phase assemblages. This vessel form had a sharply carinated profile featuring complicated stamping beneath the shoulder and incising above. Middle Qualla phase vessel assemblages also included jars with highly everted rims and pinched and flattened rimstrips, as well as small restricted orifice hemispherical bowls with folded and punctated rims (Shumate et al. 2005:6.10-6.11).

Rectilinear complicated stamping, particularly featuring panel and line block motifs, and square check stamping became dominant surface treatments during the Late Qualla phase (Riggs and Rodning 2002:45). Incising was present in much diminished frequencies early in the subphase, and this surface treatment virtually disappeared from

Qualla assemblages along with the cazuela form after the mid-eighteenth century (Rodning 2004:312). Jars forms during the Late Qualla subphase had excurvate rather than highly everted rims, and they featured much more prominent coronal rimstrips. These rimstrips were more often stylus notched than pinched and flattened (Rodning 2004:312). By the late eighteenth century, Qualla vessel assemblages also included significant numbers of medium and large flat-bottomed pans (Riggs and Rodning 2002:45).

Riggs's (Shumate et al. 2005) study of a Qualla series pottery assemblage from the Alarka farmstead site provided a notable example how small pottery assemblages recovered from household sites with short occupation spans can contribute greatly to increasing the temporal resolution of ceramic chronologies. The Alarka site consisted of the structural remains of a winter and summer house pair and a small number of

subterranean pits. Little evidence for architectural repair suggested a relatively short (less than 10 years) occupation of the site by a single household. The pottery assemblage recovered from the site numbered just less than 1,000 sherds and represented a minimum assemblage of 34 vessels. The assemblage exhibited diagnostic ceramic attributes dating primarily to the Middle Qualla phase, but the assemblage also included some attributes of the Late Qualla phase. The majority of complicated stamped sherds in the assemblage featured curvilinear motifs; jars with highly everted rims and pinched and flattened rimstrips (Middle Qualla) as well as jars with excurvate rims and prominent notched coronal rimstrips (Late Qualla) were present (with the former type predominating); a relatively large number of incised cazuelas were present in the vessel assemblage (Middle Qualla); restricted orifice hemispherical bowls with folded and punctated rims were also