Native American Ceramic??

coldwater diver · Nov 7, 2016

Hi guys while diving for oysters in a place Ive been many times before I found what looks like "early". I have found a shard before in fresh water, does anyone have any knowledge of what this is? The area it was found in is a coastal sal****er river right in an area thats been in use since 1660. Im guessing its from that era,( in 1692 this town was burnt down by the French and Indians the captives were marched to Montreal for ransom).
I was surprised to find it as most everything is covered in coral. I also found some nice broken shards I will add soon.

RCO · Nov 7, 2016

I have not idea what it is but it could be native pottery I guess , it does look very old

UncleBruce · Nov 7, 2016

I hope it's viking

CanadianBottles · Nov 7, 2016

I'm in no way an expert but it sure looks like that's what it is to me! I can't imagine what else it would be and the design does look like it's in a similar vein as some of the examples I can find online from that general region. From the picture it looks like it would have been a massive jar, how big is it?

GEEMAN · Nov 8, 2016

As a kid, many of the fields I used to hunt arrowheads in also had a lot of pottery shards scattered all over. It's hard to tell from your pic but as long as there is no glaze on it I would bet the farm that what you have there is native American. Another tell is what was used to temper the clay. Temper was added to the clay give the finished pot some added strength I think. I have found pot shards with tiny pieces of broken pottery, tiny pieces of flint which is kind of odd but by far the most common was ground up shell. If it's shell tempered you will see tiny white specs scattered all through the pottery wall. That's a pretty cool find.

botlguy · Nov 8, 2016

Those types of items need to be identified by an expert.
Jim

coldwater diver · Nov 8, 2016

Hi guys thanks for the responses. Canadian its about 4"by 4" by 4". The lip portion is 3" wide, I estimate the mouth was 4 1/2" wide. Geeman no glaze but upon cleaning
it looks like broken shell and possibly fine ground mica as it has almost a sparkle to it. The pottery itself is quite thin. The tribe that was in this area was the Abenaki. I am pretty excited to find this piece, I will be looking a little bit closer from now on around this area. I attached a picture of a historical plaque from the area. Thats the indian who tipped his canoe and lost his jar.

GEEMAN · Nov 9, 2016

I'm not familiar with any of the Indian cultures prehistoric to contact time who lived in Maine but the pottery in your pic is very similar to the stuff I found on sites ( In the midwest ) that were late prehistoric ( Mississippian Culture ) through contact with white men. All those shards I found from that time frame were thin ( less than a quarter inch thick ) and of a high quality compared to earlier pottery shards from the Woodland Culture. I showed several of my shards as well as some sheet copper fragments I found to someone with the archeology department at Indiana state university and they IDd them as being in the Mississipian/contact time frame. I would bet yours is in that same time frame. Look around the immediate area (on shore and in the water)where you found that piece and there should be a lot more shards laying around.
Thanks for that little history lesson. I love reading about local history like that.

coldwater diver · Nov 9, 2016

Thanks Geeman. I googled woodland culture pottery and found a similar on Pintrest a similar design and edging on bottom of the top band of my shard. The top is different but my guess is the vessel looked very similar to this.

GEEMAN · Nov 10, 2016

Dropped you a PM/email CD.

Native American Ceramic??

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