Material Remains

CERAMICS

The pottery found during the 1993 and 1994 summer excavations was dominated by Oliver Phase ceramics. Feature 31 was the only context that contained ceramics of a possible non-Oliver Phase component, as evidenced by the high number of limestone tempered sherds. Out of a total 88 limestone tempered rim and body sherds (Table 3) 52 were recovered from Feature 31. However, an examination of color, surface texture and thickness indicates that these sherds were fragments from a single vessel. The surface treatment and temper type of the other sherds recovered from Feature 31 were consistent with Oliver Phase pottery found elsewhere on the site. Unfortunately, no rim sherds or other diagnostic artifacts were recovered from Feature 31 and the body sherds were all badly eroded, so identification was hindered.

The ceramic assemblage has been separated, for descriptive purposes, into the following four categories: rim sherds, body sherds, pipe sherds, and pottery discs (Appendix A). Rim sherds are fragments of pottery that originated from the top of the vessel and retain an intact lip surface. Body sherds comprise all sherds from below the rim and include neck, shoulder, and base sherds as well as detached appendages such as handles or lugs. Pipe sherds include all fragments of fired-clay smoking pipes (e.g., stems, bowls, etc.). Finally, pottery discs consist, most often, of body sherds which have been intentionally chipped and ground into circular or disk-shaped pieces of unknown function. Many pottery discs exhibit remnants of their original surface treatment.

Appendix A accounts for the frequencies of rim sherds, body sherds, pipe fragments, and pottery disks by excavation unit. Table 3 shows a breakdown of rim and body sherd frequencies by temper and surface treatment/decoration. As is typical of all Oliver Phase components which have been investigated, the vast majority of pottery vessels were tempered with crushed stone or coarse sand "grit" tempers. Only a small number of sherds (about 10%) displayed other kinds of temper, such as fine sand, shell, limestone, or grog (clay or crushed sherd temper), and even these few specimens have grit mixed in as well. There was no appreciable difference in the kinds of temper used in rim sherds versus body sherds (Table 3).

The kinds of surface and decorative treatments applied to the Oliver Phase pottery from the Cox's Woods site were somewhat varied and differed between rim sherds and body sherds (Table 3). These differences have to do with the fact that the body surfaces of Oliver Phase vessels were rarely decorated below the neck area and were most often marked with cord-wrapped paddle or smoothed over completely so no obvious markings were seen (plain). Rim sherds, on the other hand, were commonly decorated either with an incised curvilinear guilloche design located on the neck or with cord-wrapped or plain dowel impressions on a thickened rim band or collar. A few rim sherds demonstrated a combination of these two types of decorative techniques (incised versus impressed) (Plate 2b).

The rims with either incised or dowel-impressed (cord-wrapped or plain) designs are similar to motifs observed on pottery from a number of excavated Oliver Phase sites in the East Fork White River valley (Redmond 1993a, 1993b, 1994; Redmond and McCullough 1993) and in the upper West Fork White River in central Indiana (Dorwin 1971; McCullough 1991, 1992). The incised ceramics also bear close similarities to such middle Fort Ancient Tradition pottery types as Anderson Incised (Griffin 1966). The cord-impressed vessels are less easily associated with defined ceramic wares in the Midwest but show some similarities with collared, Late Woodland vessels found across the Great Lakes region from Minnesota to New York State. Thus, the pottery remains from the Cox's Woods site make up an archaeologically coherent assemblage which can be placed within a fourteenth century Oliver Phase context (Plates 1a, 1b, and 2a.)

Only five fragments of clay smoking pipes were identified in the ceramic assemblage recovered from the Cox's Woods site. All are very small and poorly preserved specimens. None of these fragments exhibit evidence of decoration and all appear to be untempered.

Twenty-four pottery discs (Plate 3a) made from plain and cord-marked body sherds were found during the 1993 and 1994 excavations. One of these disks was tempered with crushed shell and the rest have varying amounts of grit temper. Two of the specimens were perforated or drilled in the center, and one exhibits a small depression on the interior surface that may represent an aborted attempt at perforation. Pottery disks of similar form have been recovered from at least one other Oliver Phase site, the Heaton Farm site in Greene County, Indiana (Tomak1984). These artifacts are common in some middle to late Fort Ancient Tradition assemblages from Ohio (Griffin 1966) and Kentucky (Turnbow 1992).

As mentioned previously, the Oliver Phase ceramic assemblage is comprised of a mixture of vessels with a Fort Ancient type of incised decoration and vessels with Great Lakes type of Late Woodland cord-impressed decoration. On the Bowen Site, located in the northern portion of the Oliver Phase area and dating perhaps two hundred years earlier than Cox's Woods (Dorwin 1971), these two types of vessels were associated together in reliable archaeological contexts, but not found on the same vessels (McCullough 1991). Sites located along the East Fork of the White River (Redmond 1991), as exemplified by the fourteenth century Clampitt site (Redmond 1994a), however, exhibited a slight mixing of the decorative styles as evidenced by the presence of incised designs typical of Anderson Phase Fort Ancient with cord-wrapped dowel impressions (a Late Woodland technique) on the lip or rim band.

Even though this blending was a common occurrence along the East Fork of the White River, the Cox's Woods site was unique in that some of the vessels reflected a convergence of morphology, method of decorative execution, and motif. Specifically, the Fort Ancient guilloche broad-line incised design placed on the vessel neck with an excurvated rim profile was combined with a typical Oliver Phase cambered (or recurved) rim profile with Late Woodland chevron designs executed with cord impressions (Plate 2b). The result is a vessel profile that excurvates outward at the neck and then makes a sharp recurve back towards the inside of the vessel. This combination represents, to some extent, a convergence of style between what was maintained as separate stylistic traditions on earlier Oliver Phase sites.
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