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Organic-Tempered Pottery: An Experimental Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

James M. Skibo,
Michael B. Schiffer and
Kenneth C. Reid
James M. Skibo
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Traditional Technology, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
Michael B. Schiffer
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Traditional Technology, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
Kenneth C. Reid
Affiliation:
Center for Northwest Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99163
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Abstract

This paper presents the results of testing technological and techno-functional hypotheses concerning the effects of organic temper. Behaviorally relevant tests are used to compare the performance characteristics of untempered, mineral-, and organic-tempered briquettes and vessels. The characteristics tested include impact resistance, abrasion resistance, portability, thermal shock resistance, ease of manufacture, and heating effectiveness. Organic-tempered ceramics have superior performance characteristics during manufacture, allowing for an expedient ceramic technology. This, along with reduced weight and greater portability, may explain the preference for organic-tempered vessels by groups that frequently shift their residence. Moreover, it is found that all low-fired ceramics, but especially organic-tempered ceramics, are susceptible to complete breakdown in a moist environment under freeze-thaw conditions. Frost wedging is thought to be responsible for an underestimation of Late Archaic organic-tempered ceramics in northern latitudes as well as the destruction of any low-fired pottery subject to a moist depositional environment and freeze-thaw cycles.

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Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , January 1989, pp. 122 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1989

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