6/28/23 Report - Beach and Other Treasure Coast Pottery Shards or Sherds: European, Indigenous and Modern.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Pot 

Pot Shard Found by Warren D.

Warren D. sent me the following email and two photos.

I found this several weeks ago while walking a treasure coast beach checking the shell piles. 

I showed it to an experienced treasure hunter and he said the appearance of the finger/thumb impressions on the inside wall while it was being formed on a spinning table are the clue.

It also slightly sounded off on my pulse inductor metal detector and he said when they made these pots they laid them on piles of straw and lit the straw on fire to "fire" or harden the pottery. The carbonization from this firing is what my detector detected. Similar looking stone like objects on the beach didn't sound off and didn't have the finger impressions.

It didn't have any writing on it, too bad.

Warren D.

_Other Side of Pot Shard Found by Warren D.

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I didn't know what I was going to talk about today until I got Warren's email. I then decided to stay on the topic of pot shards today.  I haven't looked at my own for quite a while but have been thinking of doing the topic again anyhow.  Most beach shards are found, as Warren suggested, in shell piles.  Below is one shard that is a little smaller than the one shown by Warren.

Inside of Surface of Pot Shard
Showing Finger Potters Finger Marks.

That isn't a good photo, but I think you can see what I'm talking about.

Below is a partially conserved jug, which is about sixteen inches tall.  You can see the rings on both the inside and outside surfaces.

Nice Old Partially Conserved Jug.

The top rim has been coated for preservation.

Some red shards you find on the beach will be from roofing tiles or drainage pipes. I once did a post on how to tell the difference. Most of the modern pieces are extruded rather than thrown on a wheel. You can see that by looking closely at the material.

Many thrown pieces are smoothed on the outside using a tool called a rib, but on the inside, which is usually not smoothed, you can see the horizontal circles from the potter's fingers.

Now I'll switch to indigenous shards.

Incised Shard.

Notice the horiztal incised line near the top of the shard.

Below is a nice rim shard showing three incised lines.  Looks like it had some nice decoration.

Outside and Inside Views of the Same Incised Shard.

Below is a check-stamped example.

Check Stamped Pot Shard.

The check stamped example was found on private property on the surface next to a road.

You can see more examples of check stamped pottery here.

Florida-Check-Stamped-Pottery (peachstatearchaeologicalsociety.org)

Mound material was sometimes used to build roads in Florida. That is unfortunate to say the least, but you can occasionally find items like that around old roadways.  And before the roads were built, the waterways were the roads.

.I believe the next shards might be what is called corded, but this is one of the many subjects I know very little about, and I'm not sure if they are really corded or not.

Those three shards, unlike the other indigenous shards shown today, are from West Virginia.  All the above examples are from the Treasure Coast.

Decorated Indigenous Shards.

The shards shown below are bottom rims from what I presume would be European pottery.

I estimated the diameter of the light colored one, if whole, would have been around fourteen inches. The red one is from a smaller vessel.

See The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 10/6/12 Report - Preserving Finds

See also The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 2/23/16 Report - Various Beach Shards. Frozen Gold TV Program.

And lastly, here is a look inside a piece of 1800s stoneware container. This is the most modern piece shown today (2800s) but still shows the impressions on the inside.  Too bad you can only faintly see them in the photo. I suspect a tool was used since the rings on the inside are so uniform.  There were a lot of these made, so the process was probably mechanized to whatever extent possible.  I'd like to learn more about that.

Broken J. Bourne and Son Master Ink Stoneware Bottle.

I've shown the same kind of stoneware master ink bottles from the same company that are whole. This broken one allows a cutaway view of the inside.  

See The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 12/29/11 Report - J. Bourne Bottle & More

Master ink bottles just like this were found on the SS Republic. I think you can probably find them for sale online.

If you can find any more information on the manufacture of these or other stoneware containers, please send me links.  

I'd also like to find good online sources for the indigenous pottery.

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One thing that really aggravates me is the lack of academic articles on the internet.  Many of the academic sites are only available through institutional accounts.

Previously I was able to access the thesis and dissertations of the nautical archaeology program at TAMU.  Now they appear to be restricted access.

Archaeology always claims to save the past for the public, but they won't publish their articles where they can be viewed by the public.  You have to subscribe to expensive academic journals.

The internet is loaded with all kinds of garbage, but that compounds the difficulty of finding quality information.

Here are a couple others that are restricted access.

International Journal of Nautical Archaeology | Nautical Archaeology Society

Search Results for “ship gold” – The Nautical Archaeology Digital Library (shiplib.org)

One of the best sties I've found to see indigenous pot shards (or sherds) is the PeachTreeStateArchaeolgicalSociety.org web site.  They are doing what archaeology is supposed to do - make information available to the public.

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Just the remnants of Cindy in the Atlantic now.  Nothing that will help beach conditions right now.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net