During the second half of the Woodland Period (ca. A.D. 100 to 850) Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery gained widespread popularity across much of the Southeast, becoming common in sites throughout Georgia and the surrounding states. To make the pottery, wooden paddles are carved with the complicated designs often representing animals, plants, and faces. The designs are then pressed into the soft clay before firing. The permanent impressions of the wooden paddles preserve unique signatures such as cracks in the wood and asymmetrical designs flaws. These unique signatures allow archaeologists to identify individual paddles whose pottery may be spread over hundreds of miles.
This volume concentrates on only a small part of the Swift Creek pottery locale—the Atlantic Coast of southern Georgia and northern Florida. Author Neill Wallis of the Florida Museum of Natural History has combined graphic analysis, neutron activation analysis, and stamped paddle analysis to identify the pottery from village sites and burial mounds. He demonstrates that there was an active trade between the Altamaha River in Georgia and the St. Johns River in Florida. This is a fascinating case study of how new technology can bring new insights to a complex problem of archaeology.
