Crow Pottery In Northern Wyoming

Abstract

Mandan Tradition ceramics in northern Wyoming and adjacent areas of Montana and South Dakota have been attributed to the Crow Indians. A decade of excavation and collection of this pottery suggests it may have first appeared around the beginning of the 16th Century and lasted well into the 18th Century although these dates are tentative. Several restorable vessels provide a better knowledge of the range and shapes and design elements. CROW POTTERY IN NORTHERN WYOMING Ceramics of two separate traditions are widely scattered over northeastern Wyoming and adjacent areas of Montana and South Dakota. The two pottery traditions include Intermountain which is thought to have been left by Shoshonean groups and Mandan tradition commonly believed to have been left by the Crow. Recovered ceramics are not always easily separable unless diagnostic parts of vessels are present. The most westerly occurrence of Mandan Tradition in Wyoming is along the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone after it leaves the Absaroka Mountains. Other occurrences are in the drainages of the Big Horn-Wind River, Tongue River, Powder River, Little Missouri River, the Belle Fourche River and the northernmost tributaries of the Cheyenne River. The name Intermountain Tradition was first used by Mulloy (1958: 196) to describe a distinctive flat-bottomed pottery. Wedel(1954) described both fired earthenware and steatite vessels and the former are of Intermountain Tradition. A more recent site in the Green River Basin (Frison 1971) has expanded considerably the known range of variation of pottery shapes of the tradition. The main interest here concerning Intermountain pot tery is that in numerous situations the two traditions are mixed. The common explana tion for this is that both Crow and Shoshoni groups were stealing women from each other who subsequently continued pottery making in their own tradition or else the same sites were occupied at different times by different cultural groups (Mulloy 1958: 199). The actual details of the movements of the Crow to the Northwestern Plains are obscure. There seems little doubt, however, that its initial occurrence was before the introduction of the horse. These problems have been discussed elsewhere (Frison 1967a: 209-233) and the focus of this paper is to bring the reader up to date on Crow ceramics. The first occurrence of remains of several Crow vessels in good archaeological context in the Northern Wyoming area was at the Piney Creek sites (Frison 1967b). Although none was restorable, some ideas of a range of variation in shape, technology and decorative techniques were possible. A larger collection of Crow pottery was recovered from the Big Goose Creek site near Sheridan, Wyoming during two different field seasons. Part of this was described (Frison 1967a: 97-101) but since the collection was greatly expanded and the original source is relatively obscure, the Big Goose Creek ceramics and a number of other recently discovered Crow vessels should be described (see Fig. 1). THE BIG GOOSE CREEK CERAMICS Over 5000 sherds were recovered from the lowest level of a campsite at Big Goose Creek and 16 sherds were recovered from an upper level. The actual number is not too important