Emergent Ceramics and Identity at the Fifteenth-Century Iroquoian Keffer Village

Abstract

The recent interpretation of ceramic types as fluid and relational (Fowler 2017) has facilitated their use in the exploration of relational identity. In this study, ceramics from the fifteenth-century southern Ontario Iroquoian Keffer (AkGv-14) village are employed in the exploration of matrilineal, matrilocal household self-identification as seen through ceramic communities of practice. The Keffer assemblage is separated into two categories; local tradition ceramics which I suggest represent genealogies of family practice, and non-local tradition pottery, which I propose communicates contemporary relations and long distance interaction. In addition, a new, third category of ceramics is proposed “emergent vessels.” Emergent ceramics are materialized in two separate and distinct vessel forms in the collection, the Everted Lip and North Shore Durfee Underlined. Their sudden and geographically restricted materialization reflects the equally sudden appearance of newly emergent facets of the polyvalent identities of potting communities as seen at Keffer and other north shore sites. The short-term production and use of these emergent ceramics attests to the quickly diminishing importance of these new emergent aspects of identity while the ceramics of the latest village occupations verify the endurance and gradual transformation of those facets of identity tied to family genealogy and long distance interaction.