Regional Conflict, Ceramic Senescence, and Pawnee Raw Material Choice in the Late Contact Era

Margaret E Beck,Donna C Roper,Lauren W Ritterbush,Richard L Josephs

doi:10.1017/aaq.2021.119

Margaret E Beck, Donna C Roper + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2021.119

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Abstract

Here, we consider the last decades of ceramic manufacture among the Pawnee in the Central Great Plains, using petrographic analysis to explore raw material availability and use at the Kitkahahki Town site (14RP1). Historical documents reveal tremendous regional pressures and conflicts in the Kitkahahki Town area during its occupation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—processes that could have altered or restricted the movement of women outside village boundaries. Contact-era Pawnee pottery from Kitkahahki Town exhibits atypical paste textures, atypical inclusions, or both. At least one potter used atypical materials available immediately adjacent to the village, which suggests that ceramic raw material collection was at least occasionally adjusted to reduce risk. Petrographic analysis contributes to our understanding of Indigenous communities in colonial settings, particularly to questions of technological change and landscape use when both were intensely negotiated and rapidly changing.

Highlights

The Pawnee historically spoke a Northern Caddoan language and occupied villages west of the Missouri River, first along the Loup and Platte River valleys in Nebraska and expanding into the Republican River valley in southern Nebraska and northern Kansas (Figure 1; Parks and Wedel 1985)
We consider the last decades of ceramic manufacture among the Pawnee in the Central Great Plains, using petrographic analysis to explore raw material availability and use at the Kitkahahki Town site (14RP1)
One or more potters here used a broader range of materials than earlier Indigenous potters in north-central Kansas, including materials unused since the Plains Woodland period nearly seven centuries earlier

Summary

Introduction

The Pawnee historically spoke a Northern Caddoan language and occupied villages west of the Missouri River, first along the Loup and Platte River valleys in Nebraska and expanding into the Republican River valley in southern Nebraska and northern Kansas (Figure 1; Parks and Wedel 1985). We consider the last decades of ceramic manufacture among the Pawnee in the Central Great Plains, using petrographic analysis to explore raw material availability and use at the Kitkahahki Town site (14RP1).

Results

Conclusion