Stone Vessels from a Northeast Louisiana Site

Abstract

Holmes states that steatite was widely used by the Indian tribes north of Mexico for the manufacture of implements, ornaments and utensils. The manufacture of stone vessels predominated on the Pacific coast, especially in the Santa Barbara region where sites have stone vessel fragments in all strata, and along the Atlantic coast, where this trait was especially associated with the Old Algonkian culture of the North Atlantic. The use of stone vessels in the areas in which pottery was used, both in the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast, although much less common, is indicated by occasional references to vessels or fragments on various sites and by the presence of quarries such as those described by Jones3 in the Tallapoosa River region of Alabama. The comparative infrequency of these artifacts on sites in the lower Mississippi Valley inspired the preparation of this report of a large cache of fragments of stone vessels found on a site in West Carroll Parish in northeastern Louisiana.

Poverty Point as Structure, Event, Process

“…As Clark (2004) notes, the dimensions of Claiborne conform to the Archaic measurement system, and the position of its soapstone cache anticipates a similar, albeit much larger cache of soapstone vessel sherds at Poverty Point (Webb, 1944). Claiborne is, in some respects, a one-sixth model of Poverty Point in reverse.…”

Situating the Claiborne Soapstone Vessel Cache in the History of Poverty Point

“…First, they were both emplaced in pits roughly 5 m 2 in plan. The depth of the Claiborne pit is uncertain, but Webb (1944:388) reports the Poverty Point pit to be about 60 cm deep, cut into yellow clay with vertical walls. Second, the vessels themselves are similar in size and shape, albeit we do not have much detail on vessel form from Poverty Point.…”

“…Lugs are common to vessels in both assemblages, and they vary from long and slight to short and pronounced. Finally, both caches contained vessels made from soapstone with limited mineralogical variation (Webb 1944:388), although characterization of both caches could benefit from petrographic analyses 4…”

“…Those that were whole were deliberately broken before being emplaced in the pit. Webb (1944:388) observed four burned patches 30–60 cm in diameter at the bottom of the pit, one with a bed of ash 10 cm thick. At Claiborne, the vessels were emplaced upside down, with two exceptions, and the one with seven pairs of holes was laced together and not used again before being cached.…”

“…One extraordinary context for soapstone vessels at Poverty Point cannot be attributed to subsistence pursuits alone. Placed in a pit about 300 m west of the mound complex were nearly 3,000 sherds from hundreds of broken vessels (Webb 1944). Little is known about this cache beyond what Clarence Webb published in this journal 73 years ago.…”