Page 85 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019

The Movement of Muskogee Creek Pottery Design and Style in Georgia
Wendy Sharp

The study of ceramics is a pivotal cornerstone in archeological research and is one of the
most extensive areas of archeological research. However, the use of pottery as a way of research
can easily result in bias towards the information presenting itself and needs to be done critically.
Ceramics are commonly found broken or incomplete and usually in a dumping ground which is
an archeological term for an ancient trash dump. It is easy to make the mistake of overvaluing
pottery as a reliable reflection “of ethnicity, demography, migration, trade, and to be a tool for
temporally dating artifact assemblages” of a specific civilization. 1 It is important not to
overvalue the frequency of a specific design or pot shard found because this could lead to the
“bias of differential ‘brokenness.’”2 The idea of differential brokenness implies that a variety of
different things, such as easily broken pieces or personal distaste in the product, resulted in the
purposeful destruction of pottery. Studying pottery, or any artifact, gives valuable information
for those researching particular aspects of a specific group of people; however, it is necessary not
to overestimate its significance based on looks or design. Ceramics and design from the
Muskogee Creek region flow throughout Georgia and Alabama. Muskogee Creek Indians
covered a large area and consisted of varying sizes of communities with their own unique
traditions. These communities were interconnected throughout the region by extensive trade
amongst themselves. It is believed that Creek pottery derives from the Lamar period because of
the many similarities between the design and style. Nonetheless, the Creek Indians were a

1. Thomas Foster II with contributions by Mary Theresa, Bonhage-Freund, and Lisa
O’Steen, Archeology of the Lower Muskogee Creek Indians, 1715-1836 (Tuscaloosa: The
University of Alabama Press, 2007), 72.

2. Ibid, 82.

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