Page 91 - Middle Georgia State University - Knighted 2019

The use of design on pottery in this sense will be looked at as purely decoration in order
to gain a general understanding of what is typical. The Creeks used a number of styles to design
their pottery which can vary from the Upper to the Lower Creeks. They were primarily known to
incise with the use of ceramic shards or sticks; they use a pinching technique and a walnut
roughened technique that is said to “derive from Lamar complicated stamp and replaces the
stamping in Middle Georgia west to eastern Alabama region and North to northern Georgia.”30
Designs usually cover the upper half or rim of bowls and eventually begin to use sticks to dot in
any fillers31 They use a variety of coil styles in the Upper Creek region as well as ‘X’ and
chevron designs.32 Many of the Lamar phase designs usually were incised with thin coils and
neat and intricate patterns. The Creeks’ adaption of these features created thicker and simpler
incised designs while continuing to use fillers such as dots or chevrons. However, they bear
many similarities from the Blackmon phase on the Chattahoochee River in Alabama.33 Many
designs and techniques begin to develop distinctions between the Upper and Lower Creek
civilizations. Finding pots rolled with corncob for texture was more common in the Upper Creek
regions. While there were some ceramics found in the Lower Creek villages that were considered
rare, the Lower Creeks were known to have developed a swirl style of design that has the
appearance of looking at a scroll from the top that is slightly open. Just as with the corncob
rolling the scroll design was found in some Upper Creek dumping grounds, however, not with
the frequency of the Lower Creeks. Designs like the rain design which is found primarily on

30. William G.Haag, News Letter Southeastern Archeological Conference Vol. II No. 2
(March 1940, PDF), 10.

31. : Lloyd E. Schroder, The History & Material Culture of the Muscogee Creek in Alabama
and Georgia.

32. Ibid, 6.
33. Marvin T. Smith, "Historic Period Indian Archaeology of Northern Georgia," 64.

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