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A brief context-dependent study of Arikara ceramic change

From a technological standpoint, seventeenth century ancestral Arikara potters produced well-made, thin, well-fired wares to which later pottery is compared. These earlier utility vessels are hard, thin, grit tempered, and produced by mass modeling (Krause 2007). Most final forms possess angular shoulders. Average upper body thickness was 3.2 mm (Hoffman 1968:38). Simple stamping and vertical or outflared straight rims are common in these assemblages and vessels are often topped by a small lip fillet, giving them an inverted Lor T-shaped cross-section (Krause 2001:204). Among the more common exterior rim and upper body decorations are incised or trailed herringbones, horizontal trailed or incised parallel lines, diagonal incised or trailed lines, and incised or trailed triangles filled with parallel incised lines (Lehmer 1971:118). In contrast to these wares, early contact period and historic vessels have commonly been described as decadent, stemming from descriptions of them as thick, poorly made, and poorly fired (Lehmer et al. 1978:183; Strong 1940:366; Wedel 1957:91; Will and Hecker 1944:70). Lehmer and colleagues (1978:183) argue that the pottery of this time period “is obviously the product of less sophisticated or adept potters.” The average thickness of a sample of upper body fragments taken by the senior author from twelve eighteenth century Arikara sites (discussed below) was 7.8 mm, almost twice as thick as vessel bodies made a century earlier. The transition from a thickness of 3.2 to 7.8 mm over one hundred years has been attributed to deterioration in artisan competence and the increasing availability of Euroamerican trade goods (Lehmer 1971:118–119; Lehmer et al. 1978:183– 184). This attribution, however, begs the question “why were altered standards of artisan performance acceptable by both potter and consumer in the historic period?” In this article we deconstruct traditional arguments with respect to technological changes in eighteenth and nineteenth century Arikara pottery making. We begin by countering the assertions that Arikara pottery was poorly made and poorly fired (Lehmer et al. 1978:183–184; Strong 1940:366; Wedel 1957:91; Will and Hecker 1944:70). Historic Arikara ceramics were quite serviceable, a fact commented plains anthropologist, Vol. 61 No. 240, November, 2016, 394–409