Collection Corner

April is Montana Archaeology Month, and to celebrate, the Carter County Museum will be bringing you a series of articles about topics in the field. Pottery is a relatively rare artifact to find and is often preserved in pieces called "sherds" in archaeological parlance. The museum has a small collection of a variety of sherds that have been traced back to the Mandan/Hidatsa and Crow Tribes.

By examining pottery and other ceramics, archaeologists can discover information about the cultures from which they originate. Decorations, choice of clay and craftsmanship all provide clues about tribal affiliation, interactions between American Indian Nations and the movements of trade networks.

In some cases, residue from inside the pieces can be sampled to tell the history of the vessel's contents. Ceramics were made by sedentary and semi-sedentary tribes as they took time to create and were often too bulky for nomadic cultures.

The presence of pottery sherds here in Carter County tells the story of three tribes – the Mandan, Hidatsa and Crow. While it is possible that the Mandan and Hidatsa pottery was traded to this area, the Crow sherds are likely left over from the tribes' time in our region.

The historical record cites the Crow tribe as having split from the Mandan nation some 500 years ago. Sources differ as to the reason why – some cite a decision to move further south after the Mandan settled on the Missouri River and others an altercation.

Crow oral history defines the event as the choice of their tribal chieftain (No Intestines) who was given a sign to travel to Missouri River country, stay with the Mandan tribe, and then continue until they eventually settled in the Big Horn country of southern Montana.

In Montana, three types of pottery are predominant in the archaeological record: Crow, Avonlea and Intermountain. Crow pottery is often decorated with parallel lines and dots, uniformly smooth and has an S-shaped rim. Avonlea, the oldest of the three, is globular with a grooved exterior design. It is common to northeastern Montana. Intermountain, or Shoshone, pottery is flat on the bottom and smooth inside and out.

In the Mandan tribe, pottery was constructed from deposits of clay which were dug up and placed into a sack made from animal skin. The clay was then mixed with powdered stone (generally collected from fire pits and crushed) by kneading the powder into clay until it blended together. The clay was then rolled into a ball and molded into a pot by hand. The finished shape was then taken to the river and moistened.

Designs could then be pressed into the mouth of the vessel with a piece of sinew. To further shape and strengthen the pot, the artist would hold a stone inside with one hand and strike the outside with a beater made of bark in the other. This process makes the clay firmer and leaves a ridged pattern on the outside of the pot. The vessel is then left to dry and the process repeated for three days. Finished pots were fired on a bed of burning charcoal.

As the pots heated, the coals were raked up around them and bark was added to fuel the heat (but not permitted to touch the pot). When the pot turned red, the fire was no longer fed and it was left to stand until it turned cold. Pots were cleaned with the residue of boiled corn, which made them last longer.

That concludes this week's Collections Corner! March was a big month for the museum as we received the Montana Office of Tourism's event of the year award for the Dino Shindig and a $5,000 grant from the Montana History Foundation for our fossil collections rehousing project (look for an article on that in May). For Archaeology Month, I will be conducting an atlatl training at the Ekalaka Elementary and high schools.

The museum will also be hosting the Miles City BLM for an Artifact Roadshow on April 21, from 1-4 pm. Bring any items that you would like identified to the museum during those hours!

As a reminder, the museum is now on its summer schedule. Our hours are Monday-Friday from 9am to 5 pm and Saturday-Sunday, 1pm to 5pm.