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Examining the First Uses of Pottery by Northern Great Plains Peoples During the Time of Besant and Sonota
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- Author / Creator
- Lints, Andrew D.
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Highly successful pedestrian era communal bison hunters of the Besant and Sonota archaeological phases were the first to use pottery on the northern Great Plains. While the Besant phase is widely distributed across this region, the Sonota phase is confined to North and South Dakota. The Sonota phase shares notable similarities with the Besant phase but is marked by the first burial mounds on the northern Great Plains, with clear Hopewell connections. Pottery is one of the defining features of the Sonota phase. It is abundant at the Stelzer site, located along the Missouri River in South Dakota. Occupied between 1810 and 1556 cal BP, Stelzer is a massive campsite situated among a number of burial mound sites (including Arpan, Grover Hand, and Swift Bird), several of which also contained pottery (Neuman 1975).
The Stelzer site provided an opportunity to examine over 15 vessels from a single Besant-Sonota era site, and compare this dataset to a scattering of vessels from 24 additional northern Great Plains sites in an arc extending across the northern Great Plains. Pottery was examined through multiple approaches: 1) visual analyses of decorations to connect these vessels with nearby contemporaneous cultures; 2) use-alteration analyses to identify how communities used these vessels; and 3) plant microfossil analyses of carbonized food residues, followed by isotopic analyses, to identify what foods were prepared in these vessels.
The arrival of pottery coincided with widespread interregional interaction as the Hopewell Interaction Sphere spanned large parts of North America, in addition to a notable rise in community-driven bison kills and visible increases in tipi ring sizes. Of the 20 vessels examined at the Stelzer site, 11 had distinct shapes, surface expressions, and decorations. Influences for these variants ranged from as far east as Havana Hopewell of Ohio, to the Laurel complex and Malmo phase of Minnesota, but are most reminiscent of Valley phase variants of Nebraska and Iowa. This diversity appears to reflect gatherings of northern Great Plains and Hopewell affiliated groups at a time when items and ideas were moving across great distances.
Pottery vessels are infrequent within the Besant-Sonata era, but were well maintained and repaired. Multiple pottery vessels exhibited signs of modification in the form of drilled holes. Wear observed around these holes was likely the by-product of a carrying strap being attached to these vessels and rubbing against the vessel during transportation. V-shaped carbonized stains noted on the exterior and interior of reconstructed vessels from the Arpan Mound, 39JK63, Greyrocks, and Butler-Rissler sites reveal that vessels were placed beside fires to bring foods to a boil slowly.
Northern Great Plains peoples played an active role in the movement of items and ideas throughout North America. Carbonized food residues from the Stelzer and Arpan Mound sites yielded evidence for maize (Zea mays ssp. mays). The presence of maize adds further depth to the diversity of exotic materials acquired by the peoples responsible for the Stelzer site and the nearby mounds, joining Great Lakes copper, obsidian, and oceanic shells as remnants of cross-continental trade. In contrast to the Stelzer and Arpan Mound sites, early northern Great Plains pottery residues from all other sites contained plant microfossils from locally available plants. These included saskatoon berry (Amelanchier alnifolia), chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), white pond lily (Nymphaea odorata), prairie turnip (Psoralea esculenta), and goosefoot (Chenopodium).
Pottery was in limited use during the Besant-Sonota time frame. Therefore, its presence at sites of unusual significance (such as the Sonota burial mounds), presents a different perspective: that these items were important symbols. Vessels may have had ritual significance, given their placement in ceremonial contexts, modifications to increase their lifespan, and their resemblance to ritual paraphernalia such as pipes. Likely, this was not limited to the northern Great Plains during this time, and large conoidal vessels remained symbolic items throughout the Avonlea period until these were replaced by globular forms. -
- Graduation date
- Fall 2023
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.