African Diaspora Archeology: A Collaboration with Descendants 
2025 Archeology Month

Maryland Archeology Month 2025 highlights Indigenous ceramics. Fired clay ceramics first appear in Maryland's archeological record approximately 3,000 years ago. Ceramic production is an additive 
process where clay and temper are kneaded together and then the tempered clay is molded, shaped, decorated, and fired. The clay firing facilitates the long-term preservation of ceramics in the 
archeological record, thus establishing ceramics as a key source of information for learning about Indigenous peoples in Maryland over the last 3,000 years.

 

The articles in this booklet illustrate the wealth of information preserved in and on ceramics, which archeologists study to learn about the Indigenous peoples who made these ceramics. I hope you enjoy these excellent studies of Maryland's ceramic cultural traditions, ceramic replication 
experiments, and analyses of residues preserved on ceramics. These examples highlight the crucial role ceramics play in 
refining understandings of Indigenous cultures in Maryland over the past 3,000 years.
 

Booklet

 

Table of Contents

 

• Exploring Maryland’s Indigenous Ceramics, Zachary Singer 

• “Can you tell me what this is and how old it is?”
  Identifying Ceramics and Using the Diagnostic Artifacts in Maryland Website, Scott Strickland

• Innovation and Connection: The Story of Shell-Tempered
  Pottery in the Chesapeake, Martin Gallivan and Taylor Callaway

• American Indian Pottery on the Delmarva Peninsula –
  A Key to the Past, Daniel Griffith

• Chapel Branch West: At the Center of it All, Julie Markin

• Late Woodland Keyser Ceramics, Robert Wall

• Finding a Frontier Among the Threads, John Henshaw

• Keeping My Temper Under Control, Lynne Bulhack

• Crafting Vessels from Stone - Ednor Soapstone Quarry,
  Cassandra Michaud

• A Look at Indigenous Ceramic Vessels in the Historic
  St. Mary’s City Collections, Chrissy Perl and Erin Crawford

• A Burning Question: What is Preserved in Charred
  Encrustations on Ceramics?, Zachary Singer

• Field Session Teaser – Teagues Point: A 300-Year-Old
  Mystery on the Patuxent, Matthew McKnight