Crafting Vessels from Stone – Ednor Soapstone Quarry

Cassandra Michaud, Senior Archaeologist, Montgomery Parks

Before clay was discovered as a superb and locally available material to shape into pots, Indigenous groups turned to a material called steatite for carving bowls and other

artifacts from boulders and outcrops. Also known as soapstone due to its waxy feel, steatite is only found in limited places throughout Maryland. Veins run roughly parallel to the Fall Line,

which serves as the division between the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont zones. Soft and easily carved, yet durable and able to retain heat well, groups living in the area 3000-4000 years ago realized that steatite made for excellent cooking vessels. Sculpted into a variety of shapes and sizes, the vessels were placed directly in the fire to heat the contents; other times, steatite fragments were heated and put in the vessels to aid in cooking the meal. The containers also have served as a key component in processing tree nuts, which can require several steps of grinding and soaking the nuts for easy human consumption.

Figure 1. Soapstone bowl reduction process describe by William Henry Homes (Tweedie 2014).

Sitting on a small rise above the surrounding land, the Ednor Soapstone Quarry lies on one of these veins in Montgomery County, part of a chain of steatite quarries connecting across the river into nearby Howard County. Given the absence of the material in other parts of Maryland, steatite was sought after through trade or direct acquisition at a quarry like Ednor. Exactly how that happened is still under research, though fragments of carved steatite - whether bowls or pipes or items of personal adornment - have been recovered archaeologically across a wide swath of the eastern woodlands. Clearly, the effort to acquire steatite was worth it despite the long distances and bulky nature of the artifacts. The importance of steatite as a resource even after clay pottery became more common can be seen in the shapes of the first clay pots created, which mimicked those often found in steatite vessels. The first pots also used ground steatite mixed with the clay as temper, likely to increase the structural stability of the vessels.

Figure 2. Soapstone bowl fragments from the Ednor Site.

Originally identified by Smithsonian archaeologist William Henry Holmes in 1897, the Ednor

Soapstone Quarry site is now part of the land Montgomery Parks stewards. Future plans for the Ednor site include research into how soapstone quarry locations were chosen, how the vessels were manufactured, and how the vessels were transported, traded, and exchanged through the Middle Atlantic. The park will also provide opportunities for the public to learn about this important inflection point in the County's history.