Late Woodland Keyser Ceramics

Robert Wall, Towson University

Native ceramics in Maryland provide archaeologists with a variety of details on the cultures that made them and, because of their tendency to preserve well in archaeological contexts, much information can be drawn from their recovery when other important perishable evidence has faded away. Recoverable information includes the age of the culture who

made the ceramics as well as the technology employed to manufacture them. Ceramics are also vehicles for other archaeological evidence that assist in the interpretation of the past. For example, residues suchas protein, pollen, and carbon that adhere to ceramic surfaces can provide many important details about the environment and the diet of the cultures who produced them.

This brief summary describes a particular ceramic type found on archaeological sites in Maryland. Shell-tempered ceramics of the upper Potomac and Shenandoah River valleys traditionally referred to as Keyser Cordmarked ceramics, mark the last phase of the Late Woodland period in central to western Maryland prior to European contact. These

ceramics were made by horticulturalists that cultivated maize, beans, squash, sunflowers, and other domesticated plants in gardens associated with small village settlements.

Keyser ceramics, which are thin (ca. 6-7mm) but durable, provide archaeologists with a time frame as well as a region or territory where "Keyser" people lived in palisaded villages. The villages consisted of a ring of circular houses within a surrounding stockade or palisade that on some sites measures more than 100 meters in diameter. As with all ceramic assemblages there is a beginning date and an end date for Keyser, in this case circa AD 1400-1575 for most sites.

Keyser ceramics are tempered with crushed freshwater mussel shell and typically exhibit a prominent cord-wrapped stick impressed lip, sometimes referred to as a "pie crust or scalloped" pattern (Figure 1). Nodes, which are small, flat to rounded pieces of clay, are often attached to the area just below the lip or rim of the vessel and vary in shape and design. Some nodes are simply plain, others are marked with cord-wrapped stick impressions or

perforated from the sides.

Figure 1. Keyser ceramics with typical attributes.

The bodies of Keyser ceramic vessels are cordmarked with a cord-wrapped paddle, predominantly in a vertical pattern, and most often with final s-twist cordage The final cordage twist means that the twisted cord used to make impressions on the clay in groove-like lines, before firing, is oriented in an s-shaped pattern (slanting down to the right), leaving a negative z-shaped impression on the ceramic's surface. The interiors of Keyser vessels are often blackened and smooth making the finely crushedshell temper appear as a sparkling white pattern. Mending holes used to attach broken vessels are commonly found in body sherd collections, more so than most other ceramic types in the region.

What appears to be early Keyser ceramics, from sites such as Cresaptown in western Maryland, exhibit plain surfaces on thick vessels and are simply decorated with incising across the lips of vessels (Figure 2). The bodies of such vessels are relatively thick and are typically cordmarked but some vessels are plain. It is possible that Keyser ceramics originated from earlier ceramic series (e.g., Page and Shepard) whose primary attributes include higher percentages of crushed rock temper (e.g., limestone, chert, and quartz); have thick, brittle vessel walls; and exhibit cord-marked or plain surfaces on the exterior of the vessel. Some of the same characteristics found on Keyser ceramics, such as nodes and folded over lips, are also found on earlier Page ceramics. However, the dominant features of Keyser ceramics, such as the scalloped pattern and oblique punctates (stamped in the clay with a dowel), are relatively unique.

Figure 2. Early Keyser ceramics from the Cresaptown site (18AG119).

An alternative hypothesis regarding the origins of Keyser peoples is that they represent an

intrusive population in the Potomac and Shenandoah valleys. This means that the Keyser ceramic tradition came with the tribal group that migrated into the region, ca. AD 1400. Where they came from is the controversial question. Similarities in Keyser ceramics to Monongahela groups to the west and north, in Pennsylvania, suggests some relationship to Keyser. However, the ultimate origin of the Keyser peoples remains unclear.

Keyser ceramics are found on many sites from the Middle to upper Potomac Valley and in the

Shenandoah Valley. An isolated collection of Keyser ceramics from the Frederica site in Delaware suggests contact with the Potomac Valley Keyser groups but this represents an anomaly in the Chesapeake region. The Hughes site is one of the more easterly manifestations of Keyser in the Potomac Valley with Barton and Cresaptown in the North Branch Valley of the Potomac lying on the western fringe. Keyser ceramics were originally defined as shell-tempered Late Woodland wares recovered from excavations in the 1940s on the Keyser Farm site in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The same site also produced Page ceramics, which precede Keyser in the region, and Potomac Creek, which post-date Keyser.