Sapelo Island: Early Hunter-Gatherer Pottery along the Atlantic Coast of the Southeastern United States: A Ceramic Compositional Study

Excavations at the Sapelo Island Shell Ring complex in Georgia produced a voluminous assemblage of St Simons pottery and a small amount of pottery that appears to be of the Thorn's Creek type. Known mainly from South Carolina, Thorn's Creek ceramics have not been found this far south along the Georgia Coast (Williams and Thompson 1999:125-126). In this study, we investigate whether the ceramics found at Sapelo are more closely related to South Carolina wares or the local St. Simons type. To address this question, we used petrographic point counting and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) characterization techniques on a sample of sherds from both South Carolina and Georgia sites. This pilot study addresses the viability ofthese techniques for the sourcing of Late Archaic (4200-3000 BP) ceramics and the nature of hunter-gatherer cultural interaction on the southeastern coast of the United States.