Welcome!

This interactive page was created as part of the course ANTH 630: Quantification and Statistics at the University of Maryland.

Take a look at the citations tab for more information about the author where the data and other resources are from.

The topic of this project is archaeological collections from three 18th century plantation sites excavated in Vrignia. These sites are two from Kippax Plantation, in Prince George County and Utopia II, in James City County.

Bolling	Slave Quarter	Utopia II
17th c.	17th c.	1700-1764
PG county	PG County	James City County
n= 275	n= 215	n= 203

n = ceramic count included in analysis

why look at ceramics? Ceramics are a useful tool for archaeologists for what they can tell us about the past, culture and life ways. Ceramics are also more likely to survive the test of time even in regions were preservation is limited ceramics are likely to survive. Ceramics are also what archaeologists refer to as diagnostic artifacts. This means they are dateable, we know of a time range an artifact may have been produced.

The types of ceramics present at a site may also point to the sites purpose or use or the status of the person(s) living there. The ceramic type, ware, and form coming out of a dairy will be very different from those that come out of a house or kitchen.

The Diagnostic Artifacts of Maryland Website is a good resource for more information about these artifacts https://apps.jefpat.maryland.gov/diagnostic/index.htm

The following questions guided this project

1. What ceramic types and forms are most represented at Bolling and Slave Quarter?
2. How do these concentrations compare to other sites of a similar time period?
3. How can this data be represented in an interesting and informative way?

Data Used

Types of Ceramics: An Archaeological Perspective As mentioned earlier ceramics are a useful tool for archaeologists. Looking at the ceramic types, wares, and forms at a site archaeologists learn more about how people lived or used the site.

Below are the main three ceramic types identified, earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain.

Earthenware	Stoneware	Porcelain
“fired at the lowest temperatures, ranging from 900 degrees to 1050 degrees Celcius. This pottery is porous and requires glazing on at least one surface to hold liquids”	“pottery is fired at temperatures between 1200 degrees to 1300 degrees Celcius, resulting in a ware that is non-porous (vitrified) and stone-like… While stonewares are impervious to liquids and do not need to be glazed, they often are.”	“a variety of dense, highly vitrified and translucent white-bodied ceramic produced from specialized white clays that can withstand firing temperatures over 1300° C. There are three types of porcelain: hard paste, soft paste and bone china”
image:North Devon Gravel Tempered	image: White Salt Glazed Stoneware	image:English Porcelain

Quotes and photos from Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory 2008 [2003] Colonial Ceramics. Diagnostic Artifacts in Maryland. https://jefpat.maryland.gov/diagnostic/

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Where did the data come from?

The ceramic data used for this analysis is based off of the ‘Vesselalized’ catalog from the Bolling and Slave Quarter Sites. This means there are more ceramics from these sites. The vessel data was more complete and easier to conduct an analysis on for now. However, the porcelain data has been been cataloged by ware. So while there are different kinds of porcelain at these sites it was not able to be included in the sunburst charts. The ceramic data from Utopia II came from a DAACS Database Artifact Query for all ceramics at the Utopia II site.

This data was then used to create the sunburst charts you see to the right. While they may look chaotic at first each category should have the same color from chart to chart. However, not all ware type categories are present at each site so some color assignments may vary a little.

• inner circle: pottery type (earthen ware, stoneware, porcelain). In archaeology there is often a difference distinguished between refined earthenware and coarse earthenware. Each of these categories is influenced by clay quality/processing and firing temperatures.

• outer circle: ware type, like North Devon Gravel Tempered or White Salt Glazed Stoneware.

Interpretations The comparisons between just three archaeological ceramic datasets is not at all conclusive but can raise additional questions about each of the sites.

Compared to many other datasets the ceramic data here would be considered fairly incomplete, in the state it is in now it ma be difficult to draw statistical conclusions. This is in part due to the nature of the collections I decided to try and compare. The collections from Utopia II were excavated a while ago and I believe are completely processed. The sites at Kippax on the other hand are still being cataloged and checked. This is why I only used the vessalized data, it is more accurate. So in these interpretation it is important to keep in mind not all of the ceramics found at kippax have been included. This means when comparing overall count Slave Quarter and Bolling likely have many more ceramics present than Utopia II.

Regardless there are some interesting trends visible in these sunburst charts. The ceramic ware type variability is much higher. There are more kinds of stoneware at the Kippax sites. More kinds of earthenware at Utopia II.

There are more Refined Earthenwares at both Bolling and Slave Quarter when compared with the Utopia II Quarter site.

Ceramic Ware Type Counts by Site

Bolling	Slave Quarter	Utopia II
n=18	n=21	n=16

In some ways it is shocking to see that Slave Quarter has the most ceramic variability of these three sites. Excluding porcelain types, which would likely place Bolling above Slave Quarter in ware type count, no porcelains were recovered from Utopia II.

Each of the sites recovered colonoware in varying proportions. Utopia II has the highest percentage of colonoware at 33.3%, Bolling has the second highest percentage from its vessel data with 17.6%, and Slave Quarter has the smallest percentage at just 9.09%.

Final Thoughts

The access to different archaeological datsets through databases like DAACS open up new possibilities to students and researchers alike. They provide opportunity to work with data and gain understandings of archaeological practice in excavation and wading/wrangling data. One of the takeaways I have from this experience is that while the data may be available it takes a great deal of work to wrangle the data into something that can be compared. Out of the consistently cataloged artifacts ceramic ware types are some of the most established terminology used in cataloging, making comparison easier. I had hoped to do a similar comparison between ceramic forms, however as you can tell by clicking on the Ceramic Form Comparison tab this data is fairly messy, I think I would want to return to the artifacts themselves or photos bore combining a few of these categories.

In the future I think it would be really interesting to continue work with these datasets. Perhaps looking at change over time at sites like Utopia where the data is recorded on DAACS for different periods of occupation.