Preserving the Prehistoric Pottery of Nantucket By Karl Wietzel, NHA Collections Specialist
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n a visit to the Whaling Museum, the first exhibit typically encountered is a display of Wampanoag artifacts. While these artifacts are a window to the many thousands of years of adaptation, technological expertise, and modes of settlement and subsistence by the island’s first peoples, they represent just a small fraction of Native American objects curated by the Nantucket Historical Association. Beginning in 2020, through funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the NHA team began a major update to how the rest of this vital collection is preserved, studied, and made accessible. Among the pieces on display at the Whaling Museum, one stands out: a beautiful, partially reconstructed pottery vessel. The use of pottery is an earmark of the Woodland period beginning around 3,000 years ago. On Nantucket, this was a time of environmental stabilization, as tidal estuaries, ponds, and salt marshes formed across the island. Archaeologists interpret the presence of pottery and its use on Nantucket archaeological sites as evidence of site use during the Woodland Period, coinciding with cultivation of indigenous plants, exploitation of salt marsh resources such as shellfish and grasses, and the establishment of community settlement areas and gardens. While people had been utilizing the island’s natural resources long before 3,000 Before Present Era (BPE) evidence suggests that during the Woodland Period, Native Americans were remaining on Nantucket on a permanent or semi-permanent basis. Early Woodland pottery is typically thick, grit-tempered, and undecorated. As ceramic and tool technology improved in the Northeast, so did the pottery forms, and by the Late Woodland period, vessels were typically stylized, sturdy, and refined, many having been shell-tempered and bearing distinctive decoration. For tribal historians, archaeologists, and museum staff, Pre-Contact period Native American pottery is valuable for research in a number of key areas. As a starting
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point, because pottery is not easily transported, a deposit of pottery sherds often suggests a nearby settlement. Pottery in general, and various pottery forms, relate to specific time periods, helping to refine the age of archaeological sites within the Woodland Period. Protein and lipid residue analyses can show what a piece was used for. For archaeologists in the sub field of ceramic archaeology, complete or partially reconstructed vessels provide data on the size and volume of containers, methods of construction, and cultural identity through craftsmanship and design. The list goes on, from migration and trade patterns, to cultural affiliations with neighboring communities, population density, discard behaviors, production methods, technological innovations, and linear connections to artisans today. Stone tools make up the bulk of Native American artifacts now stored at the NHA and rightfully garner much attention. They are, for the most part, complete and familiar; stone artifacts are difficult to break, and share many of the same functions as similar tools used today. The collection also contains research-rich materials from excavation sites, including soil samples, charcoal fragments, animal bone, and the field notebooks of dozens of archaeologists. Research and exhibition potential meet with the hundreds of pottery fragments, or sherds. These pieces represent dozens of vessels and clay pipes, and most were painstakingly labeled by archaeologists in the field so that they might someday be studied and reconstructed. Dr. Elizabeth Little, who over several decades spearheaded research on the pre-historic and early colonial periods on Nantucket, often discouraged further excavation and disturbance of Native American sites on the island. Little recommended that “the abundant available resources not requiring excavation form the basis for...thorough study.” Today, the collection is being migrated into long-term storage solutions based in part
