Pottery trowels were made and used in ancient times across the globe. These fired ceramic artifacts are usually “mushroom shaped” with cylindrical handles (also called the stem) and convex bases (also called the head or bell). They are widely thought to have been used in the production of pottery vessels to smooth the clay coils used to construct the vessel prior to firing. In the Midwest and Southeastern United States, pottery trowels were commonly found on Mississippian sites from the Mississippi River valley in Missouri and Arkansas southeast to Georgia but were rarely if ever found on Caddo or Quapaw (Tunican) sites. This is interesting, since the Caddo and Quapaw also made vast amounts of pottery, so if they didn’t utilize pottery trowels, but instead used smooth stones or other implements, why did the Mississippians go to the trouble of manufacturing pottery trowels?
Pottery trowels have not historically been a major focus of Mississippian archaeological research, with their mention in archaeological reports usually being relegated to an “Other Pottery Artifacts” section with little to no analysis. One exception was when archaeologists at Angel Mounds in Indiana in 2006 excavated what they referred to as the “Potter’s House,” where pottery tools including trowels, prepared unfired clay, mussel shells and masses of slightly fired clay pieces were found in one unit, suggesting that craft production was a specialization conducted by a few individuals at Angel, in specific areas for the broader community.
From the compilation and analysis of the trowels found at Angel Mounds, McGill (2012, 2013, 2014) described the first categorization of different Mississippian pottery trowel types. After examining 188 examples, he categorized them into three handle top types (single, bifurcated and trifurcated), which described how many lobes were attached to the stem top. For those with single-topped handles, there were four different top shapes (round, thick, tapered and knob). For those with bifurcated handle tops, there were also four different top shapes (deep V, and shallow V, out-flaring V, and out-flaring T). Bases were categorized as whether the area where the handle affixed to the base was either concave with respect to the handle (referred to as indented) or convex (referred to as tapered). The bases were further characterized as to whether their edges were rounded or squared.
Since these categorizations by McGill were developed using pottery trowel examples from just one site (Angel Mounds), it isn’t surprising that different variations exist when looking at pottery trowels from across the Midwest and Southeast. Just from the author’s collection, there are two trowel types that don’t fit within McGill’s defined categories.
This concave style was described by Dethrow (1988) as a being found mostly in Kentucky. Indeed, the left example is marked as being from Kentucky, with the righthand example’s provenance being more specifically from Ballard County, Kentucky. Dethrow suggested that the concave reservoirs in trowels like these were used to hold water to aid in smoothing wet clay. It seems doubtful to the author that this would be practical when an ancient potter could just as easily have an entire vessel of water nearby for the same purpose that wouldn’t need constant refilling. However, no alternative function for the reservoirs is readily apparent to the author, either. Dethrow also showed examples of bifurcated and trifurcated trowels in his 1988 Central States Archaeological Society article, although he didn’t use that nomenclature. All the pottery trowels featured in Dethrow’s article are now in the collection of the author.
Another trowel variation not covered by McGill’s study is one where eyes were incised into the top of trifurcated trowels while the clay was still wet to create an animal effigy top shape. In these cases, two of the lobes become ears and the third becomes the snout of the animal effigy.
It has always been the opinion of the author that pottery trowels could have been used for a different purpose than only smoothing pottery vessels, since most pottery trowels are too big to fit inside and be used to smooth out the average sized pottery vessel. It seems plausible that the largest of these could have been used to smooth out the clay used for Mississippian wattle and daub house wall construction instead.
In researching references for this article, it was found that this proposed use was not unique to the author, as it was first suggested by Thruston (1890) and Holmes (1903). McGill (2012) also suggested that “some large trowels have extremely flat bells and heavy indications of use, perhaps suggesting they were instead plastering trowels.”
Figures 7a and 7b show two views of the same trowel, which is the largest in the author’s collection (4 5/8″ diameter base). It has a bifurcated shallow-V top and an indented and rounded base, and is from Henry County, Tennessee. Unlike the bases of smaller examples, there is significantly more wear on the bottom of its base, like those described by McGill. Therefore, perhaps this example was used for plastering and not smoothing pottery vessels.
The firing temperature was hotter than that used to create greyware ceramics, thus making the trowel harder. A harder trowel would presumably better withstand prolonged use as a smoothing tool than a softer greyware example.
Pottery trowels continue to be an underappreciated artifact type to both archaeologists and collectors. Hopefully further research can be done on existing examples in the future to better understand the specific uses of these artifacts.
References
1) McGill, D.E., “Insights from the Analysis of 100+ Pottery Trowels from Angel Mounds (12Vg1),” poster presented at the 2012 Midwest Archaeological Conference.
2) McGill, D.E., “Social Organization and Pottery Production at Angel Mounds, a Mississippian Archaeological Site,” unpublished dissertation, Indiana University, Oct. 2013, 614 pages.
3) McGill, D.E., “Insights from the analysis of Angel Mounds pottery trowels,” Southeastern Archaeology, 33(2), 2014, p. 189-205.
4) McGill, D.E., “Questioning Craft Production at Angel Mounds Analysis of the 2006-2009 Angel Mounds Field-Schools,” Midcont. J. of Arch., 38(2), 2013, p. 205-218.
5) Dethrow, J.M., Central States Archaeological Journal, 35, No. 3 (July 1988), p. 161-164.
6) Thruston, G.P., “The Antiquities of Tennessee and Adjacent States,” Robert Clarke Co., Cincinnati, OH, 1890.
7) Holmes, W.H., “Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern United States,” Twentieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1898-99, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1903.