Hi Fort Followers,
It's me, Emma, back with another post and research update! During the field season at Fort St. Joseph, many artifacts were recovered, including many ceramics. As I talked about in my last post, lots of interesting information can be learned about the inhabitants of Fort St. Joseph by looking at ceramics. For example, the type of ceramic, such as French faience or English delft, and where it was produced can indicate trade patterns.
Now that we are back in the lab, I have been starting to conduct research on the ceramics that have been found. I will be attempting to identify the various types of ceramics and break them down into different categories. In particular, I will be focusing on French faience (pictured to the right). I have already started looking at some of the ceramics found this field season as well as previous field seasons. I have also been reading about different types of ceramics found at sites such as Fort Michilimackinac. The most common type of ceramic found at Fort Michilimackinac, which we also find much of at Fort St. Joseph, is tin-glazed earthenware. Tin-glazed earthenware can be further categorized as French faience and English delft which can be broken down even further. There are also less common types of ceramics such as saltglazed stoneware.
While we often find plain white ceramic sherds, sometimes we come across sherds with intricate designs on them. For example, in this fragment to the left, you can see a house and tree and then intricate design in the pictures above. The presence of a design can be very helpful in identifying where a ceramic originated from.
While identifying and sorting ceramics is not always simple, I am looking forward to spending more of my time learning how to tell them apart and categorize them.
Emma
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