Abstract
Between about 500 a.d. and the late nineteenth century, clay cooking pots associated with the Thule culture were produced in the Arctic region. Ethnographic and archaeological records indicate that these vessels were typically underfired (often even unfired), highly porous, and easily broken. Despite these characteristics, the evidence indicates that they were used to heat water over open fires. In this paper, we examine how Arctic potters were able to produce unsintered vessels capable of holding liquids without disintegrating. We conclude that the application of seal oil and seal blood to the pot’s surface was the key to their success.
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Notes
Pottery associated with the Norton tradition is typically described as being “relatively thin-walled, well fired, [and] tempered with a mixture of organic fibres and sand” (McGhee 1980:44). Thule pottery, in contrast, is described as being “plain, thick, poorly fired [and] tempered with sand and gravel” (McGhee 1980:45). In practice, the difference between the two types appears to be one of a general trend rather than a sharp distinction, and there is a great deal of variation within each tradition. In this paper, we deal only with the Thule cooking pot. Although we believe that the differences between the two technologies deserve exploration, we find that the issue is beyond our ability to explore at this time given the relative paucity of information pertaining to Norton ceramics and to the environmental and cultural contexts of these cultures.
In this and the following experiments, no attempts were made to replicate Thule paste recipes. Because our goal was to isolate the effects of specific variables, our experimental design did not require that we use any particular paste recipe but only that the paste recipe be consistent within any one set of experiments. In point of fact, because of the great variability exhibited in Thule ceramic pastes, such replication would have been nearly impossible.
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Acknowledgements
This research was made possible by a National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs grant (#0452900, Program Officer Anna Kerttula de Echave) along with logistic support from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. We wish to thank Cory Dangerfield and Clint Swink for their work with reconstructive experiments in Tununak and Elisa George and David Yoder for their help with the laboratory experiments. We also would like to thank Raymond Kozak for fabricating the text fixture, Stacy Nelson for helping to conduct the strength experiments, and Hal Rager and Mark Slaughter for their help in finalizing the figures. Examination of archaeological sherds was made possible through the assistance of the faculty and staff of the Museum of the North, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and we especially thank Don Odess, Angela Lynn, and Jim Whitney. We express our deepest thanks to the many Tununak elders we consulted with who provided information and other insights into the use of the clays and pottery from the region. Finally, we would like to thank Jelmer Eerkens, Jim Skibo, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments that helped to improve this article.
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Harry, K.G., Frink, L., O’Toole, B. et al. How to Make an Unfired Clay Cooking Pot: Understanding the Technological Choices Made by Arctic Potters. J Archaeol Method Theory 16, 33–50 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-009-9061-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-009-9061-4