Why Colonoware? Exploring Functional Variations in Hand-Built Coarse Earthenwares across the Historical Upper Southeast

Abstract

Abstract Colonoware, a hand-built, low-fired coarse earthenware, appears on archaeological sites occupied from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century throughout the southeastern United States. Although colonoware is highly variable in appearance and abundance, it is evident that subjugated and marginalized communities, including enslaved and free Africans and Indigenous people, produced, marketed, and used colonoware to contribute to, circumvent, and disrupt traditional European markets. Because of the lack of documentary evidence and definitive ethnic markers, fundamental information about colonoware—who made it and for whom it was made—remains elusive. Expecting that function was related to geographically and temporally contextual cultural practices, we adopt an attribute-level approach to identify patterns in the functional role of colonoware in two regions: Virginia and South Carolina. We analyzed data from the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS; www.daacs.org ), which contains fine-grained information on colonoware and other artifacts from 21 sites. We found significant regional variation in abundance, sherd attributes, and form. We interpret this as evidence that Virginia colonoware was primarily made for tableware functions, whereas South Carolina colonoware was more likely used for both cooking and serving. Our examination of interregional variation demonstrates that function is a useful lens for interpreting cultural differences in the development and retention of locally made earthenware traditions.