An Attribute Analysis of Sandy Lake Ware from Norman County and North Central Minnesota

Authors

Lynelle A. Peterson, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

First Advisor

Peter Bleed

Committee Members

Mark Lynott, Francis Calabrese

Date of this Version

5-1986

Document Type

Thesis

Citation

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate College in the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Major: Anthropology

Under the supervision of Professor Peter Bleed

Lincoln, Nebraska, May 1986

Comments

Copyright 1986, Lynelle A. Peterson. Used by permission

Abstract

Sandy Lake Ware, is a Late Woodland-Early Historic ceramic ware, found throughout northern Minnesota and parts of North Dakota, Wisconsin, Ontario, and Manitoba. No formal analysis of this ware has occurred since its definition by Cooper and Johnson in 1964. As a result, the basic information regarding the attributes, the interrelationship between attributes, and factors leading to variation within Sandy Lake Ware are poorly understood.

This thesis analyses the relationship between between attributes from 1459 vessels collected in Norman county, and north central Minnesota, using the chi square statistical method of analysis. This thesis also tests the implicit assumption of no variation occurring between Sandy Lake Ware from the lake-forest and Plains regions of Minnesota.

Findings from this thesis notes the importance of shell temper, an attribute previously ignored for Sandy Lake Ware. This finding suggests that the current typology of Sandy Lake Ware, using exterior surface treatment, be changed so as to take into account the presence of tempering agents. The collections used in this thesis tend to support the assumption of no variation occurring between the lake-forest materials and the materials collected for Norman county, Minnesota.

This thesis advocates the standardization of ceramic description using attribute analysis. The current method of description by crude typological categories, leads to untested assumptions of ceramic homogeneity, and thwarts future attempts of ceramic analysis. Furthermore, a continuation of the study of Sandy Lake Ware, is deemed to be necessary in order to determine the parameters which most greatly effect Sandy Lake Ware.