Miniature Pottery of Northwest Florida

 Except that these small containers were not mixed with larger items and even a pygmy needs larger containers for larger groups to share.  It is possible though that the peoples moved often and did not wish to have large items.  Thus a drinking mug can do it all.

Miniaturization is weight reduction. Yet clay cups are so useful that they will be brought along.  Two items are also inconvenient as they will bang together and break.


Otherwise these are all usable as personal drinking vessels.
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THE MYSTERIOUS MINIATURE POTTERY OF NORTHWEST FLORIDA 

Posted by Richard Thornton | Dec 22, 2016 

 Until recent years, Clarence Bloomfield Moore (1852-1936) was given sainthood status by many academicians as being the most prolific pioneer archaeologist in the United States. In truth, he was a grave robber and imperialist. He completely destroyed several hundred mounds in the Southeast and took the trophy artifacts back to Philadelphia to distribute to his wealthy friends. Tools, skeletal remains and vegetative remnants were tossed aside or dumped in a nearby river. Little or no thought was give to the architectural and town planning traditions of Southeastern Indians.


  










 


  


 





During the Woodland Period the pottery along the Apalachicola River at many village sites was much smaller than the ceramics produced immediately to the east in the Florida Panhandle or to the north along the Chattahoochee River in Alabama and Georgia. Did a race of pygmies once live along the Apalachicola River? Do these drawings and photographs represent leftover tourist junk from a thousand to two thousand years ago that was tossed into a garbage midden when it didn’t sell? Did the people of this region intentionally make miniature pottery as containers to hold the ashes of their cremated dead . . . or perhaps these are special grave offerings? 

Beginning in the Middle and Late Mississippian Cultural Periods (1250 AD – 1600 AD) the ceramics along the Apalachicola became normal in size and similar in design to those of nearby peoples. Apparently, different people then lived along this river, who were related to the Chatot, Apalachicola and Florida Apalachee. The custom of making miniature pottery and the people who made it seems to have moved elsewhere.

We may never be able to solve this mystery. After the herds of Western Bison were almost exterminated, the favorite past time of rich tycoons in the Northeast and Midwest was to take the train down to Florida in the winter and dig up mounds. Hundreds, possibly thousands of burial mounds in Florida were destroyed by wealthy grave robbers until the mid-20th century, when a new generation of Floridians began to object to the desecration of their ancient heritage. Meanwhile, the trophy artifacts taken back up north often ended up in estate sales, flea markets or sadly . . . far too often in the garbage cans of the tycoons’ heirs.




During much of the 1890s and period up to the First World War, Moore guided his personal steamboat, the Alligator, up the rivers and coastal estuaries of the Southeast. He would dock at plantations and small towns, put on the manners of royalty, and convince property owners that it was a great honor for them to allow this prince of Northern Capitalism to dig up their Indian mounds and haul the trophy artifacts back North. Most property owners obliged without realizing that their own cultural heritage would be lost forever, if Moore was allowed to do his thing. A few property owners did not and thus saved these sites.

That Clarence Bloomfield Moore deserves any memory at all is due to the fact that he did write reports on most of his digs, which gave the names of property owners and approximate locations of mounds. With this information, one is generally able with satellite imagery to relocate the village and town sites, even though the mounds were destroyed a century ago. Moore also provided printed descriptions, dimensions, drawings and photos of his trophy artifacts in his published reports. Most of these artifacts have now disappeared, but at least Moore provides us today an partial understanding of the Southeast’s past. 

The ancient past of Northwest Florida remains quite mysterious. Most of the trophy artifacts that Moore unearthed from sandy burial mounds along the Apalachicola River were NOT associated with human burials, but planted separately. Both Moore and contemporary archaeologists did not seem to realize that the reason that these burials were bits of bone or individual bones mixed with charcoal, was that they were the remnants of cremation. When Moore decried large sections of burial mounds with nothing but charcoal and pebbles, he was actually tossing away cremated human remains. 

Archaeologist Clarence B. Moore explored the coast and rivers of Florida with the steamboat, Alligator.

Miniature ceramics

Throughout his reports on the expedition up the Apalachicola River, Moore complained about the inferior quality and size of the ceramics he robbed from graves . . . except in a mound at the confluence of the Apalachicola and Chipola Rivers, where he found far more elegant and larger Hopewell Culture-style pottery . See our recent article, HOPEWELL IN FLORIDA.

These miniature pieces of pottery vary in size from that of a lime to a large grapefruit. They are way too small to be used as cookware or serving ware for a family . . . really would represent tiny servings of food or beverage. Perhaps they held beverages with psychotropic properties . . . like a tea made from brewing morning glory seeds. Whatever their use, they are much, much smaller than ceramics found immediately north of the Apalachicola River along the Chattahoochee River. It was obviously a different culture that created them. They very well could have been pygmies or at least people of shorter than normal stature. The question still remains a mystery.



Hopewell style ceramics from the confluence of the Chipola and Apalachicola Rivers


Miniature ceramics from the Aspalaga site displayed artistic themes very different from that of the Hopewell Culture.


Pottery from the Blountstown & Bristol sites displayed similar artistic themes to that found at Kolomoki Mounds, but were exceedingly small.