A Quantitative Approach to the Petrographic Analysis of Ceramic Thin Sections

TLDR

This technique expands petrography's capacity to illuminate technology, production, trade, and classification in ceramic analysis by complementing traditional qualitative mineral identification. This paper introduces a new quantitative petrographic technique for ceramic thin sections and demonstrates its utility by reassessing the taxonomic status of the type Spring Hollow Incised. The technique is a point‑counting method that precisely estimates the proportions of temper and natural inclusions in ceramic pastes, enabling quantitative petrographic analysis of thin sections. The results show that Spring Hollow Incised is closely related to a newly defined Early Woodland assemblage in the Upper Mississippi Valley, rather than the Middle Woodland Linn ware it was previously assigned to.

Abstract

This paper introduces a new technique for the quantitative analysis of ceramic thin sections through petrography. The technique is a version of point counting that estimates with considerable precision the amounts of human additives (temper) and natural inclusions (silt and sand) in ceramic pastes. In concert with traditional qualitative identification of mineral inclusions, this technique expands the capacity of petrography to shed meaningful light on such topics in ceramic analysis as technology, production, trade, and classification. To demonstrate the utility of the technique it is used to reassess the taxonomic status of the type Spring Hollow Incised. The results conclusively show that Spring Hollow Incised is much more closely related to a newly defined Early Woodland ceramic assemblage in the Upper Mississippi Valley region than to the Middle Woodland Linn ware to which it originally was assigned.