Old hand made clay vase/pot?

[mart]

Some did and some did not !!  Not sure about Arkansas at all but have looked a bit in that area !!  Caddo from our area had little decoration if any on most of their pots !! Most seemed to be simple utilitarian !! Could be different area wide !!
I am just saying from here, and there was a large Caddo population, they might do a little paint on a pot and a small amount of engraving but generally it was minimal !! The Arkansas Caddo were a bit different culturally I think,, but that is only my opinion !!
Ray,, that last link you gave down at the bottom even questioned the seed jar theory !! And gave logical reasons due to the propereties of the pots themselves why they doubted that was their intended use !!

[Ipcress]

I just got an email reply from an auction house.  It is Native American.

It looked similar to a decorated pot they sold so i thought they might help. Knew it wasn't European or Asian so that was me out 

[Cldartistry]

looks like a matte raku glaze piece to me, because of the carbon areas

[IlliniGuy]

Mart, you are right about the Caddo pottery varying by region. I provided the last link specifically to point out the point you raised. Collectors still call them seed jars even though there intended usage is really unclear. The original piece might be Native American as the Auction company said, but I have never seen a prehistoric piece from any culture with a flat bottom like that.

[mart]

You know Ray,,,, I still think this pot is not as old as they think !!  I still think southern Mexico or South America is the most likely possibility on this one !! Just don`t think its our Native Americans !! Its too thin walled !!   These things took a lot of abuse,, !!  I think it would have been much sturdier !!  Or am I not seeing right ??

[IlliniGuy]

Actually it is not the thinness that bothers me. It is the flat bottom. I have seen literally thousands of prehistoric Native American pottery from every culture you can come up with including Anasazi, Caddo, Mississippian, Quapaw,......and I have never seen this treatment but I have seen many good pieces this thin. Just for the heck of it I am including a pic I took last year at the Collinsville, Illinois show. These tables had a couple hundred pieces of old pottery most of which was Caddo.

[icedgold10]

Now what bothers me is how does one show happen to have 100's of these historic pieces?  They are not common but all are gathered in one place.  It doesn't look like a high end gig either???

[IlliniGuy]

Now what bothers me is how does one show happen to have 100's of these historic pieces?  They are not common but all are gathered in one place.  It doesn't look like a high end gig either???

This is the largest show in the country Icedgold. It attracts the largest dealers in the country also. Actually pottery of this sort is not all that uncommon. Laws and morality has changed drastically over the years and the vast majority of this stuff has floated around from collector to collector for a long time.

[icedgold10]

How many dealers does the show host?  When is their show each year?

[mart]

Now that looks much more like our Caddo pottery !! Did you notice how simple ours look as opposed to other cultures ?? Is that large red one Anasazi ??  Can`t see it clearly but looks like it might be !!
Icedgold when I moved to this area they were building a lake that covered a large area of Caddo burial mounds along Panther Creek !! An attorney I knew and another big collector in town got to excavate those sites !! Don`t ask me how they did it but since he was our county attorney,,he found a way !! He now has a huge collection of very nice pots and other burial artifacts !! I restored a lot of furniture for him when I had my shop !!  Believe me,, there are many out there !!  It was not unusual for farmers plowing fields to uncover a mound !!

[icedgold10]

When I dug up my back yard all I found was blue painted bricks.  Darn!

[IlliniGuy]

The Collinsville show is March 7th and 8th this year. It is a huge show although I can't tell you how many dealers will be there but it will have thousands of visitors. There will be artifacts brought in by the "Heavy Hitters" that normally you will only see in books. Last year in the Hotels the night before, two artifacts changed hands for somewhere in the 150,000 dollar range...EACH! If that ain't high end, I don't know what is Now let me say, I do not condone the digging of burials. It has been illegal for a long time and getting caught doing this will result in the harshest penalties. Like I said earlier, Morality has changed in this country and the laws have followed suit. But face it, if Howard Carter had not stumbled on the previously unknown tomb KV 62, we would have never have known about Tut and his marvelous treasures. The same holds true with the treasures found in Mayan tombs of gold and Jade. Archaeology has come a long way since then and we could debate this forever.

[IlliniGuy]

I would also like to add that the only artifacts I have ever dug have been on organized archaeological digs with professional Archaeologists present and no graves were disturbed.

[mart]

I agree with that but without some of the excavations,, we would have little knowledge of the Caddo culture !! The sites they dug are now under 30 feet of water !! So it hard to say which is best !! To my knowledge they did not remove any bones with the exception of one that they were not aware of at the time !! They found a large red clay ball that they couldn`t figure its use !! The person finally decided to get a water hose and started washing the clay ball !! Took several days since the red clay is like concrete when dry !! When he finally got to the center it held a skull !!  All they could figure was that he was considered crazy and they had encased his head after death for some reason !!  

[mart]

I have only surface hunted !! Many here still walk the river during the summer and make some great finds !!
If I remember correctly several local Universities were contacted before the lake started filling !! Can`t remember any actually coming to do anything !! This was 40 years ago so things were a bit different !!