Robert Wauchope believed that this type was an unintentional decoration.
He believed that the pots received these impressions while being hung in nets to dry.
The evidence for this view is that some of the cord marked vessels were over-smeared with clay to hide the cord impressions and that cord impressions are found over other Etowah designs.
Cord marking on grit-tempered pottery.
Sometime the cord impression are found to be over other stamped Etowah designs
Known vessel forms include deep conoidial open-mouth jars with slight shoulders and restricted necks.
Middle Mississippian, Etowah period.
Northwestern Georgia.
Wauchope 1966:71.