Background

This type is named after the Lamar site, 9Bi2, at Macon.

Jesse Jennings and Charles Fairbanks formally defined this type, although James Ford and Arthur Kelly had recognized it from 1934 on from their excavations at Lamar.

Sorting Criteria

Wide line incising (generally greater than 2 millimeters) on grit-tempered pottery.

Lamar pottery is well made and fired, and it is a bit thicker than many earlier types.

Incised designs include curvilinear scrolls, sometimes combined with rectilinear elements.

Occasionally rectilinear elements stand-alone.

Sometimes incising is accompanied by reed punctations, and rarely, dot punctations.

These punctuated types have never been typed separately by name (see Lamar Incised and Punctated).

Reed punctations are sometimes placed at the base of the incised band that serves as a border around the upper portion of the bowls.

The number of incised lines on the vessel increases with time through the Lamar period, from two or three early up and more than twenty in some late cases.

The most frequent vessel shape is the angled or rounded bowl with lower flaring walls and incurving rim.

Rim forms include incurved, flange-like, vertical, outcurve, and everted.

Chronological Range

Late Mississippian Lamar Period.

Geographical Range

Occurs over the entire state of Georgia into Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, and northern Florida.

References

Kelly 1938:48.

Jennings and Fairbanks 1939:4.

Willey 1949:493.

Caldwell, Joseph R. 1953:316.

Wauchope 1966:82-86.

Williams and Shapiro 1990:39-77.