The Identification of Vessel Function: A Case Study from Northwest Georgia

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Abstract
Archaeologists now possess the knowledge and techniques necessary to identify pottery-vessel function with a reasonable degree of specificity. This article is intended to demonstrate that capability. The pottery vessel assemblage characteristic of the sixteenth-century Barnett phase in northwest Georgia consists of 13 physically and morphologically distinct vessel types. The mechanical performance characteristics of these vessel types are identified and employed in formulating hypotheses concerning the way vessel types were used. Historic Southeastern Indian food habits are reconstructed from ethnohistorical and ethnographic evidence and employed to refine the vessel-use hypotheses.