Ceramic Studies at Maryland’s First Capital

Ceramics are ubiquitous on colonial archaeological sites because pottery is fragile but its fragments are durable. This chapter reviews fifty years of sustained study of seventeenth-century archaeologically recovered ceramic artifacts. The effects of outside political and economic events can change the distribution and availability of some ceramics which have either been in long use in other cultural settings or cease to be available within a colonial English setting, such as the passage and enforcement of the Navigation Acts. New ware types described from the excavations in St. Mary’s City are enumerated and discussed. A number of exotic pottery types are described and placed in economic context. A strong emphasis on the vessel level of analysis is stressed and insights from vessel utilization are explored and explicated.