Marcey Creek

Defining Attributes

Marcey Creek is an Early Woodland ware characterized by crushed steatite temper, rough and unevenly smoothed exterior and interior surfaces. Vessels have a flat net- or fabric-impressed base with a protruding heel and vertical walls.

Chronology

Stratigraphic sequences and radiometric dating indicate that Marcey Creek dates from ca. 1000 B.C. –  750 B.C. (Stewart 1982:74);1200 B.C. – 800 B.C. (Egloff and Potter 1982:97).

Distribution

Marcey Creek is found throughout the Coastal Plain and Piedmont Regions, from Delaware south to the James River in Virginia.

Description

Paste/Temper
The paste ranges from coarse to fine and smooth, depending on the size of the temper particles. The clay is fine-to-medium grained, compact, and cohesive. The temper consists of coarse-to-fine crushed steatite that varies from very fine – 10s mm in diameter, and makes up 25 – 50% of paste. The steatite gives the sherds a soapy or greasy feel not otherwise a property of the clay. Marcey Creek is very soft, with a Moh’s hardness of 1.5 – 2.0.  Color ranges from an oxidized dull gray, through buff and tan, to rose and reddish brown. Stephenson et al. (1963:91) noted, however, that buffs and reddish - tans are dominant at the Accokeek Creek site (18PR8).

Surface Treatment
Marcey Creek is smoothed from the lip to the base, but exhibits a wavy or lumpy appearance, and is rough to the touch. The surface is very uneven and irregular, with lumps of temper protruding through the paste. The flat base sherds show impressions of a coarse, open weave fabric or net. Interiors are smoothed or plain.

Decoration
The only decorations recorded by Stephenson et al. (1963:91) were "occasional lip nicking." Incising has been observed on sherds in rare occasions, and even more rarely the vessels exhibit patterns on rim exteriors (Wall et al. 2000). A few incised sherds from the W.A. Walker Farm, Selden Island are in the Smithsonian collections.

Morphology
Marcey Creek is a hand-modeled ceramic with flat-bottomed bases and straight slab-constructed walls. Some vessels possibly coil-constructed on a flat base (Stephenson et al.1963:91, Egloff and Potter 1982:95).

Marcey Creek vessels were apparently copied from steatite bowls (Wise 1975:21), with oval to cylindrical bodies tending towards the globular, straight sides, and lug handles attached to the rim area 20 mm – 40 mm below the lip.

Bases are flat with protruding heels, and range from 9 mm – 15 mm in thickness. Basal sherds are heavy and unevenly finished. All basal sherds recovered from the Marcey Creek site exhibit impressions of a coarsely woven mat on the exterior (Manson 1948:225) and this trait is found throughout this pottery’s distribution.

Rims are vertical to slightly inverted. Lips are usually thinner than the body and are rounded or slightly wedge-shaped.

Vessel wall thickness range from 7 mm – 14 mm. Vessels are medium sized, with sherds and small sections of pots suggesting diameters of 15 cm – 28 cm, and depths of 10 cm – 20 cm.

Defined in the Literature
Carl Manson (1948:223) first defined Marcey Creek from pottery found at the Marcey Creek site, located on the banks of the Potomac River in Arlington County, Virginia, across from Washington D.C. He identified two wares, Marcey Creek Plain and Marcey Creek Cord Marked, from the site. Manson noted, however, that Marcey Creek Cord Marked differs in temper (clay and crushed lithic materials other than steatite) and manufacturing technique from Marcey Creek Plain. In 1955, Clifford Evans combined both wares with the Selden Island ware defined by Richard Slattery to create the Marcey Creek Series. Stephenson et al. (1963) later refined the definition of Marcey Creek Plain using sherds found at the Accokeek Creek site (18PR8), in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Type Site
Marcey Creek site 

References:

Ayers 1972; Egloff & Potter 1982; Manson 1948; Stephenson et al. 1963; Wise 1975