This thin-walled vessel is from Big Sandy Lake in Northern Minnesota. Its characteristics include a thin, globular body and a short, vertical neck decorated with vertical cord impressions and notching along the lip. This pottery style, known as "Sandy Lake Ware" occurs over a wide area immediately west of Lake Superior, which includes parts of northwestern Ontario, southeastern Manitoba, northwestern Wisconsin, northern Minnesota and northeastern North Dakota. The oldest dates for this ceramic style are on the order of A.D. 1000 and it appears to have lasted until just prior to contact.

It has been proposed that Sandy Lake pottery was produced by Siouan speaking peoples. In particular, it is thought that the makers of this distinctive pottery type were ancestral to the Assiniboine.

This artifact was kindly made available for this exhibit by the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Further Reading

Lake Superior Basin Workshop 1988
1988 Desperately Seeking Siouans: The Distribution of Sandy Lake Ware. Minnesota Archaeologist, 47(1):43-48.

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