Credit: Courtesy of The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Archaeology
The hallmark artifact of the Woodland Period is clay pottery, which differs from one location to the next. This pot, the body of which is decorated with cord-wrapped paddle impressions, is of the Clemson Island style. Clemson Island potters used parallel strands of cord to impress the clay neck, and typically decorated the rims of their pottery by pushing a twig part way through the wet clay, which created a pattern of holes on the outside and corresponding bumps on the inside surface of the rim. Clemson Island habitation sites, which date to 1000-1300 AD, are mainly found along the Juniata River and in the middle Susquehanna River Valley. Clemson Island folk built loaf-shaped, bark-covered houses and acquired food by gardening, hunting, and fishing. They also are the only people known to have constructed burial mounds in eastern Pennsylvania.
