I present in figure 13, a small earthen vessel from a mound in North Carolina, the entire exterior surface of which is marked with a fabric, a pliable cloth or bag woven in the twined styled. The impressions are not the result of a single application of the texture, but consist of several disconnected imprintings as if the hand or a paddle covered with cloth had been used in handling the vessel or in imparting a desired finish to the surface.
Fig. 13.—Fabric-marked vase from a mound in North Carolina.
Specimens of diagonal fabrics, restored from potsherds, are given in figures 14 and 15. The first is a very neatly woven diagonal from the ancient pottery of Polk county, Tennessee. Two series of cords have been interwoven at right angles to each other, but so arranged as to produce the diagonal effect. One series of the cords is fine and well twisted, the other coarser and very slightly twisted. The second is a piece of matting restored from the impression on a small piece of pottery collected in Alabama. It was probably made of rushes or heavy blades of grass.
Fig. 14.—Diagonal fabric, ancient pottery of Tennessee.
Twined weaving prevails in the fabrics impressed on pottery as in those from all other aboriginal sources. An example of the simplest form, obtained from a small fragment of pottery found in Polk county, Tennessee, is shown in figure 16. Two series of threads are interwoven at right angles, the warp being arranged in pairs and the woof singly.
Fig. 15.—Fabric from the ancient pottery of Alabama.
At each intersection the pairs of warp threads are twisted half around upon themselves, inclosing the woof threads and holding them quite firmly, so that the open net-like effect is well preserved even under strain or in long continued use. There are many varieties of this form of fabric resulting from differences in size and spacing of the threads. These differences are well brought out in the succeeding figures.