Ye Pleasant Mount: 1989 1990 Excavations - Open site which ...

Period pottery. The paucity of Chattahoochee Brushed type, which is typical of the
later phases of the Ocmulgee Fields period, suggested that the site was, at least in part,
occupied during the earlier phase of this time. Pottery types recognized were:
Ocmulgee Fields, Dallas Plain, and Walnut Roughened. (Chase 1960:3)
Schnell excavated 49 shovel tests in a series of transects across the site (Schnell 1982).
Schnell collected 1,241 sherds from the site. The sherds associated with the eighteenthcentury
component include (in order of occurrence): plain (containing grit, sand, shell,
grog/shell, sand/shell, and grit shell tempers) (88%), Chattahoochee Brushed (3%),
Walnut Roughened «1%), Ocmulgee Fields Incised «1%), and Kasita Red Filmed
«1%). Of the plain sherds, grit was the most common temper (61 %) followed by lesser
amounts of sand (33%) and shell tempering (6%).
Euro-American trade items reported from lRu63 include European ceramics, bottle
glass, wrought nails, tobacco pipes, brass objects, gunflints, glass beads, brass hawks
bells, brass buttons, iron buckles, and other miscellaneous iron items. This list, however,
is incomplete since a majority of the collection from the site has not been analyzed
completely.
A simplified comparison of Indian pottery found at 9Efl69, Trader Point, and the
Chattahoochee River Yuchi settlements is presented in Table 16. The Chattachoochee data
is based on survey work conducted by Schnell (1982), Dickinson and Wayne (1985), and
Elliott (1991). Pottery collected by Chase and Huscher is excluded because quantitative
data for these sherds is not available. While these two Yuchi assemblages are generally
consistent, minor variations are noted. The greater percentage of plain, or undecorated,
pottery on the Chattahoochee is partially attributable to mixture with undecorated pottery
from an earlier Mississippian component that was present there. The low percentage of
folded, or applique rim treatments and punctations on the Chattahoochee may be a real
difference, or this could reflect differences in analysis techniques. Kasita Red Filmed
pottery is absent at Mount Pleasant, although these wares also are uncommon on the
Chattahoochee. Even at the Kasita site, the Muscogean village where the pottery was first
identified, Kasita Red Filmed makes up less than two percent of the assemblage (Willey
and Sears 1953).
Shell tempering appears to be more common at Mount Pleasant than on the
Chattahoochee River or at Rae's Creek. Shell tempering is entirely absent in the Lower
Cherokee assemblages. Shell tempering in the Trader Point tnidden ranges from 16 percent
in the lowest levels to 49 percent in the upper levels. It averaged 33.5 percent throughout
Trader Point. At Mount Pleasant shell tempering was observed on plain, incised, brushed,
punctated, cordmarked, and folded applique rim decorations, or virtually on all types of
historic Indian pottery that was found.
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