Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Nature of the Collection / 65
Figure 10. Vessel shapes (after Shepard, 1956).
shape, and type. Type is a looser more general concept than shape as defined
by Shepard. Among the complete vessels only four classes were recognized:
bowls, boat- shaped vessels, water jars, and other jars. All the shapes illustrated
by (1)–(6) in Figure 10 could be grouped as bowls, (7)–(8) correspond to jars,
and (9) is no more than a fragment of a complete vessel that would be classified
by Shepard as asymmetric. The majority of the long sides of the boats, as
well as the complete bowls, are however restricted carinated in shape, and no
doubt fragments of both account for the preponderance of this category in the
broken- up pieces that make up the bulk of the collection.
Bowls and boat- shaped vessels were recognized by Howard as the two “basic
categories” of Jamaican pottery (1956:49). Examples of each type are illustrated,
first from Round Hill (C1), a boat- shaped vessel with restricted carinated
sides and terminal lugs (c1v5), and second from Taylor’s Hut (CC15),
a restricted carinated bowl with a plain fillet and two punctated and incised
ridges (cc15v1). Water jars are much less well known, and appear to constitute
something of a Jamaican specialty. In the first of his reports on the Bellevue
site (K13), Medhurst (AJ 1976, 3:9–10) remarked on the presence of a small
number of “ buff- yellow potsherds.” They were relatively thick, but there was