Page 35 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

putable evidence of association, but most vessels displayed some subtle but distinctive trait(s) that allowed even non-gluing pieces to be identified. While piles of unassociated sherds still remained, the majority of the fragments could be sorted into what seemed to be unique vessels. There were undoubtedly more vessels present among the unassociated sherds but this very laborious and time-consuming method eventually gave us a good minimum number of unique vessels within each ceramic type.
The real value of MNV is that it can show the types of vessels used at a site at a specific pe- riod and if that differed over time. Furthermore, it allowed ceramic collections between different sites to be more fully compared. One of the big- gest challenges was deciding what to call the ves- sels. One could not compare sites without some type of standardized way of naming vessels by function and shape. To solve this, the St. John’s ceramic collection became a central resource in developing a new method called The Potomac Typological System or “POTS.” Working with the St. John’s vessels, Mary Beaudry, Janet Long, Fraser Neiman, Garry Stone and myself tried to define their shapes and identify their likely
figure 18
Lead seal with Lord Baltimore’s crest.
figure 19
Dated window lead specimens found at St. John’s.
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