Date of Award
5-2025
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Styleguide
other
Society for American Archaeology
Degree Name
Cultural Resources Management Archaeology: M.S.
Department
Anthropology
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
Mark Muñiz
Second Advisor
Debra Gold
Third Advisor
Mark Mitchell
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
Archaeology, Ceramics, Mandan, North Dakota, Pottery, Trace Element
Abstract
The Boller site in Mercer County, North Dakota is a Post-Contact Plains Village period earth lodge village that was occupied around 1785-1800 by Mandan people. An abundance of different artifact types have been recovered from the site, however, one ceramic vessel stands out as unique—the Boller Site Platter. Common types of pottery found in the region include Knife River ware, LeBeau ware, Fort Yates, and Riggs types with limited decoration including cord impressions, finger impressions, pinching, or short incised lines along the rim and/or neck (Fern Swenson, personal communication 2019; Cox et al. 2015). None of these types are consistent with the form and decoration of the Boller Site Platter, which is thick-walled, shallow, wide-rimmed, with no neck, and shows quadripartite interior incised line decoration. The primary goal of this project was to determine whether or not the Boller Site Platter was originally produced in the area of the Boller site and answer key questions about why this vessel looks so glaringly different from the other ceramic artifacts recovered from the Boller Village Site.
Recommended Citation
Sandstrom, Sylvia M., "Sculpting the Uncommon: Exploring the Enigma of the Boller Site Platter" (2025). Culminating Projects in Cultural Resource Management. 56.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/crm_etds/56
