A Kincaid Plain ware jar rim from the Kincaid site in Massac County, Illinois. Date: Mississippian period, AD 1050–1450. Collected by University of Chicago Field Parties, 1934–1944. Eastern North America Ceramic Repository. UMMAA 9097.

In 1927, under the auspices of the National Research Council, Museum Director Carl Guthe established the Eastern North American Ceramic Repository to facilitate comparative research on eastern North American prehistory. Under Guthe’s successor, James B. Griffin, the repository was greatly expanded and became renowned as an important reference collection for archaeologists working throughout eastern North America. This shell-tempered jar rim is one of 19 fragments from the Kincaid site, a multi-mound Mississippian period habitation site located in the Black Bottom region of southern Illinois. The sherd was donated to the repository in 1945 by Professor Fay Cooper-Cole of the University of Chicago.

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In honor of the University of Michigan’s 2017 bicentennial, we are celebrating the remarkable archaeological and ethnographic collections and rich legacy of research and teaching at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology by posting one entry a day for 200 days. The entries will highlight objects from the collections, museum personalities, and UMMAA expeditions. The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology is also posting each day for 200 days on Twitter and Facebook (follow along at #KMA200). After the last post, an exhibition on two centuries of archaeology at U-M opens at the Kelsey. Visit the exhibit—a joint project of the UMMAA and the Kelsey—from October 18, 2017 to May 27, 2018.