A Serpent Runs Through It: Towards an Interpretation of the Curvilinear Guilloche Pottery Design Associated with the Fort Ancient Culture in the Midwest U.S.
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Date
2025-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Introduction/Background: Considered the diagnostic feature of the Fort Ancient Culture, the curvilinear guilloche design appears on several ceramic vessels dated to between 1000 and 500 years before present. This banded motif exhibits high concentrations in the southwestern region of Ohio, closely correlated with the floodplains of the Ohio, and the Great/Little Miami rivers. Until recent, attempts at assigning a symbolic meaning for this design have been lacking, with theories suggesting influences arising from the distinct landscape and animalistic traditions embedded in the precolonial cosmologies of the Fort Ancient people. This research presents a theoretical and ethnographic-based approach to determining the symbolism of this design.
Methods: Research on the curvilinear guilloche began with a broad exploration of anthropological theory into cultural diffusion, the intersection of ecology and art, representations of parallelism and symmetry, and blended elements of psychology, including Jungian collective unconscious and biological concepts of parallel and convergent evolution. This allowed a grounded approach to identify examples of the curvilinear guilloche in global contexts and analyze specific regional depictions of the motif and their symbology. These examples provided close associations of the curvilinear guilloche with serpents and water, a consistent symbolism in multiple cultures.
Results/Current Status: The research was concluded with a focused study of Indigenous North American communities that have been posited to be the nearest descendants of the Fort Ancient culture. Thorough literature review on the Algonquian Miami, Shawnee, and the Dhegihan Siouan Ponca, Omaha, Osage, Kansa, and Quapaw suggested a cosmological root to the guilloche interpretation. It was highly supported by numerous traditions and stories that the curvilinear guilloche is indeed a possible representation of both serpents, and the watery underworld realm they inhabit.
Conclusions: Due to removal, and a paucity of ethnographic information, much has been lost in terms of what ancient art represents. This broad examination of the ultimate meaning of the curvilinear guilloche is a start, but clear possibilities of having a major association with the importance of the serpent as originator and integrator of this cultural tradition provides much for future research. The next steps in this undertaking are to scrutinize these findings with indigenous input from descendants of the associated tribes.
Description
First Place, Human Experience, 30th Annnual Denman Undergraduate Research Forum
Keywords
Fort Ancient, Archaeology, Pottery, Motif, Guilloche