Caddo Pottery Bowl

ca. 1300 - 1700 AD

4.125" H x 5.125" D

Hand Coiled from Gray with Deep Impressed Corrugation Over Entire Surface 

In Very Good Condition

Caddo pottery bowls are stunning examples of Native American ceramic artistry from the Caddo people, whose ancestral lands span parts of present-day East Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. This tradition dates back over 1,000 years (starting around A.D. 800), with roots even earlier, and is renowned for its technical excellence, thin walls, symmetry, and intricate decorations.

Caddo potters (traditionally women) used the coil method — rolling clay into ropes, layering them, and smoothing them together — often with locally sourced riverbank clay tempered with materials like crushed shell or sand. Bowls were typically pit-fired in open fires, producing beautiful earth-tone colors like red, brown, black, and gray. Many feature carinated shapes (flaring out from the base then sharply turning inward at the shoulder or rim), polished surfaces, and elaborate engraved or incised designs such as parallel lines, cross-hatching, curvilinear patterns, and geometric motifs. These vessels served everyday purposes (cooking, storage, serving) but also ceremonial ones, and finely made examples were widely traded across regions.