The ceramics that have been dug from the soils of Jamestown, generated by the National Park Service excavations and the more recent Preservation Virginia (formerly APVA Preservation Virginia) work, are a wonderful resource for the understanding of early 17th-century ceramic history. The range of ware types and forms is vast and provides an excellent starting point for studying the pottery that found its way to the Chesapeake area in the first years of the colony. Besides the classes of pottery that were commonly traded and known to have been used by the colonists, there are unusual imports that shed light on functional activities and diet as well as patterns of trade. In many cases, the Jamestown contexts for these wares are very tightly dated yielding sensitive temporal patterns not yet defined in the countries of their origin.

The last attempt to synthesize the pottery types found on Virginia's archaeological sites was written almost 30 years ago as A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America by Ivor Noel Hume. Much has been learned about ceramic history through archaeological excavation and archival research since that time, as indicated by the wealth of information in the 1986 publication Pottery Produced and Traded in North-West Europe 1350-1650 by John Hurst et al. The ceramic data from Jamestown has much to add to this growing body of knowledge, particularly in view of its contextual strengths.

Each ware under study will be summarized with a description, discussion, bibliography, and a list of sites where it has been found, including context dates. The description of each ware encompasses the fabric, glaze, decorative techniques, and form. Fabrics are defined on visual characteristics, using a hand lens or microscope. For those wares that have a published petrological description of the fabric, these descriptions are incorporated. In the future, all fabrics will have a geological description of matrix and inclusions.

The effect of firing upon the pottery is recorded including characteristics such as color, hardness, and fracture. In the future, the group intends to apply a standard and commonly available chart such as Munsell or Pantone for recording fabric and glaze colors. Hardness of the fabric provides a rough indication of firing temperature. The Mohs hardness scale, which records resistance to scratching, may be recorded.

Form is defined using the Guide to the Classification of Medieval Ceramic Forms developed by the Medieval Pottery Research Group (available from MPRG c/o Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, British Museum, London, WC1B 3DG, United Kingdom). This guide has been adopted by all of England and provides a standard nomenclature with recommended names and alternative names previously used.