Goliad Wares are a common pottery type encountered many sites in Texas. This type of pottery is manufactured using local clays that are tempered with burned bone or shell to prevent the vessel from cracking when fired. The vessels are handmade, usually by the coil method, by indigenous populations of the area.
The ceramic making technology was used by the Native American groups that inhabited much of Texas prior to the arrival of the Spanish. At sites that do not have a historic component, the pottery type is referred to as Leon Plain. At sites that have a historic component, such as a Spanish Colonial Mission, the pottery type is called Goliad, named after the location of the earliest encounters of the pottery type at a Spanish Colonial site.
