University of Virginia Library

Section A

CULTURE COMPLEXES AND SUCCESSION
IN THE REFUSE MOUND

By Florence Hawley

Technique.—In 1936, the refuse mound between Bc 50 and 51
was surveyed and divided into 6′ squares, designated as trenches from
north to south and as sections from east to west. Removal of the
material from all the trenches within a section exposed a new face
just 6′ south of the preceding face. The debris was removed by 6″
arbitrary levels measured from a base line located at the bottom of
a trench cut across the north end of the dump. During the 1936
season, Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 (in part) were excavated, and a report

on the results of the pottery type succession and period complexes was
published.[1]

As the work of 1936 had given a thorough study of the east to west
distribution of culture strata in the northern area of the dump, it
was decided to push work faster from north to south in 1937. Before
excavation of the mound was continued, the 6′ trenches and sections
were divided into 3′ areas, and the trench numbers used the year

before were changed to conform to those of the new smaller trenches.
(See Fig. 1.) For this season, certain evenly distributed trenches
(3, 7, 11, and 15, in sections 5, 6, and 7) were chosen for excavation
and the material was removed in 6″ arbitrary levels, measured above
the base line used the preceding season. At the end of the field
session, trench 15 had not been completed in section 7, but the material
from the others had been sifted from the soil, washed and classified.
The north, south, east, and west faces of each trench in each section
were drawn in profiles so that the changes in deposits could be compared
with the pottery type changes in complexes and in actual percentages
per type.

Figure 2—Sectional Profiles of Refuse Mound

On a series of cross section drawings, representing the 7 sections
excavated in 1936 and 1937, the sherd percentages were listed in each
of the rectangles representing the arbitrary levels of excavation.
The merging of one period into another was clearly shown by the rise
and fall of percentages of the various types from the bottom to the
top of the dump, the cultural divisions being indicated by complexes,
based on predominance or rank order of associated types rather than
by simple presence or absence of individual types.

Lines were drawn to mark the approximate limits of each pottery
complex in the trenches excavated and were continued as dotted lines
across the unexcavated portions to meet the lines indicating the same
complexes in the other excavated trenches. Upon these drawings of
pottery successions, the drawings of deposition variations within the
faces were superposed for comparison. (See Fig. 2.) In some cases the
pottery complexes appeared to coincide with distinguishable strata;
in some cases they did not. The south face of section 6 (see Fig. 1)
was depicted in a chart (see Fig. 3) indicating the relation of the

various deposition profiles between Bc 50 and 51 and will be discussed
in detail in Part I, B.

Pottery Complexes.—At least in a site such as this, pottery
complexes must be taken as defined by characteristic proportions of
various types rather than (with possible rare exceptions) by the
presence or absence of particular diagnostic types. The individual
types making up each complex often occur in more than one culture
period. In the absence of multitudinous tree ring dates and unequivocal
associations between building dates and sherds or vessels found,
it is impossible to set exact beginnings and ends to the occurrence of
any one complex or to the occurrence of any one type. Known facts
from the historical pueblos, documenting the rise and fall of popularity
of individual types, strongly suggest that, as a general thing, it
would be unreasonable to postulate an abrupt and complete cessation
of the manufacture of any given pottery type. That there is, nevertheless,
a strong trend toward uniformity of association of certain

types in roughly similar proportions at various stratigraphic levels
will emerge from the data to be presented.

In addition to the natural holdover of obsolescent types and the
comparatively few sherds (or vessels) resulting from initial experiments
with new types, the mixing of material by rain and other
natural forces, human intrusions for burying or other purposes, and
disturbance by rodents explain the lack of a completely neat correspondence
between superimposed strata and individual pottery types.
If, however, there is some approach to constancy (over and above
what could be anticipated from mere random sampling) between
succession of stratigraphic levels and pottery complexes (as defined
by relative proportions of different types), it then seems proper to
interpret these data as valid signposts of cultural history. The
predominant complexes of relatively undisturbed strata, however,
should be expected to run fairly consistently with small amounts of a
given type (or types) toward the bottom, increased percentages as that
type (or those types) rises to prominence, and decreasing percentages
as another or others come into fashion. In a refuse mound situated
on a slope samples taken from the various levels of sections at the
upper end may be expected to have been less disturbed by sheet wash
than the lower sections farther to the north.

At the bottom of trenches 7 and 15 in section 6 (see Table 1) we
find 100% Lino Gray.[2] In the lowest levels of the excavated trenches
of sections 4 and 5 Lino Gray is accompanied by small percentages of
other types:

             

	Sect. 4	Sect. 5
Lino Gray	82	72
Kana-a Gray		17
La Plata B on W	9	6
Reserve Brown[3]		6
Deadman's B on R (intrusive?)	9
	(17 sherds)	(11 sherds)

Unfortunately (and probably significantly), all of these samples
from the lowest levels are very small. But while Lino Gray is actually
the most numerous single type in all complexes, it is distinctly more
predominant in these lower levels. The pottery complex characterized
by a dominance of Lino Gray and with La Plata Black on White as an
associated type will be called the Lino Gray Pottery Complex.

This complex did not appear in section 7. The lower levels of
all excavated trenches of section 7 are distinguished by the prominence
of Red Mesa Black on White and the complex of which these
levels are representative is hence called the Red Mesa Pottery Complex:

                 

Lino Gray	43.0
Red Mesa B on W[4]	35.9
Exuberant Cor.	10.2
Escavada B on W	5.3
Deadman's B on R	2.8
Gallup B on W	1.2 (probably intrusive?)
Kana-a Gray	0.8
La Plata B on W	0.8
	(110 sherds)

Trade material associated with this pottery complex in other sections
included: Reserve Brown, Lino Black on Gray, Kana-a Black on White,
Abajo Red on Orange, a Black on Red identified by Brew[5] and Morris
as indigenous to the Four Corners country, and a Gray with Black
Smudged Interior from southwestern Colorado.[6]

Taking as a whole all the excavated trenches of section 7, the
levels above those represented of the Red Mesa pottery complex show
a different persistent association of types:

                       

Lino Gray	31.6
Exuberant Cor.	19.3
Escavada B on W	17.8
Red Mesa B on W	13.5
Chaco Cor.	7.7
Gallup B on W	6.3
Kana-a Gray	2.0
Wingate B on R	1.3
Deadman's B on R	.3
Chaco B on W	.1
Sunset Red	.1
	(2831 sherds)

Since perhaps the most distinguishing feature of this complex is
the greater prominence of Escavada Black on White it will be convenient
to call it the Escavada Pottery Complex.[7]

Cross finds in this complex are Winona Corrugated, Deadman's
Black on Red, Citadel Polychrome, Rio de Flag Brown, Rio de Flag

Smudged, Elden Corrugated, and Sunset Red from the Flagstaff
district; Tusayan Black on Red, Medicine Black on Red, Buff Black on
Red from the Kayenta district; Wingate Black on Red and Forestdale
Smudged from the Little Colorado; and something resembling but not
identical with Mogollon Red on Brown from the Mogollon district of
southwestern New Mexico.

The persistence of Lino Gray as the commonest single type
(although in decreasing percentages) in all three complexes would
seem to indicate one of three things: that Lino Gray continued for
a quite considerable period as a culinary ware or that enough mixing
of sherds was done by rain or by other forces to raise a great deal of
Lino Gray from the bottom of the dump to the top, or that what
appears to be Lino Gray are actually sherds from the bodies of various
other pottery types. Let us examine these three possibilities in
reverse order.

First, of the other types recognized to have bases indistinguishable
from those of Lino Gray, all but Kana-a Gray and Medicine Gray
show tooled or punched necks. If types with plain bases and tooled
or punched necks were used by the inhabitants of Bc 50 and 51 we
should find in the dump some of the neck sherds as well as some of
the base sherds. No such neck sherds have been recovered; hence it
seems very improbable that those types were used here. Medicine
Gray[8] has a base indistinguishable from that of Lino Gray or of
Kana-a Gray, but the neck is corrugated. Kana-a Gray has a base
like Lino Gray but neck bands form the upper part. Sherds from the
neck showing the wide flat bands and from the shoulder, showing the
junction between the plain base and the neck bands, are not uncommon
here. But although corrugated sherds which might be from the necks
of Medicine Gray rather than from fully corrugated vessels are
found, no neck sherd showing conjunction between plain base and
corrugated neck has yet been found in this dump. Therefore, we
conclude that the sherds classified as Lino Gray may have come from
Lino Gray vessels or may have come from the bases of Kana-a Gray
vessels in strata where neck-banded sherds are found, or that they
may possibly, but not very probably, have included some sherds of
Medicine Gray.

Second, some mixing undoubtedly did take place, but that this
alone could account for the predominance of Lino Gray in all three
complexes seems improbable.

We know that in the modern Pueblos, as probably in those
of the prehistoric Southwest, the culinary wares were much less
likely to change than the decorated wares. It is thus conceivable that
in some districts Lino Gray lasted for a very considerable period.
At present it would be hazardous to state that Lino Gray certainly

was as common or more common than Kana-a Gray in the period represented
by Escavada complex but the sherd evidence strongly suggests it.

Summary.—Three pottery complexes are distinguishable and may
be traced in superimposed mounds of varied shapes and depths.

Lino Gray Complex.—On approaching from the north face of the
dump, the Lino Gray Complex showed up first in a small mound at the
eastern edge of section 3 where it runs from trench 14 through 18 and
on into the unexcavated area. Its base lay 8′ below the surface. At
its peak it was 2′ thick but it dwindled to nothing at its western edge
in trench 15. This early mound of refuse was found to extend 6′
farther into the dump to section 4, where it was deeper beneath the
surface, its peak here being 12′ below the bottom deposition of
section 3 and its depth going down for 2′ farther. This puts
the base of the Lino Gray Complex in trench 15, section 4, at 6′ below
the surface. No trenches east of 15 were excavated, so the eastern
periphery of this debris was not located in this section. On the west
the peak dipped precipitously and disappeared in trench 14.

No similar deposit was found in section 5, but in section 6, a
6″ lense of this material was found at the bottom of trench 15. No
excavation extended as far east as trench 15 in section 7.

In the western side of the dump, the Lino Gray Complex did not
appear until section 4, where a deposit 2′ deep was found at the bottom
of trench 2. Three feet farther south in trench 3, section 5, a Lino
Gray Complex lense 6″ thick was found with its base 6″ below the base
in section 4. This lense did not extend into section 5, but another lense
6″ thick was encountered in trench 7 of section 6. Section 7 shows no
Lino Gray Complex.

Red Mesa Pottery Complex.—This extended from the top of
trench 8, section 1 down 4′ to the undisturbed soil. Sloping downward
to the west, it disappeared in trench 8. In section 2, it made up almost
the entire lower layer of the excavated area, from trenches 2 to 18,
dipping at the base in trenches 7 and 8 and again in trenches 15 and 16.
The peak, in trench 9, was closer to Bc 50 than Bc 51, but in section 3
this debris shows two distinct peaks, one above the Lino Gray Complex
material in the eastern trenches, 17 and 18, and one above the western
trench 3, connected by a fairly level top surface lower than either but
marked by a distinct dip downward into a pit in trenches 11 and 12.
Section 4 shows the Lino Gray Complex of the eastern trenches covered
over with a layer of Red Mesa Complex material, which sinks downward
in trench 14 to the level of the Lino Gray Complex but rises again to
form the highest peak found for the Red Mesa Complex. This peak
is in trench 15, near the western edge of the dump. Section 4 covered
the highest surface of the dump.

In section 5 the Red Mesa Complex refuse lies as a long layer, thinner
than previously, and dipping toward the west, where it covers the

south end of the low Lino Gray Complex mound, and in section 6 it
shrinks to an even thinner layer, covering small Lino Gray Complex
mounds in trenches 7 and 15, and shrinking yet again in section 7.
Evidently the refuse of the Red Mesa Complex formed an irregular
mound overlying a Lino Gray Complex mound on the east, a smaller
Lino Gray Complex mound on the west, and one very small deposit of
it just south of the center. With these exceptions Red Mesa Complex
refuse formed the lower layer of the large mound, extending to the
north of section 1 but almost at an edge to the south in section 7, with
its peak in section 4. In bulk it could have contained little less material
than the refuse of the Escavada Complex which overlay it.

Escavada Pottery Complex.—This mound, apparently started from
Bc 50, showed two peaks in section 2, three peaks in section 3, its
highest central point in section 4, and a fairly level diminution through
sections 5, 6, and 7.

General Discussion.—Some of the Lino Gray Complex levels in
the dump show so few sherds that it seems probable that we are
examining a Lino Gray Complex surface level rather than a real
mound. The sherds representing this period are always imbedded in
adobe, showing some charcoal but little ash, the ash probably having
been leached out since deposition. The sherds, ash, and charcoal may
have been cut into the adobe by surface wash. The levels of Red
Mesa and Escavada Complexes show as one thick deposit of household
sweepings, sand, charcoal, ash, bones, sherds, and other cultural
material. Within this deposit, lenses and strata may be distinguished
by minor variations in color and small differences in composition. The
interpretation of these irregular strata, whether significant of culture
period or of subdivisions of time within a period, when the people
may have used various sections of a dump successively, or whether
significant of weather fluctuations, are discussed (for section 6) in
Part II, B.

The Lino Gray Complex mounds suggest that the refuse was
thrown out from individual pit houses, but the relatively even distribution
of the upper material from east to west indicated the probability
that refuse was thrown out onto the common dump from both Bc 50
and Bc 51 during the periods of which the Red Mesa and Escavada
Complexes may be diagnostic.