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RECAPITULATION AND COMMENT

Roberts and Amsden, who conducted our pottery analyses, based
their study upon the stratigraphy of two yard-square tests cut through
12 feet of previously undisturbed household sweepings underlying the
West Court at Pueblo Bonito. With the exception of a few Pueblo I
sherds all black-on-white fragments found in the lower 8 feet of that
rubbish belonged in three stylistic groups: Transitional, Degenerate
Transitional, and Solid. In the overlying 4 feet of that same stratified
debris, however, in addition to sherds of the three groups just mentioned
there were fragments of straight-line hatching and of ChacoSan
Juan. Sherds of Corrugated-coil culinary ware were also recovered
from the upper 4 feet but only those of Plain-banded cook
pots below that depth. Clearly two distinct pottery assemblages
separated at the 8-foot level.

The several pottery types identified with Pueblo Bonito occur also
at Pueblo del Arroyo, although not in the same proportions. There
were fewer sherds of Transitional, Degenerate, Solid, and Plainbanded
culinary and more of the later types. The Chaco-San Juan
was especially conspicuous both from excavated rooms and from the
mound area west of the ruin, including remains of the McElmo
Tower. If not the predominant local type, it was nearly so. Of 77,405
sherds tabulated by Amsden and Roberts 6,614, or more than 8 percent,
were Chaco-San Juan. No other black-on-white variety rated
half as high. Only Corrugated-coil culinary fragments were present
in greater number.

Sherds of Classic Mesa Verde ware provide evidence of time and
trade. After eliminating all recognizable duplicates Roberts and Amsden
counted 930 such sherds at Pueblo Bonito but only 58 from
Pueblo del Arroyo. Of these latter all but two were found in household
waste that had been dumped into Kivas F, G, and J, each of
which had been altered during occupancy to conform with northern
tradition.

These divers data suggest that the inhabitants of Pueblo del Arroyo
were closer, socially and economically, to the more recent portion of
the population of Pueblo Bonito than they were to the older portion,
and that Pueblo del Arroyo was first of the two villages to be vacated.
The latest recorded bracket of tree-ring dates for the Mesa Verde
cliff dwellings is A. D. 1019 to 1274; for Pueblo Bonito, 807+ to
1130 (Smiley, 1951, pp. 19, 22). Trade from the Mesa Verde came
to Chaco Canyon late and continued at Pueblo Bonito after Pueblo
del Arroyo had been abandoned.

The black-on-white pottery of Chaco Canyon has long been praised
for its superior qualities. Kidder, first to analyze those qualities,
pointed to "its very white, almost paper-white, slip and the unusually
fine lines of its black decoration" (Kidder, 1924, p. 52). The tapered
or rounded rim, the black-painted lip, and the line break were other
conspicuous characteristics. The apparent conflict in form and decoration
that puzzled Kidder at Pueblo Bonito is readily explained by the
presence of P. II and P. III peoples as joint occupants.

Chaco Canyon black-on-white ware, from the Transitional to Hachure
C, is generally hand smoothed, sherd tempered, and decorated
with iron oxide paint. Some individual vessels are whiter and
smoother than companion pieces, some are harder, some exhibit a
coarser temper than others and even grains of sand or rock mixed
with the ground sherd. Equal firing temperatures were not always

realized, hence pastes and surfaces vary in color. These dissimilarities
are the natural consequence of a freehand process in which individual
potters followed accepted but flexible processes. Shapes changed
from time to time, but our several pottery types distinguish successive
fancies in painted ornamentation rather than in form. Some of these
fancies were short lived, others persisted for generations. They were
at the same time sequential and contemporary. Present-day potters
likewise have their preferences (Guthe, 1925, p. 78; Chapman, 1936,
p. 15).

Our Chaco-San Juan group offers a different challenge. Like the
local black-on-white series it is sherd tempered but is decorated with
an organic rather than a mineral paint and polished over the decoration.
From the first it appeared to embody Chaco techniques and
northern designs, components that were sometimes elusive. Occasionally
the decoration was done in mineral paint while designs and surface
treatment followed northern custom.

As recorded by Roberts, Chaco-San Juan bowls have straighter
sides than local bowls and thicker rims, variously ticked. Bowls, predominating
in our collection, are usually unslipped or partially slipped
outside but carry an interior, banded decoration framed above and
below. Jars are globular with downraking handles and zoned ornamentation
on body and neck. Pitchers have small bodies and long necks.
Both pitchers and jars are indented on the bottom; mugs, which first
appeared with the Chaco-San Juan, are flat based and slope sided.
Ladles are all of the bowl-and-handle variety.

In shape, finish, and painted design our Chaco-San Juan group
most nearly approaches the "proto-Mesa Verde" as initially described
by Kidder (1924, p. 67). Decoration favors a repetition of such wellknown
elements as the fret, the interlocking key, stepped figures, and
checkerboard—sometimes balanced by other units having the heavy,
widely spaced type of Mesa Verde hatching. Together, the protoMesa
Verde and our Chaco-San Juan equally foreshadow true Mesa
Verde. Gladwin (1945, p. 149) regarded our Chaco-San Juan type
as a "blending of Chaco designs and the Kayenta techniques of painting
and polishing . . . from the region between Toadlena and Shiprock,"
but a northern affinity seems more likely to me.

Proto-Mesa Verde black-on-white is the pottery of Prudden's "unit
type" structures (Prudden, 1903; Kidder, 1924, pp. 65-68). The
mesas and valleys where those structures occur is likewise the home
both of Mancos and McElmo black-on-white—names that appear
repeatedly in the literature, the former more than the latter.

Mancos black-on-white was first described by Martin (1936, pp.
80-94) following researches at Lowry Ruin, southwestern Colorado.
He described it as a chalky-white to gray ware, generally unslipped
and unpolished. Bowls were flat, or sometimes round-bottomed, with
direct rims and banded interior decoration including frets, solid or
hatched figures, pendent triangles, and pendent lines reducing in
length toward the left. Jars were globular with square shoulders,
downraking handles and zoned decoration; ladles were of the bowland-handle
form. Mancos, a sherd-tempered ware, was decorated
with iron oxide paint. McElmo, on the other hand, was a carbon-paint
type but also sherd tempered.

Colton and Hargrave (1937, p. 230) closely follow Martin but
misread him in recognizing Mancos black-on-white rather than
McElmo as synonymous with the proto-Mesa Verde. Mancos blackon-white
is widely distributed throughout the San Juan country and
beyond. It was the dominant type at Lowry Ruin (Martin, 1936,
p. 94) and at the Turner-Look Site, 15 miles northwest of Cisco,
Grand County, Utah (Wormington, 1955, p. 74). It occurred repeatedly,
sometimes preponderantly, at small-house sites in Mancos
Canyon, southwest of Mesa Verde National Park (Reed, 1944). From
a 3-room house plus kiva identified as Unit 1, Site 13, on Alkali Ridge,
southeastern Utah, Brew (1946, p. 199) reported "the black-onwhite
sherds were mixed Pueblo II (Mancos black-on-white) and
Pueblo III (Mesa Verde and McElmo black-on-white) types with the
latter predominating." Again, summarizing the subject for Alkali
Ridge, Brew wrote (ibid., p. 285): "The Mancos was technically
advanced and had begun to show Mesa Verde features. The Mesa
Verde was for the most part of the kind that could be called McElmo."

Nearly all who have written of Mancos black-on-white have remarked
its close affinity with McElmo black-on-white and the "Chacolike"
qualities of both.

During his initial work at Lowry Ruin Martin was perplexed by
this resemblance and "sometimes found it difficult to decide whether
a sherd was Mancos black-on-white . . . or Chacoan" (Martin, 1936,
p. 112). Reed, after balancing his own observations against those of
other students, concluded (MS., p. 127): "There seem to be fairly
definite indications that a distinct form of carbon-paint pottery, decorated
in what I have referred to as `McElmo style' occurs with
Mancos black-on-white as well as with Mesa Verde black-on-white
. . . and that it may appear late in the occupation of Mancos sites."
Nevertheless, Reed failed to convince himself of the reality of a

McElmo black-on-white bridge between the mineral-paint Mancos
variety and the carbon-paint Mesa Verde. The transition between
these two latter "evidently was a rapid but irregular process" (ibid.,
p. 118).

Deric O'Bryan also has made a thorough analysis of the Mancos
and McElmo phases and balanced one against the other. He recognizes
distinctive qualities in each, the first culturally P. II and dated
about 900 to 1050; the second, P. III and about 1050 to 1150
(O'Bryan, 1950). Each phase has its own peculiar pottery, differing
not only in character of the pigment used, but also in surface treatment
and choice of design elements. Chaco Canyon influences were
particularly evident on Mancos Phase pottery according to O'Bryan
(ibid., p. 108); McElmo black-on-white, although often present on
Mancos sites, was more akin to Mesa Verde black-on-white. Mancos
sites are legion north of the Rio San Juan but O'Bryan knows of no
pure McElmo site (ibid., p. 109).

This Mancos-McElmo association is not accepted by all workers in
the field. Lancaster and Pinkley (1954) question O'Bryan's Mesa
Verde dating and his postulated McElmo phase because at Site 16,
in a P. II cultural level with a terminal date near A. D. 1100, some
44 percent of the pottery was Mancos black-on-white, yet no sherd
either of Mesa Verde or Corrugated-coil was present. Reed (1944,
p. 51) also doubts the reality of the McElmo; sees no need for an
intermediate ware between Mancos and true Mesa Verde. That there
was a merging along the Mancos-McElmo line is perhaps substantiated
by Miss Shepard (1939, p. 254), who points out that the mineral
paint of P. II potters throughout La Plata Valley was being gradually
replaced in Early P. III and then, quickly, was entirely superseded by
reintroduction of organic paint.

I have cited these several authors because it is my belief that many
of our Pueblo del Arroyo black-on-white vessels are really "Mancos"
and that our abundant Chaco-San Juan type is essentially "McElmo";
hence the "Chaco-like" quality various investigators have seen in pottery
north of the Rio San Juan. The producers of Mancos ware are
the older, but if they drifted south and arrived in Chaco Canyon first,
they were soon followed by the McElmo strain. Migration or exchange
of ideas was southward, in my opinion, rather than the reverse.

These thoughts find support in the recorded observations of other
students. In the Pagosa-Piedra region in 1922 Jeancon and Roberts
(1924, p. 214) first noted marked similarities to Chaco ceramics and
architecture. Roberts (1930, p. 18; 1932, pp. 12-13) later emphasized

Plate 54.—Bowl from the Houck district, east-central Arizona.

Upper: exterior; lower: interior.

(Kodachrome by Willard R. Culver.)

Plate 55.—Three redware vases from Room 15.

(Kodachrome by Willard R. Culver.)

this fact and suggested a migration from southwestern Colorado to
Chaco Canyon in "fairly early times." Miss Dutton (1938, p. 94)
echoes this possibility in concluding her monograph on Łeyit Kin, a
small-house ruin in Chaco Canyon.

It was a combination of Chaco features at Lowry Ruin that
prompted Martin's work there (Martin, 1936, p. 22). Reed (1944,
p. 49), adopting Mera's type designations, regarded Chaco 2 and
Chaco 3 sherds from Site 1, Mancos Canyon, as twelfth-century intrusives.
O'Bryan (1950, p. 108) recognized a "predominantly
Chaco influence" upon the culture of Mancos Mesa between A. D. 900
and 1050. Morris (1939) repeatedly mentions Chaco-like and pure
Chaco pottery in La Plata Valley and accepts both varieties as contemporaneous
with "non-Chaco" (ibid., p. 205).

Morris (ibid., p. 53) observed that sherds from Building I, Site 39,
"clearly belong to the Chaco complex" but conform more closely to
sherds from the lower level of the West Pueblo at Aztec than to those
from the great houses of Chaco Canyon. Morris quotes Kidder (1924,
p. 56) to the effect that "Aztec ruin is architecturally a perfect example
of a Chaco pueblo" and then points out that the "pottery made
and used by the builders of the Aztec ruin is more Chacoesque than
Chaco. . . . It is representative of the black-on-white ensemble that
was in general use north of the river at the time when the best wares
of the Chaco center were being made, and I believe is the result of
local expression of the generalized Chaco urge far more than of direct
influence from the Chaco itself" (Morris, 1939, p. 205). In form
and decoration many of the vessels Morris (1915, 1919) exhumed at
Aztec are indistinguishable from those we collected at Pueblo del
Arroyo.

This is equally true of Chaco-like pottery from Lowry Ruin and
elsewhere. Martin's descriptive text and illustrations of Mancos and
McElmo black-on-white vessels (Martin, 1936, 1938; Martin and
Willis, 1940) are equally applicable to specimens herein reported under
our several designations. Martin's data do not always distinguish
clearly between Mancos and McElmo and I am not sure they can.
Some of his illustrations, by the definition, look more McElmo than
Mancos and vice versa.

The ancestry of the brilliant Chaco Canyon culture has intrigued
every archeologist who has studied it. Kidder directed attention to the
wide distribution of Chaco-like pottery beyond the San Juan—pottery
that "may indicate a northwestern spread or a northwestern origin of
the Chaco culture" (Kidder, 1924, p. 56). Morris (1939, p. 204)
seems in complete agreement.

Morris seems to answer all those who see a northward spread of
Chaco Canyon culture and, at the same time, to summarize his own
thoughts on the subject when he wrote (ibid., p. 204): "The Chacolike
remains north of the San Juan, both architectural and ceramic,
are so widespread and so numerous that I consider it untenable to
view them wholly as an extension of or a backwash from, the Chaco
Canyon center. . . . The most Chaco-like of the vessels from the
north country, which seem so significant when viewed singly or selectively
grouped, become far less so when viewed as the minor component
that they are of the totality of wares among which they occur."

My own field experiences in southwestern Colorado and southeastern
Utah are too far removed to be useful in this study, but
memory of them finds me in complete accord with Morris and Kidder
if not, indeed, a bit more certain than they that the cradle of Chaco
culture lies among the P. I and P. II remains north of the Rio San
Juan. Nevertheless, I must leave to others the task of bringing together
the data that will substantiate or refute this conviction. All
elements of design indicated for the mineral-paint Mancos and for the
organic-paint McElmo wares will be found on Pueblo del Arroyo
vessels illustrated herein.

Florence M. Hawley, perhaps the first after Kidder to essay a detailed
description of Chaco Canyon pottery, divided the whole into
types and undertook to name each on the basis of its internal and external
features. From the east refuse mound at Chettro Kettle she
described (1936) "Escavada Black on White," "Gallup Black on
White," and "Chaco Black on White." These, together with "Puerco
Black on White" and "Red Mesa Black on White"—all sherd-temper,
iron-paint varieties—were subsequently reported from Bc 50-51,
a small P. II-P. III house on the south side of Chaco Canyon, opposite
Pueblo Bonito (Hawley, 1937; Kluckhohn and Reiter, 1939,
table 2). Gladwin (1945, p. 118), than whom none has studied southwestern
pottery more intensively, doubted that anyone could distinguish
between these five types, and I find myself equally helpless.
Other published descriptions (Hawley, 1936, 1939; Colton and Hargrave,
1937) reveal no basic type differences that I detect except,
perhaps, in paste color, surface finish, and design—features in which
no two vessels are precisely alike.

Summarizing her study of pottery from Tseh So (the Bc 50-51 of
Kluckhohn and Reiter, 1939), Miss Hawley (1937, p. 86) remarked
upon the prevalence of McElmo black-on-white and its evidence of
trade from the Mesa Verde country. McElmo black-on-white and our

Chaco-San Juan group are identical as far as I can determine. Both
are carbon-paint types and predominantly sherd tempered; both are
synonymous with proto-Mesa Verde, the precursor of true Mesa
Verde.

The great Chaco villages were at point of eclipse when true Mesa
Verde pottery began to appear in Chaco Canyon. Our sherd collections
from local small-house sites such as Tseh So indicated that some
were earlier, some later, than the great houses in their heyday. Only
a handful of Mesa Verde sherds was recovered at Pueblo del Arroyo
where the Chaco-San Juan, or McElmo, was the dominant black-onwhite
type.