University of Virginia Library

V. POTTERY

Kitchen and table wares constitute the most characteristic, diagnostic
element in Pueblo culture. Pueblo pottery differs from all
others; it varies within itself from time to time, from place to place,
and yet the distinctive qualities are such that one familiar with it often
can tell at a glance the approximate age of a given vessel and the
circumscribed area within which it originated.

There are those who still argue whether the basic idea of pottery
manufacture budded independently in the Southwest or was introduced
from the highlands of Mexico by vendors of beans, maize, and
pumpkin seeds. But doubt no longer exists as to the rude beginnings
of Pueblo ceramics and the successive stages by which it came to full
flower. Its development has been traced convincingly from the unfired,
bast-tempered mud dishes of the Basket Makers to the degree of
perfection attained at Pueblo Bonito, and elsewhere, in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. Its gradual retrogression from this peak is
generally recognized. In those few villages where pottery making
survives, studies of present-day methods show that Pueblo technique
in the manufacture of earthenware has not changed appreciably in the
past 1,200 years, although the advent of sheep, cattle, and horses following
the Conquest did introduce a new fuel.

Among the Pueblos pottery making is now, and always has been,
woman's work. As their mothers did before them, the women go at
intervals to a known source of suitable clay, dig out a quantity and
pack it home in basket or shawl. They may use it within a few days
or store it against future need. Pebbles and vegetal matter are winnowed
or picked out by hand. The clay is mixed with temper, water
is added, and the whole patiently and thoroughly kneaded. Quartz
sand, finely crushed rock, or pulverized potsherds—to name the common
Pueblo tempering materials—reduce shrinkage and thus lessen
the likelihood of cracking while the vessels are sun drying and during
the firing process. There is no measuring of ingredients; the potter
knows when proportions are correct. The more thorough the kneading,
the better the paste.

Seated on the floor with her implements close at hand—a stone slab
or cloth on which to rework the tempered clay; modeling, scraping,
and polishing tools; water and mops for applying surface slip—the
Pueblo potter begins her day-long task. No two proceed in exactly

the same way; each has a more or less standardized, but flexible,
routine. But every useful vessel made, irrespective of shape and size,
has practically the same origin—a handful of paste pressed and
patted into a saucer-shaped disk. Upon this base the walls rise as an
inch-thick roll of plastic clay is laid down coil by coil, each fingerpinched
to its predecessor.[1] With three or four coils in place, thinned
by scraping and partially smoothed over, the incipient vessel may be
set aside until its walls have dried sufficiently to support the weight of
another roll or two. Meanwhile, a second is begun and a third.

The larger bowls and jars are supported by an ash-filled tray, frequently
the base of a broken olla, which rests upon the floor and is
turned a few inches at a time as the potter continues the coiling or
wields her modeling and finishing tools. This supporting tray, or
turnpot, is as close as the American Indian ever came to inventing a
potter's wheel.

As each vessel approaches final form it is again set aside briefly to
dry in the sun. It is scraped and smoothed until junctions of the
overlapping coils are obliterated and the walls reduced to the thinness
desired. Air bubbles are eliminated, flaws and small cracks repaired.
There follows another period of drying before the surface is wholly
or partially coated with a fine clay slip and polished with a water-worn
pebble. Upon this polished slip the decoration, if any, is next painted.
Firing completes the manufacturing process.

From start to finish Peublo pottery making is a tedious, exacting
task. A variety of accidents may mar or ruin the work at any stage,
but the possibility of loss is multipled while the vessels are in the fire.
During that critical period an air of anxiety prevails; the women are
quite likely to reflect excitement and worry. They fear material loss,
to be sure, but, more important still, every vessel is to them a living
thing possessed of a spirit, a soul. New lives are created when pots
are made!

When the National Geographic Society's Pueblo Bonito explorations
were inaugurated in 1921 pottery was the handiest gage for
measuring the age and the cultural level of any Southwestern ruin.
Hence our initial efforts were directed toward ascertaining the sequence
of local pottery development. In front of Pueblo Bonito lay

the village dump, two conspicuous mounds composed of household
sweepings and other waste thrown out by successive generations.
Deposited first, material at the bottom was obviously oldest; merely
by sectioning the two piles and collecting fragments from bottom to
top, we could obtain a synopsis of Pueblo Bonito pottery from first
to last.

For this fundamental study we chose a previously undisturbed
section of the larger, west mound. Our trench reached clean sand at
a depth of 20 feet (pl. 47, left). The synoptic sherd series was taken
from a 3-foot-square section whose superimposed layers, varying in
thickness and composition, were separated by ash, sand, or clay lenses.

The results of that first test proved amazing. Pottery fragments,
whose technique of manufacture and style of decoration experience
elsewhere identified as early, were found above fragments known to be
late. Greatly perplexed, we cut a second section—and with the same
result. Something was wrong!

We began our 1922 season with a new stratigraphic study, this time
sectioning both the east and the west mounds. Two years later we
tried both mounds again. The smaller, east dump was clearly the later
of the two since it contained fewer sherds of early type. But this
observation did not solve our problem. In every test made since the
first, that of 1921, our findings had been the same—vessel fragments
unquestionably older occurred with, and above, fragments culturally
later.

As I continued to puzzle over this stubborn fact there seemed only
one logical explanation for the illogical rubbish deposits of Pueblo
Bonito: An old debris heap had been removed during one of the
several expansion programs apparent in the town's masonry. I decided
to lengthen our west mound trench, to project it into and through the
ruin. The West Court had been cleared to its last occupation level in
1924, thus revealing the character of the stonework immediately surrounding
it; any trash pile formerly associated with the oldest dwellings,
those of first-type construction, would have stood a short distance
in front of them.

Our first objective for the 1925 season, therefore, was a quick look
beneath the West Court. We extended the west mound trench to
Room 135 and thence north to Kiva Q (pl. 47, right). Midway, at a
depth of 10 feet 6 inches, we exposed the floor of a huge kiva which,
in its time, had been razed and replaced by other structures. And there
was the answer to our 4-year-old puzzle!

The excavation for that subterranean chamber, over 50 feet in
diameter, had cut into a vast accumulation of Old Bonitian rubbish.

Plate 46.—a-c, Tumplines for burden carrying; d-g, potrests of cedar bark and corn husks.

Plate 47

Twenty feet of rubbish in the village dump revealed changes
in pottery types from first to last. (Photograph by O. C.
Havens, 1921.)

An exploratory trench through the West Court disclosed
remnants of razed buildings and part of the Old Bonitian trash
heap. (Photograph by O. C. Havens, 1925.)

Fragments of pre-Pueblo pottery with characteristic designs.

Plate 48

Sherds of Transitional ware from Tests I and II, West Court.

Jar and bowl fragments of typical Chaco-San Juan ware.

Plate 49

Sherds illustrating straight-line hachure in styles A, B, and C.

The excavated rubbish had been carried just outside the newly enlarged
village and dumped on the mound already rising there. Thenceforth
floor sweepings of the Old Bonitians mixed with floor sweepings
of the Late Bonitians; debris of reconstruction was added from time
to time as the west mound gradually assumed its final proportions.

But there is more to the story! Close beside the former south wall
of that razed kiva, and a foot below its floor level, our trench revealed
sandstone slabs lining the remains of a Pueblo I pit house. Above
those remains, and extending at least 20 feet southward, stood an
undisturbed remnant of the old trash pile. Into that remnant Roberts
and Amsden, to whom I had entrusted our pottery study, cut two
yard-square test sections, the first 13 feet in depth, the second, 12.
The sequence of pottery types there preserved is the foundation for
our analysis of Pueblo Bonito ceramics.

From bottom to top, with a few exceptions to be noted presently,
that ancient rubbish contained pottery fragments of a single, generalized
type. This Amsden and Roberts called the "Transitional" because,
to quote the latter's field notes, "it often has a pre-Pueblo
appearance . . . appears to be a transition between the pre-Pueblo
and Early Pueblo wares." The terminology here employed, the reader
will observe, is that in common usage prior to the Pecos Conference
of 1927 (Kidder, 1927). We would now call the earlier ware "Pueblo
I" and the Transitional "Pueblo II," or, as Roberts (1936, p. 530) has
more recently suggested, we might combine the two periods under the
single designation "Developmental Pueblo." Although the everyday
terms we used at the ruin are to be replaced in Roberts's report on the
pottery of Pueblo Bonito, they will suffice for this less specialized
consideration of the subject.

To summarize the diagnostic traits determined by Roberts and
Amsden: Chaco Canyon pre-Pueblo pottery includes bowls with tapering
rim; ladles of half-gourd shape; pitchers, commonly globular with
squat neck and handle extending from rim to shoulder; small globular
jars with wide mouth; water jars, somewhat pear-shaped with high
shoulder and sloping neck; cook pots with banded neck and smooth
body. Painted ornamentation includes stepped and triangular elements
bordered by thin, widely spaced lines often running past corners;
ticked lines; lines and triangles with pendent dots. The decoration
was applied while the slip was still damp; hence the locally characteristic
blurred effect after the surface was polished (pl. 48, upper).

Of 1,644 black-on-white potsherds from West Court Test I, 1.52
percent are classed as pre-Pueblo; of 1,389 like sherds from Test II,
3.40 percent belong to the same category. Our statistical study of

sherds from excavated rooms shows that of 203,188 fragments tabulated,
134 are pre-Pueblo. These data, gathered in 1925, thus prove
that pottery we have since come to know as Pueblo I found occasional
local use while Pueblo III civilization was here making its farthest
advance. Except those represented at the bottom of Test I, these few
pre-Pueblo vessels could have been brought to the village as chance
discoveries at older sites in the canyon. Not a single Pueblo I sherd
was unearthed at Pueblo del Arroyo.

Transitional pottery is, in some respects, very much like the prePueblo.
Bowls are a little larger and deeper, but they have the same
rounded bottom and direct, tapering rim. Ladles remain of the halfgourd
type, but there is a little experimenting with a more detached,
thicker and flatter handle. Water jars acquire a low, vertical neck;
later, the neck lengthens and there is often a secondary bulge between
it and the shoulder. Duck-shaped and effigy vessels are added to the
earlier forms. Culinary ware continues smooth-bodied, but coils, often
indented, gradually supplant the older neck bands. Painted decoration
includes the same stepped and triangular elements with thin bordering
lines noted on the earlier ware and, in addition, volutes or whorls,
checkerboard and diamond-shaped patterns, waved or "squiggled"
lines, and squiggled hatching. But there is this difference: whereas
Pueblo I vessels were polished after the designs were painted, Transitional
pottery was polished before painting.

In its earliest phase Transitional ware was coated with thick slip,
which sometimes acquired a sleek, enamel-like quality under vigorous
use of the polishing stone. But this practice did not last long. Smoothing
tools replaced polishers; slips became thinner and thinner and
finally were omitted altogether on bowl exteriors. Except at the beginning,
bowl and pitcher rims were painted black—a custom that was
thenceforth to become one of the most distinctive features of Chaco
Canyon pottery. Typical Transitional designs, on sherds from Tests I
and II, are illustrated on plate 48, lower.

This was the dominant type of painted pottery throughout the
infancy and adolescence of Pueblo Bonito. A little black-on-red appeared,
and a little brown-with-polished-black-interior, but not much.
As time advanced and pride in craftsmanship declined, the Transitional
was partially supplanted by a "Degenerate Transitional." After
the village reached middle age, so to speak, new types suddenly
appeared, as evidenced by our West Court tests and others. From
strata A-C, embracing the upper 50 inches of Test II, Roberts and
Amsden removed 43 fragments of straight-line hatching (3.1 percent
of all black-on-white sherds from the 12-foot cut) and 31 fragments

(2.3 percent) of Chaco-San Juan. A lone Mesa Verde sherd came
from layer B, 18-24 inches below the surface. Chaco-San Juan and
straight-line hatching (pl. 49) were the prevailing types in those
sections of the village where most Late Bonitian dwellings are situated;
Mesa Verde ware was one of several foreign varieties introduced
during occupancy of those dwellings. Examples of all three occurred
with Transitional vessels in burial rooms of the old northwest quarter.
How to explain this apparent anomaly?

As stated in the introduction, I believe Pueblo Bonito represents the
work of two distinct peoples; that the Old Bonitians were the real
founders and that the Late Bonitians were eleventh-century immigrants.
I believe the Late Bonitians were first to vacate the village and
that, in addition to what they had previously acquired through barter,
the Old Bonitians speedily appropriated all useful utensils their former
neighbors left behind. These convictions derive both from observations
in rooms excavated and from data gathered in various stratigraphic
tests.

After four years' search, chance had led us to an undisturbed
portion of the trash heap associated with the house cluster from which
Pueblo Bonito developed. That trash heap had grown into a mound
over 8 feet high before the Late Bonitians arrived upon the scene.
Piled in the lee of the dwellings, the debris had been spread farther
east and southeast by the prevailing upcanyon winds and a natural
tendency on the part of housewives to dump their floor sweepings
leeward. From its crest the mound sloped away to cover more than
an acre. We found traces of it under Late Bonitian dwellings even
in the far southeastern corner of the ruin.

From a test pit to clean clay, 9 feet 6 inches below the original floor
of Room 153, we took 786 potsherds, and there were no late types
among them. Apparently that floor had been laid directly upon the
sloping surface of the old dump. There were no late types among 548
sherds gathered under Room 225.

Elsewhere, tests frequently showed a mixture of early and late
fragments. Of 50 sherds collected beneath the latest floor in rebuilt
Room 252, late hatching, late black-on-red, and Chaco-San Juan each
represented 4 percent of the total; corrugated-coil culinary, 20 percent.
We found no late types below Room 330, but several fragments did
appear under nearby Kiva X. Of 642 sherds from a subfloor test in
Room 334, 10 were late black-on-red and five carried late hatching;
147, or 23 percent, were fragments of corrugated pots. A few pieces
of Mesa Verde ware were noted, among other late examples, in test
pits dug below the floors of Room 344 and Kiva A.

From these stratigraphic studies in various parts of the village,
Roberts and Amsden deduced their succession of local earthenware
types and decorative styles, beginning with the pre-Pueblo and ending
with the third phase of straight-line, oblique hatching. Among the
ancient Pueblos, pottery illumination was no more static than it has
been among our own people. Styles come and go. Tablewares in
vogue today differ from those our grandmothers used. And so it was
at Pueblo Bonito. Each generation introduced one or more changes,
however inconspicuous. New patterns were created; old ones were
altered; straight lines replaced curved, or vice versa; designs were
banded or paneled, or drawn over the entire surface. At one time, a
number of Bonitian potters had a fancy for solid tips on certain units
of hachured design.

When straight-line hatching was introduced at Pueblo Bonito, the
lines composing the patterns were rather widely spaced and as heavy
as, or even heavier than, the lines that framed them. Solid elements
sometimes balanced the hatched figures. This is our "Hachure A"
(pl. 49, lower). But the women who favored this style of pottery
ornamentation were not content with it. They began almost at once
to experiment, to seek new combinations. Framing lines were made
still heavier; angles and angular tips were filled in solid; designs were
enlarged to cover the whole visible surface of the vessel. And the
results, our "Hachure B," lasted so long that fragments of it seem
predominant in the rubbish piles; it has sometimes been described as
the outstanding variety in Bonitian ceramics. Individuality persisted,
however, and preferences changed. Finally, composing and framing
lines again became approximately equal in weight but thinner; their
comparative thinness, straightness, and uniform spacing evidence
supreme confidence both in composition and in execution.

Typical Bonitian pottery, from the early Transitional to the latest
straight-hatched group, is decorated with mineral paint. Organic paint
appears on vessels imported from the Mesa Verde area and elsewhere;
also, in large measure, on the so-called Chaco-San Juan ware, a variety
that combines northern designs and pigments with methods of
surface treatment equally characteristic of the Chaco. We never did
decide whether this ware was made in the canyon or imported. It was
in abundant supply throughout Late Bonitian times, but its use of organic
paint remained at variance with local custom. Quartz sand was
available nearby but no lava or other igneous rock. Hence the chief
reliance of Bonitian potters throughout the long history of their village
was a temper of pulverized potsherds. Because it lessens paste

Plate 50.—A possible foreign cook pot (a) from Pueblo del Arroyo and a Late Bonitian
example (b) from Room 256, Pueblo Bonito, and five Old Bonitian pots (c-g) from Room
323.

Plate 51

Upper: Bowls broken by fallen ceiling, Room 298. (Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1923.)

Lower: Cook pots used for storage under floor of Room 128. (Photograph by Neil M.
Judd, 1926.)

Plate 52.—A, Pointed-bottom cook pot and fragments; B, corrugated-coil pitchers; C,
bowl molded in a basket, and two small culinary vessels.

Plate 53.—Sections of culinary vessels (a, b) used as supports for round-bottomed
jars; three bowls (c, d, e) containing food, and above (c′, d′, e′), the bowl with which each
was covered; vessel simulating two superimposed bowls (f), and a beginner's effort (g).

shrinkage and reduces danger of breakage in firing, temper is of prime
consideration in pottery manufacture.

Since determinations based on simple ocular examination have always
seemed to me of doubtful value and since we lacked the means
for thorough chemical analysis, I had not intended to consider at this
time the complex problem of paste inclusions. But in 1936, and again
in 1937, Miss Anna O. Shepard sampled our sherd collections as a
contribution to her study of pottery from La Plata Valley ruins, some
70 miles north of Pueblo Bonito. Although limited to fragments from
our stratigraphic tests II and IV and to a selection of sherds illustrating
design sequence, Miss Shepard's inquiry disclosed most interesting
facts about Bonitian tempering materials. We are privileged
to introduce herein certain results of her observations under the
petrographic and binocular microscopes.[2]

To summarize Miss Shepard's findings: Most black-on-white fragments
from Test II in the old dump under the West Court were
mineral-paint types and sherd-tempered. Sand and powdered rock also
appeared regularly as tempering agents but their frequency gradually
decreased as sherd-temper increased. For cooking pots, sand continued
in favor throughout, but sanidine basalt gained steadily until it occurred
in 56 percent of all pot fragments in four upper layers, F to C.
While the basalt appears as a primary temper in cooking pots its
presence in the mineral-paint ware is largely secondary; that is, it was
the rock used as temper in vessels whose fragments later were pulverized
to provide sherd-temper. Andesite appeared occasionally in
both mineral-paint and kitchen-ware fragments, and it was the chief
temper for early black-on-red pottery, sherds of which were found in
all except the two lowest strata. Pieces of vegetal-paint vessels likewise
were noted in all layers except the two lowest, but, curiously
enough, they were much more common in the upper half of the deposit
than in the lower. Considered together, this organic-paint group gave
the following variations in temper: Sand, 17.9 percent; pulverized
sherds, 14 percent; sanidine basalt, 60.2 percent; and a mixture of
sherds and basalt in 7.6 percent—figures that suggest three or more
points of origin. Sanidine basalt became the dominant temper for
both organic-paint black-on-white and culinary wares while layer F
was being laid down and remained so thereafter.

Now the puzzling factor in all this is the presence of andesite and

sanidine basalt, two igneous rocks that do not occur in sandy Chaco
Canyon. Reeside (1924, p. 24) reports andesitic debris as a feature of
the McDermott formation, which underlies the Ojo Alamo sandstone
and extends from La Plata County, Colorado, southward along the
western margin of the San Juan Basin to within 15 miles of Pueblo
Bonito. But we have no proof that this nearby exposure actually
supplied the andesite used as temper in some of our earthenware
vessels. The nearest known source of sanidine basalt lies in the
Chuska Mountains, 50 miles due west of Pueblo Bonito. It is difficult
to believe that Bonitian women walked 50 miles and back just to obtain
this unusual rock for use in pottery manufacture. The only alternatives
are (1) a nearer supply not yet discovered, or (2) importation
of finished pottery, chiefly culinary ware, from the west. Miss Shepard
favors the latter possibility.

If the presence of sanidine basalt temper in pottery exhumed at
Pueblo Bonito identifies that pottery as foreign, then Bonitian women
were annually becoming more and more dependent upon others for
their pots and pans. Of nine sherds from the lowest level (K) of Test
II, three are plain-surfaced culinary ware and one of them is tempered
with sanidine basalt. Another fragment, that of an unpainted pitcher
or olla, is tempered with the same rock. Nearly 14 percent of all
sherds in Stratum H, or 17.3 percent of the culinary ware only, are
likewise tempered with sanidine basalt. For Stratum F the percentages
are, respectively, 24 and 53.3; for C, 29.9 and 66.6. Thus as Old
Bonitian rubbish accumulated, pottery tempered with sanidine basalt,
both cooking pots and tableware, was gaining in local favor. The rock
appears, although rarely, in Pueblo I sherds, in fragments of early
mineral-paint vessels, and in the several organic-paint types. Corrugated-coil
culinary ware came suddenly into use during deposition of
Stratum C and of 39 corrugated-coil fragments in that layer 30 are
tempered with sanidine basalt. Because potters repeatedly searched
the rubbish piles for fragments suitable for sherd temper it is only
natural that sanidine basalt should have found its way indirectly into
Late Bonitian mineral-paint pottery whose principal temper is pulverized
potsherds.

These several facts suggest two questions we cannot now answer:
(1) Did the Bonitians, both Early and Late, import the raw material
or readymade pottery, chiefly culinary wares, tempered with sanidine
basalt, and (2) did they pulverize fragments of rock-tempered cooking
pots to provide sherd temper for vessels of their own manufacture?
I have long entertained the notion, for which I find no recorded justification
at the moment, that modern Pueblo potters carefully avoid

culinary ware when gathering sherds.[3] Sanidine basalt was the temper
in 40.7 percent of all culinary ware fragments and in 60.2 percent of
all vegetal-paint, black-on-white sherds from Strata C-K, Test II.
However, no vegetal-paint sherd was found in the two lowest levels
and none with sanidine basalt temper below F. This rock was the
dominant temper of corrugated-coil cooking pots, sherds of which
appeared first in Stratum C.

Sanidine basalt is the temper, also, in at least two vessels from a
Pueblo I pit house 1 mile east of Pueblo Bonito (Judd, 1924a). One
of these (U.S.N.M. No. 324809) is unpainted; the second (No.
324811) is decorated with vegetal paint. Two other vessels from the
same pit house are mineral-painted, sherd-tempered (Nos. 324806,
324881C). A sample lot of 43 fragments (No. 334122) from a
Basket Maker III site 9 miles east of Pueblo Bonito, later excavated
by Roberts (1929), shows 18 mineral-paint sherds of which one is
tempered with andesite and 17 with sand; one vegetal-paint sherd,
sand-tempered; and 24 plain-surfaced sand-tempered fragments. Thus
andesite, if it did not originate in exposures of the McDermott formation
south of Ojo Alamo, presumably represents trade from the north,
beginning in Basket Maker III times. And the sanidine basalt, unless
a nearer source really exists, must represent a western trade that began
in Pueblo I and thereafter gradually increased in volume until the
closing years of Pueblo Bonito. If this commerce was chiefly in
kitchenware, as appears to have been the case, the presumption is that
Bonitian potters utilized a good many culinary-ware fragments in
preparing their sherd temper. These presumptions and possibilities
doubtless could have been replaced by definite statements if opportunity
had only permitted Miss Shepard a more extensive examination
of our Chaco Canyon sherd collections.

In large measure, Pueblo Bonito pottery was not polished. Bowl
interiors were smoothed with moist fingers, or a mop of some sort,
until the finer clay particles in the paste were brought to the surface;
exteriors usually retain tool marks and striations left when temper
grains were caught by the scraper. Most potters preferred a relatively
thin slip, if any; some of them sometimes drew a casual band of slip
paint outside a bowl rim or wiped their slip mop across the bottom.
All were not equally skillful. Each generation had its artists and its
housewives who made pottery only because they had to. Some of our
early Transitional, some in the Chaco-San Juan group, and certain

foreign wares were both heavily slipped and stone-polished; but the
average, locally made nonculinary vessel is thin and hard, sherdtempered,
hand-smoothed, white-slipped, and ornamented with mineral
paint.

In the following paragraphs we shall look upon the earthenware
vessels in our collection not as subjects for the test tube and microscope
but rather as household utensils. For herein we are concerned
less with paste, design sequence, and percentages than with the pots
and pans in which each family prepared and served its daily food.
A more critical study, however, in which are considered the sequential
variations of Bonitian ceramics and their relationship to the products
of adjacent areas, will be published, it is planned, as a subsequent
number of this series under the signature of Dr. Frank H. H. Roberts,
Jr., one of my colleagues during the 1925 and 1926 seasons and to
whom I delegated this important phase of the Society's investigations.

Materials.—The raw materials and the tools employed in pottery
manufacture were encountered less frequently than one would expect
in so populous a community as Pueblo Bonito. About four bushels of
unslaked clay had been stored in the southwest corner of Room 212;
at its base, the pile was bordered by 51 crushing tools—manos, mano
fragments, and rubbing stones. (Guthe, 1925, p. 20, reports that each
fall San Ildefonso women gather clay for winter use.) Sausagelike
lumps of prepared clay bearing finger imprints, apparent leftovers
from the day's work, were noted among the rubbish in several abandoned
rooms. Quantities of worked potsherds, the so-called "spoons"
used in thinning, scraping, and smoothing vessels during the modeling
process, were found all about the village, in debris heaps and elsewhere.
Local potters obviously favored this kind of scraper (fig. 47).
We found a few comparable examples of wood but none made from
gourd rind. More surprising still, we unearthed less than a dozen
pebbles evidencing use as polishers and none of these was deeply worn.
Yet polishing stones assuredly were employed to produce the glossy
surface on certain classes of Bonito pottery.

Most of our vessels may be described as "black-on-white." The
whitish background on which the blackish designs were painted represents
one or more coatings of liquid kaolin. The preparation and
application of this kaolin slip by Bonitian potters 900 years ago differed
little, if at all, from methods Mrs. Stevenson (1904, p. 375)
observed at Zuñi toward the close of the nineteenth century: "A
white clay is dissolved in water and then made into cones which
are dried in the sun. When required for use these cones are rubbed

to powder on a stone, again mixed with water, and applied in the
liquid state to the object with a rabbit-skin mop."

Besides numerous small pieces, we found several masses of prepared
kaolin. Three of these, including that shown in figure 48, had been

Fig. 48.—Molded cake of kaolin.

thrust through by a small stick before solidifying; all show marks of
scraping tools or evidence of rubbing. Three unused cakes (U.S.N.M.
No. 334879) from Room 51, Pueblo del Arroyo, measure 5⅛ inches
in diameter and average 2 inches thick. They were formed by pouring
a thick kaolin solution into the body portion of a broken pitcher.

Pueblo Bonito potters preferred a black mineral paint, an iron
oxide. But some early wares and a larger proportion of late vessels,

many of which may have been imported, were decorated with organic
paint. This latter doubtless was obtained by boiling young shoots of
the Rocky Mountain beeplant (Cleome serrulata), after the manner
still followed at San Ildefonso and other New Mexico villages. In any
case, this annual still flourishes on flooded areas near Fajada Butte;
fragments of the plant were found in Pueblo Bonito. I assume the
paint brushes used locally were strips of yucca leaves, shredded at one
end, like those employed by Pueblo potters a generation ago.

We uncovered no structure identifiable as a pottery kiln but did
observe burned areas here and there on successive court levels. Today
the Pueblos do not build permanent kilns, and there is no reason to
believe their ancestors did. The universal Pueblo practice at present
is to fire pottery under a heap of dried barnyard manure piled on any
space convenient to the dwelling. Cedar wood only is used in kindling
the potter's fire, a formalism that suggests the fuel employed prior to
Spanish introduction of sheep and horses. The Hopi frequently add
native coal to the dung blocks (Hodge, 1904, p. 581; Colton, Harold
S., 1936; Colton, Mary-Russell F., 1938, p. 10). At Pueblo Bonito
coal was customarily utilized in kiva construction but we observed no
evidence of its use as a fuel, either indoors or out.

On the basis of form and function, Bonitian pottery is separable
into various groups or classes: Cooking pots, food bowls and ladles,
pitchers, water jars, canteens, cylindrical vases, and a few odd pieces
that may or may not have been designed for household use.

Cooking pots.—Sherds from the old trash pile under the West
Court show that the founders of Pueblo Bonito used smooth-bodied
cooking pots, the necks of which were formed by broad or narrow
overlapping bands. Broad bands were sometimes rubbed longitudinally
and partially obliterated; the narrow ones were often rounded,
occasionally tooled between as though by a bone awl. There were
sherds with waved or undulating imbrications; sherds with coiled or
flat clay ribbons applied to the finished vessel solely for decorative
effect; sherds with nubble or loop handles. But mostly the fragments
represented pots whose upper third was composed of unobliterated
bands, each of which completely circled the neck and joined upon
itself. The last band, frequently wider than its predecessors, formed
the rather direct lip for a large orifice. Similar pots, both large and
small, were recovered in 1922 from a Pueblo I pit house 1 mile east of
Pueblo Bonito (Judd, 1924a, pp. 399-413).

Besides fragments such as those just described, the upper layers of
the old rubbish contained sherds of plain-bodied pots, the necks of
which were built up of longer, narrower strips that coiled one and a

half or two times around before the next was added. Frequently the
strips were so manipulated during the coiling process as to leave
externally a bold, geometric pattern. Although these designs usually
were produced by finger-pinching each coil as it was attached, an
instrument sometimes was employed to give sharper indentations. The
pleasing effect of such treatment is illustrated on two of the five cooking
pots from Room 323, an Old Bonitian dwelling 35 feet long (pl. 50,
lower, figs. c, d).

These two, with coiled necks on which the designs were partly
emphasized by tooling, are still soot-covered as though but recently
lifted from the kitchen fire. The other three have plain banded necks.
Their rims slightly below floor level, all five had been buried to serve
as storage jars.[4] Four of them lay within 8 feet of the southwest
wall: two near the base of ceiling supports and another below the
eastern jamb of the southwest door. The neck of another pot, broken
cleanly from its smoothed body just where the first neck coil joined,
and bearing a deeply tool-indented key figure, was recovered in adjoining
Room 326. I have no doubt it served as a cradle, or support, for
a large round-bottomed vessel (pl. 53, fig. b).

The age of Room 323 is suggested by the fact that its two datable
ceiling beams were cut about A.D. 935. In due course the dwelling
was abandoned, but while its ceiling was still partly in place the room
had been utilized as a convenient neighborhood dump (pl. 31, lower).
From this household rubbish we removed many discarded stone implements
and quantities of potsherds. After eliminating all recognizable
duplicates, Roberts and Amsden counted 24,587 sherds, of which 40.5
percent were from old-style cooking pots and 13.1 percent from those
made in the later, over-all corrugated-coil technique.

Four Late Bonitian pots, likewise embedded for storage purposes,
were unexpectedly encountered in Room 128 while we were tracing
the wall of an abandoned kiva previously discovered beneath Rooms
340-341. The old kiva's roof-pole offset had been partially torn away
on the west side and here the four pots were placed, side by side, with
their rims just below the original floor (pl. 51, lower). Sometime
later, the vessels forgotten, a 10-inch layer of sand and debris of occupation
was spread throughout the house as the base for a new floor.
Still later, after the dwelling was vacated, windblown sand accumulated
on this second surface, not to be laid bare until Richard Wetherill
had the room cleared in anticipation of the return of the Hyde Expedition.
We found this upper sand layer about 3 inches thick in the

middle. But more sand had gathered since 1897 and, with it, cedar
chips from the Wetherill woodpile, rusted tin cans, and broken glass.

The largest of the four pots, its base missing, had been set on a
stone slab and a new bottom improvised with adobe mud. One of the
others contained a small quantity of grass seed, too decayed for identification.
All four were made in the over-all, corrugated-coil technique
and with flaring rims. The differences between them and culinary
vessels of the Old Bonitians are at once apparent. Two were embellished
by alternately pinching and leaving unindented sections of each
successive coil; the other two were provided with solid down-turned
lugs as handles. All four probably had been cracked in service and
thereafter buried to answer as handy grain bins. Fragments of their
broken rims were put aside for the photograph.

Only six of our Pueblo Bonito cooking pots have handles. One of
them is a small, rude example from Kiva W having a conical lug
opposing a rounded, vertical loop. However, pot handles of diverse
type were repeatedly noted in household rubbish. From debris in
Room 251, a rebuilt dwelling on the east side of the village, we recovered
the neck portion of a pot with two lugs, each turned horizontally
to the left (U.S.N.M. No. 335253). Its direct rim and its thick, deeply
pinched coils identify it as Old Bonitian.

Our Bonito cook pots, 29 in number, vary in size, shape, and
workmanship. One of the smallest measures 4⅝ inches in diameter by
4¾ inches high (pl. 52, B, center). The largest, 13¾ by 15¾, is the
bottomless one from Room 128. For the entire group, average diameter
is 9.06 inches; height, 10.13 inches. The five buried under the
floor of Room 323 are the only restorable Old Bonitian pots we
recovered. Distribution of the remaining 24 was as follows: One each
from Kivas H, U, and W; one from Room 309, a ceremonial chamber
built of second-type masonry abutting an older wall; one buried
upright under the second floor in Room 348; 16 from dwellings of
third-type masonry; and three from fourth-type houses. Of the 24,
all but one are coiled counterclockwise. Coils per inch vary from 3.5
to 7.5, with single examples at each extreme. Average for the 24 is
just a shade under five coils per inch. But coiling varies on each pot,
being narrower at the beginning, broader on the shoulder and neck.
None approaches in minuteness of coiling (11 to the inch) a small jar,
three fragments of which were found in Rooms 292-293.

It is noteworthy that only 5 of the 29 pots were found in Old
Bonitian dwellings, and that these were of early type and no longer
used for cooking. I cannot explain this absence of culinary ware from
the older part of the pueblo, where indications of late occupancy were

otherwise most apparent. In Hyde's distribution table No. 2, 8 of the
20 "corrugated jars" listed are from houses in the old northern section.
But the only one figured (not included in table 2) is a Pueblo II
vessel from Room 85 (Pepper, 1920, pp. 278, 359-362). Our several
stratigraphic tests showed that smooth-bodied, banded- or coiled-neck
pots gradually passed out of use after arrival of the Late Bonitians.
Corrugated-coil sherds appeared in the upper 2 feet of Test I; in the
upper 4½ feet of Test II.

Of four corrugated pots with vertical loop handles, three are illustrated
on plate 52, B. The two smallest bear no smoke stains and
might properly be classed as pitchers. On another unsmoked vessel
(pl. 52, C, center) the potter exercised her ingenuity by interrupting
the regularity of the indentations to introduce a waved belt of four
plain coils. The idea was locally an old one, for we found no less than
10 sherds with undulating imbrications in Test I.

The small, rude pot illustrated in plate 52, C, right—probably a
child's effort—was started as a clay disk, pressed cuplike so the edge
was pleated; upon this base broad, irregular coils were laid clockwise.
In contrast, the work of a master is represented by a restored pot from
Room 256 (pl. 50, fig. b). The lighter area down the left side resulted
from more intense heat on those particular fragments when fire burned
the vegetable matter in which the shattered vessel lay.

Sherds from both early and late rubbish piles prove that utility ware
was occasionally ornamented with incised designs; sometimes with
scrolls or chevrons applied to the upper neck.

The 25 cooking pots we unearthed at Pueblo del Arroyo average 3
inches larger, both in diameter and height, than those from Pueblo
Bonito. Rim flare seems a bit more pronounced than on Bonito pots;
four are definitely more globular, with shorter necks and higher
shoulders. Twelve of the number were standing in Room 65 and one
of them is conspicuous from the fact its body is smooth while the
upper part is composed of broad coils, laid counterclockwise and
horizontally smoothed (pl. 50, fig. a). Lug handles are placed 2½
inches below the outflaring rim; particles of sand temper protrude
through the surface.[5]

Bowls comprised the principal tableware at Pueblo Bonito. They
were the dishes in which food was placed before the family, seated
on the floor. Tables and chairs were not used in Pueblo homes until

a generation ago and are not used at meal time even now by the more
conservative. But the ancient Pueblos, like their living descendants,
probably did not restrict bowls to food service exclusively. Large
bowls are utilized today for kneading bread, as receptacles for ground
meal, and for other purposes; smaller bowls often answer as catchalls
and as containers for water and paint at pottery-making time.

Luxán, recording his observations among Rio Grande pueblos in
1582, found the Tigua a "neat and clean people, for so they are in
eating and sleeping . . . and they use very good crockery" (Hammond
and Rey, 1929, p. 82). I have seen Hopi, Zuñi, and San Ildefonso
families sitting on the floor around a bowl of cornmeal mush or
a mutton stew, with fingers substituted for forks, and bread crusts
for spoons. And each time I marveled at the modest Pueblo appetite,
compared with my own. In former times Pueblo families had but two
hot meals a day, in midmorning and in late afternoon.

The 251 bowls in our Pueblo Bonito collection vary in diameter
from 1 to 13 inches. The smaller surely were toys, although they are
usually as carefully made as larger ones. The average measures 7½
inches in diameter by 3[fraction 9 by 16] inches deep. Over 93 percent are black-onwhite.
The "black" varies from rusty brown to coal black; the
"white," from chalky white to slaty gray. A number, both large and
small, are reddish brown on the outside with a smudged black interior.
Still fewer are slipped with red clay and decorated inside with black
geometric designs. Irrespective of size and color, surface treatment,
or skill in execution, Pueblo Bonito bowls tend to be hemispherical
with rounded bottom and thin, direct rim; and the rim edge is usually
painted black, a distinguishing local feature. In most instances this
rim line is interrupted at some point to provide a "path" or "gateway"
for the spirit resident in the vessel.

When the second-story floor of Old Bonitian Room 298 burned and
collapsed into the storeroom below, it broke 7 of the 12 bowls ranged
against the northeast wall (pl. 51, upper). The smallest of these vessels
is 3¾ and the largest 11⅛ inches in diameter. Nine of the 12 are
ornamented in the Transitional style, one in Chaco-San Juan, and two
in straight-line hatching. In the smaller of the two latter, framing
lines are heavier than composing lines; in the second, largest of the
lot and misshapen through crowding in the firing pile, composing and
framing lines are of almost equal weight. Neither of these two is
slipped on the outside but the larger bears a broad cross in slip paint
extending from rim to rim. The Chaco-San Juan bowl alone has
handles—rounded loops pressed close against the sides. It is 5 inches
in diameter and its rim is dotted. With a single doubtful exception,

the other bowls have black-painted rims. One, 4 inches in diameter
by 2 inches deep, bears a thick, crackled, chalky-white slip; the sole
decoration is a black ring on its quarter-inch-wide, outflaring rim.
No other vessel in our collection has a like rim. Fragments of two
gourd-shaped ladles were also found in Room 298.

In the adjoining storeroom, 296, we found three bowls and a pitcher.
Two of the bowls, slipped and partially polished outside, are decorated
on the inside in the old Transitional style; the third bears a 4-unit,
straight-hatched design that is noticeably blurred as if its lines were
painted while the slip was still damp. After the potter finished slipping
the inner wall of this third bowl she drew her slip mop around the
outer edge to leave a careless band of thin kaolin. Over this band
three strokes of a paint-filled brush emphasized the line break, or
spirit path, in the black line circling the rim. The pitcher accompanying
these bowls is decorated with stepped elements bordered by thin,
parallel lines in good pre-Pueblo style, but its slip was stone-polished
before the design was added. A squarish shoulder divides the decoration
into two zones; the handle extends from rim to base of neck.

Fire had destroyed the ceilings of these two ground-floor rooms.
In both cases the broken bowls found in and under the wreckage had
belonged to families who once occupied the living quarters above.
There can be little doubt of that. Similarly, we may be sure that the
two vessels accompanying the body of a middle-aged man (Skeleton
23), buried in a hole dug through the floor of Room 330, were
familiar to him during life and were offerings from his family or close
relatives at time of interment (pl. 93, lower). So, too, with the bowl
under the right knee of a fellow warrior we know only as Skeleton 10
(pl. 98, lower).

Twenty-three men, women, and children were entombed in Room
330. Their burial furniture included 17 bowls, 11 of which are quite
small, about the size of a cereal dish; but they represent a group surprisingly
numerous at Pueblo Bonito, and we shall not go far astray
if we regard them as porringers. Indeed, one of them (U.S.N.M.
No. 336344) still held a food remnant.

Eighteen of the 26 bowls from Room 329 belong to this same
category. Six others, 2 to 4 inches in diameter, neatly made and
decorated, are believed to be children's toys.

Three of the Room 329 bowls contained remains of food offerings,
perhaps cornmeal. Chemical analysis proved the substance of vegetal
origin but exact identification was not feasible. These three are illustrated
on plate 53, figures c-e, and, above them, the bowl with which
each was covered. The smallest of the six is slipped all over; the largest

is unslipped on the outer surface; the remaining four have bands
of slip paint, narrow to wide, outside below the rim.

In Room 326 one man, nine women, and an infant were buried.
Among the offerings placed with the bodies were 62 food bowls, all
but one of which are shown on plates 54 and 55. Of the total, 22
measure less than 6 inches in diameter. All are black-on-white with
three exceptions: two brown-with-polished-black-interior (figs. b,c)
and one black-on-red (fig. t). The 2-unit interior design of this latter
consists of interlocking, stepped scrolls bordered by parallel lines plus
a little squiggled filling. Its black rim line is unbroken by the customary
spirit path.

Almost the whole range of Pueblo Bonito ceramic history is represented
here. Both early and late wares will be noted and in their
several variations; also, a couple of pieces from other culture areas.
Only two of the 62 have handles, the largest and one of the smallest.
The former is a veritable tub, 12⅛ inches in diameter by 5¾ inches
deep, with an interior, over-all, 4-unit design, a flattish bottom, an
unpolished, slip-washed exterior, and two double-roll, horizontal handles
just below the painted rim (pl. 55, fig. g3). One handle is
pressed so close there is no space between it and the vessel wall. The
second bowl with handles, one of the brown-with-polished-blackinterior,
is 4 inches in diameter and half as deep; its round loop
handles are attached so high they curve above the rim (pl. 54, fig. b).
In plate 55, figure a3, four spirit paths or line breaks were required
when the tails of as many white triangle scrolls reached the edge.
Room 326 pitchers, 15 in number, are illustrated on plate 57.

Sometime during the occupancy of Room 266, in the northeast
quarter of Pueblo Bonito, five jar-shaped storage pits had been dug
into the hard clay below its floor. The first of these, Cist 1, was filled
with blown sand; from the lower half of that fill we removed 22
broken bowls, only 2 of which were more than 5¾ inches in diameter
(pl. 56).

Small bowls are conspicuous in our Pueblo Bonito collection and
since the 20 from Cist 1 are thoroughly representative, a description
of them will answer for all others. Each bears external striations of
scraping tools but two, figures q and r, appear also to have been partly
stone-polished. Only one, a, is slip-coated over all, but u shows a
"puddled" exterior as though modeling while the paste was wet had
brought the finer clay particles to the surface. After slipping the inner
wall the potter drew her mop carelessly around the outside rim to
leave a more or less conspicuous slip band on all except a, e, l, q, u, and
v. Fourteen are ornamented with hachured designs, of which four, n,

o, p, and u, are either squiggled or a combination of squiggled and
straight hatching. In every instance the rim edge was painted black
and, presumably, provided with a spirit path. (On six specimens the
rim line is partly erased.) External emphasis figures appear on six
bowls, d, e, g, h, n, and v, but only on the three latter do these figures
actually coincide with the path or line break. On the outside of d
a stepped triangle hangs from the lip a third of the way around to the
left of the break; e has a pendent V 2 inches to the right of the path.
From the opening in the rim line of h three connected, wide-spreading
V's extend in decreasing size to the right. A like figure, partly erased,
appears on g; n has an outturned scroll at each side of the path, while
v has a scroll at the left only. Usually, but not always, the spirit path
lies where an open space in the design reaches the rim. Paint-brush
strokes form an X on the bottom of b; two straight marks appear on
the bottom of j; a single brush stroke is noted under one lug on both
s and t; a broad dash of slip paint underlies the emphasis figure on v.
Five (p-t) of these 20 small bowls have lug handles. On the first,
that with four, the handles are wider and rounder but, like the others,
they were thrust through vertically with a rounded stick or awl to
clear the opening. Freedom of individual expression is perfectly
obvious in this assemblage.

Our collection includes 95 of these below-average bowls (average,
7½ inches), and handles occur on 12 percent of them. Two is the
customary number, but one in five has four. A single example, from
Room 272, is equipped with three (U.S.N.M. No. 336187). In a few
instances postattachment modeling partially closed the handle perforation,
but even so a fine cord could still be inserted, if desired. Room
272 produced a second unique bowl—one 7 inches in diameter by 4
inches deep, with two pairs of conical, unperforated nodes placed an
inch below the rim (No. 336186).

The average Bonitian bowl is handleless, but larger examples sometimes
were provided with horizontal loops or broad, shelflike lugs.
The latter kind, as we know from sherds, usually are downraking
and slightly cupped on the under side. Handles of this type appear on
2 of our 12 bowls 11 inches or more in diameter; in the case of a
Chaco-San Juan specimen from Room 227, the lugs are pierced
(U.S.N.M. No. 336133). A 12¾-inch bowl from Kiva 2-D, ornamented
with opposed solid triangles bordered by many thin parallel
lines, has slightly pressed-in loop handles placed 2 inches below the rim
(No. 336335). In contrast, a dish from Room 326, likewise decorated
in Transitional style, has close-pressed, double-roll, upturned handles
a mere half inch below its rim (No. 336283). Room 268 produced an

11¼-inch bowl with a double-roll loop on one side and a solid, bifurcated
lug on the other (No. 336183). Perhaps owing to their weight
while drying, or to crowding in the fire, these large bowls are sometimes
misshapen and occasionally flattened on the bottom, but only
one, a Chaco-San Juan vessel from Room 255, has a base noticeably
concave (No. 336142).

Subfloor pit 3, Room 266, was filled with clean sand from which we
recovered a few miscellaneous sherds and three restorable, black-onwhite
bowls. Part of one was found near the top and the remainder
near the bottom, showing that the pit had been intentionally filled and
all at one time. Two of the bowls are decorated in late, straight-line
hatching, while the third bears a design foreign to Pueblo Bonito.

Fragments of six other foreign bowls lay among household rubbish
dumped through the second-story west door some time after Room
266 was abandoned (pl. 58, lower). The first three, however unlike
in ornamentation, have several points in common: they are relatively
shallow, averaging only 3¼ inches in depth; their inner and outer walls,
stone-polished, creamy gray in color and velvet smooth, have crackled
or spalled minutely; their rims are rounded, slightly incurved, and
unpainted; i and k wear an external band of thin slip paint at the rim.
The second trio ( l-n) averages an inch deeper, with thinner, steeper
walls and more rounded bottoms, and rims that are direct, partially
flattened and unpainted. Their exteriors are slipped over all, but m
only was stone-polished; surface cavities and striations on l and n
evidence a relatively coarse angular temper. There is no line break
in the upper border of the two complete designs, on i and k. All six
are ornamented with what I judge to be organic paint.

These six bowls are probably importations despite features in
common with some of our Chaco-San Juan vessels. I do not know
where the first two originated, but the others are decorated with
designs I remember well from southwestern Colorado and southeastern
Utah. Modern archeologists probably would classify these
four as "McElmo black-on-white." The over-all design in j is so
unusual it would never be forgotten. Two other bowls in the collection
combine in their ornamentation elements to be found in the six now
before us. Both are 4¼ inches in depth. One is gray and unpolished
outside; its rim is thinned on the outer edge by scraping and remains
unpainted. The second, more heavily slipped and much smoother
inside and out, has a rounded, slightly incurved rim that is also unpainted.
Neither bowl wears the external band of slip paint seen on
i and k; both have an interior, all-over ornamentation that combines
the broad, widely spaced lines of McElmo design with single or interlocking

scrolls ticked on the convex edge in the manner of the toothed
elements so prominent in j. I should guess this distinctive figure to be
a mark of some restricted area but fail to find its like in any of the
reference works at hand.

Other foreign wares are more easily identified as to source: The
Mesa Verde district in the north; the Kayenta region in the west; the
Little Colorado, Upper Gila, and Mimbres areas in the south. In each
case these imports reached Chaco Canyon late, after Pueblo Bonito
had attained full development.

One variety of alien pottery we never thought to find is illustrated
on plate 52, A. All three examples came from Kiva W, on the west
side of the West Court, a chamber filled with debris of reconstruction
overlain by blown sand in which clay lenses evidenced the presence,
from time to time, of water trapped after summer showers. The
pottery is so unlike the associated Bonito sherds that our Zuñi workmen
must have noted the difference, but they said nothing at the time.
However, they told me later that the pieces came from about bench
level, approximately 6 feet below the terrace immediately north and
south of the kiva.

Variable striations left by scraping tools appear on the three specimens;
neither has been slipped; all are gray in color. In each case
the bottom is thick, the upper wall relatively thin (one-eighth inch
for a).[6] Finger imprints remain on the fragment in the center,
inside and out, showing the vessel began as a conical cup, molded by
hand; upon this beginning an inch-wide band of clay was laid down.
Attached to this base, as illustrated, is a fragment found in Room 314,
at the north end of the East Court. Below the flaring rim of the pot
at the right an ornamental collar of thin vertical nodes was formed
by pinching the plastic clay between thumb and forefinger. Six smokeblackened
neck fragments of a fourth and larger jar, likewise from
Kiva W, evidence a succession of three concentric circles scratched
into the striated surface by way of decoration.

Although, unfortunately, neither I nor one of my colleagues saw
these sherds in situ, I have no doubt they actually came from the
buildings indicated. They were tossed into the sherd boxes along with
other fragments exhumed by the workmen and were not detected
until Roberts and Amsden tabulated the material in midsummer, 1925.
Room 314 was excavated in 1923; Kiva W, the following year. The
fact that the Room 314 fragment fitted one of those from Kiva W was
not noted until these paragraphs were being written in Washington

10 years later. There is a noticeable difference in color between the
two pieces.

When the fragments first appeared we guessed them to be of
Navaho or Apache manufacture, remnants of vessels abandoned by
wandering tribesmen after Bonito had been deserted. Recent investigations
by Mera (1935; 1938) and Hibben (1938b, pp. 131-136) have
corrected this early surmise and identified the place of probable origin
as an area bordering the Continental Divide 60-odd miles northeast of
Pueblo Bonito. Here has been disclosed a strange cultural admixture,
basically Puebloan but favoring conical-bottomed cooking pots. Hall
(1944, p. 61) associates the latter with a "Largo-Gallina" phase which
he times between A.D. 900 and 1100. The area is generally recognized
as the ancestral home of the Navaho.

One of four Largo houses Mera excavated, a pit dwelling, gave a
construction date of A.D. 1106. The latest ceiling beam we found in
Bonito was cut in 1130. Thus there is reason to believe that inhabitants
of the two districts knew of each other's existence. But the bases
of our three Kiva W pots are decidedly more pointed than any yet
figured from the Largo; in the same way they differ from historic
Navaho vessels. The pinched-up collar on the third specimen, plate
52, A, is a type of decoration used, with less precision, both by Gallina
potters and by the Navaho.

Elsewhere in this report I have directed attention to the similarity
between a small earthenware pipe from a Largo house and one we
unearthed at Pueblo Bonito.

If the presence of pre-Spanish Navaho pottery in Pueblo Bonito
proved a complete surprise, so too did a sherd from Room 256—the
bottom of a brown, finely corrugated bowl with polished black interior
bearing a matte design (fig. 49). The coils, eight to the inch, possess
a minuteness and regularity more at home in the San Francisco River
Valley of southwestern New Mexico than in Chaco Canyon. Previous
to the finding of this fragment we supposed, as did everyone else, that
Maria and Julian Martinez of San Ildefonso originated the black-ware
paint they have employed so successfully since 1921 (Guthe, 1925,
p. 24). But theirs clearly is a rediscovery, since they could not possibly
have known that the same peculiar pigment was used at Pueblo
Bonito more than eight centuries earlier. The one datable beam
recovered from Room 256 was cut in A.D. 1052; seven timbers from
two adjoining rooms were felled between 1047 and 1083.

A restored bowl from Pueblo del Arroyo is likewise ornamented
with matte paint. In this example, however, the brown exterior is

Plate 54.—Thirty-eight of the 62 food bowls among the burial offerings in Room 326 (see
also pl. 55) illustrate almost the entire range of ceramic history at Pueblo Bonito.

Plate 55.—Larger bowls among the 62 recovered from Room 326 (see also pl. 54).

Plate 56.—Bowls restored from fragments found in subfloor Cist No. 1, Room 266.

Plate 57.—Fifteen pitchers were included among the grave furnishings in Room 326.

irregularly stone-polished rather than corrugated, and the design on
the glossy black inner wall is a four-line, stepped and bordered composition
decidedly Pueblo I in appearance (U.S.N.M. No. 334618).

At first we thought brown-with-polished-black-interior represented
trade from the headwaters of the Rio Gila. But doubts arose when we
recovered fragments of it well toward the bottom of the west refuse

mound and noted its presence elsewhere (1.2 percent of tabulated
sherds from excavated rooms). While cutting our West Court stratigraphic
sections, we found one fragment of the ware in Test I,
Stratum G (8′ 6″-9′ 8″ below the last utilized court surface), two
fragments in Stratum E (depth, 5′ 2″-5′ 9″), and 11 fragments in
layers A-B (surface to 3 feet below). In Test II, three fragments
only were recovered, in Strata A and B (surface to 2 feet depth).
These two tests thus evidence an occasional brown-with-polishedblack-interior
bowl during Old Bonitian times and a sudden increase
in numbers shortly after the local appearance of corrugated-coil culinary
ware and the Chaco-San Juan group. Many of the polishedblack-interior
bowls were thinned externally at the rim, a Chaco
custom, and the inference is that these, at least, were made in the
canyon. Sherds from the older rubbish are less glossy black inside
and browner outside than later fragments.

On the other hand, the collection includes sherds of cooking pots
and black-interior bowls that almost certainly originated on the Upper
Gila—bowls with outflaring rim, bowls and pots with exceedingly fine
corrugated coiling, and others with the corrugations partially smoothed
by rubbing. None of the bowl sherds is provided with that characteristic
Upper Gila treatment, an external band of two to six corrugated
coils below the rim.

An over-all, externally corrugated bowl with black-on-white interior
decoration, probably of northern origin, vanished completely sometime
after exhumation. It is to be seen, however indistinctly, in
Haven's field photograph, reproduced as plate 91, upper. We have
only one other comparable piece.

Food bowls shaped in a basket, and preserving the basket imprint
externally, occur repeatedly at unit-type ruins north of the San Juan
but are not generally associated with Pueblo III cultures. Yet we
found fragments of eight such vessels, in Room 251 and Kivas A,
B, J, L, and 2-E. Each of these is a Late Bonitian structure; each
contained more or less Late Bonitian rubbish.

Kiva 2-E, in the southeast corner of the East Court, is probably
later than the other four but we cannot so easily fit it into local history.
Although built of salvaged stone, its architecture is unlike that of
nearby kivas. After it ceased to be used for religious purposes the
hatchway in its flat roof openly invited the dumping of household
sweepings. From that rubbish in 1923 we recovered the major portion
of a deep bowl molded in a basket (pl. 52, C, left). Two years later,
after the vessel had been restored, I picked up a fragment of its rim
from the surface of the east refuse mound—an inconsequential fact
but one that suggests the lateness both of the kiva and the bowl.

The gray interior, irregularly smoothed, appears to have been puddled
rather than slip-coated. It is ornamented with two bands of faded
black figures pendent from single lines: above, elongated elements
that remind one of shirts hanging by their sleeves and, below, solid
triangles, point down. Two black lines encircle the outer wall; the
flat rim, one-fourth inch thick, is marked by close-lying dots. Holes
drilled from the inside a half inch below the rim evidence ancient

repairs. Like fragments of the other seven, this basket-molded bowl
is sherd-tempered and decorated with vegetal paint.[7]

Bonitian potters occasionally modeled vessels in the form of mammals,
birds, and human beings, but they rarely found courage to
portray these creatures by painting. Several of their efforts in this
direction are illustrated in figure 50, a-g. The first (a) is on an Old
Bonitian bowl the inner surface of which is stone-polished and bears
an all-over, rectilinear design in oblique, squiggled hatching; its outside
is unevenly smoothed and so thinly slipped the gray paste shows
through. Fragment c shows like treatment; f possesses a rather pinkish
color, perhaps an accident in firing, and its paint is quite red over
a very thin, whitish slip. The black-on-red fragment, e, belonged to a
bowl from the Little Colorado area, eastern Arizona, while d and the
hunchbacked flute player, Kokopelli (g), were interior bottom designs
on imports from the Mesa Verde district. Representations of horned
toads are shown in two restored Mesa Verde bowls on plate 58,
figures a, b.

Although a number of our local bowls, especially the larger examples,
were misshapen through careless crowding when piled for
firing, relatively few exhibit intentional novel treatment. One such,
from Room 326, simulates two superposed dishes (pl. 53, fig. f). It
is slip-coated inside and out, and imperfectly polished; its simple,
waved-line ornamentation is typically Old Bonitian, but the external
overemphasis of the "spirit path" marks the vessel as later. Gladwin
(1945, p. 64, pl. 29, b) places a bowl of like form but different design
in his Red Mesa Phase, which is "Early Pueblo II."

Fragments of several small double bowls are noted among the
sherds saved for study. In each instance the painted design differs in
the two halves; the junction wall is sometimes straight, sometimes
omitted from one half to fit the convexity of the other. Our lone
fragment of this character from Pueblo del Arroyo represents a rectangular,
vertical-walled, stone-polished brown vessel, one compartment
of which is smudged inside.

All Pueblo potters learned their art through experience. Instruction
began early, when a mother or grandmother sought to occupy the
toddler at elbow with a lump of moist clay, and continued throughout
childhood and adolescence (pl. 60). In their want of skill in execution,
several of our earthenware vessels suggest the work of children, but
none more clearly than a bowl from Room 307 (pl. 53, fig. g). Its

Fig. 50.—Bird and mammal figures on bowl fragments.

upper half consists of three coils, unevenly applied and irregularly
finger-pinched, and a broader rim band marked by thumbnail imprints;
its inner surface was lightly slipped before the uncertain design was
painted. The only other restorable piece of pottery from this Old
Bonitian dwelling is an undersized ladle of the half-gourd type; its
rim is painted black and a ticked-line figure continues from the bowl
into the open handle (pl. 69, fig. b).

Ladles are no more than small bowls with a jutting handhold. They
serve as well for ladling rabbit stew as for dipping water. Many ladles
in our collection are noticeably worn from scraping against pot or
sand. Rarely does the worn edge indicate left-handedness.

In his report of observations among the Hopi in 1881, Bourke
(1884, p. 254) remarked: "Table ware is made of pottery, but spoons
and ladles of horn, wood, and gourds, are in every house." Gourd
ladles are more frequently seen in Pueblo homes of the present generation
but those of earthenware have not been wholly discarded.

The Basket Makers used dippers made from wild gourds and naturally
imitated these familiar utensils in clay when they learned the art
of pottery manufacture. Early Pueblo potters followed suit. Because
it served its purpose well the half-gourd-shaped ladle or scoop persisted
until Pueblo II times before it was entirely superseded by the
bowl-and-handle type.

Our Old Bonitians were a Pueblo II people. Their dippers were of
the old style, from less than 4 to over 14 inches long, and ornamented
with characteristic designs that continued full length, down one side
and back up the other (pl. 61, figs. f-i). From this beginning, the
broad, flat handle (e) developed. An intermediate stage, locally represented
by sherds only, is the scoop with thin partition separating
bowl from concave handle. From a Pueblo I village in southwestern
Colorado, Roberts (1930, pp. 101-102) reports the same ladle sequence
we observed in the older rooms and rubbish heaps of Pueblo Bonito.

Late Bonitian ladles were wholly of the bowl-and-handle type (a-
d).[8] The two parts were made separately and joined while the paste
was still plastic—usually by punching a hole in the side of the bowl,
inserting the handle end, and smoothing over the point of contact.
Although the painted ornamentation merely repeated that on food
bowls of the period, imagination was often unleashed when the

handles were fashioned. At first solid and cylindrical, these later
became tubular; one or more small holes were punched through the
top or sides; now and then a pellet was introduced to rattle when the
dipper was used. Sometimes the handle was formed of two or more
solid clay rolls, laid flat and pressed together or twisted ropewise; less
frequently a long, slender roll was looped about and joined by one or
two crossbars. The tip of a hollow handle often turned up or down;
occasionally it was bifurcated or ringed as though for suspension.
Fancies such as these were not readily applied to Old Bonitian ladles
although we did find a few fragments with curled ends and two with
flat strips bridging open, troughlike handles.

An eccentricity that looks like a ladle is illustrated on plate 62,
figure a. It is slip-coated inside and out, carefully smoothed but not
polished; its paint is dull black except at the forward right quarter
and under the handle where overfiring has turned it brown. There is
no trace of abrasion on the bowl edge. Part of a similar vessel, slipped
over all, stone-polished but undecorated, came from Room 267 (fig. c).
The fragment of a smaller, much shallower example was found above
the stone and adobe fill in a large, square compartment at the east end
of the east refuse mound (fig. b).

Pepper (1920, figs. 91 and 143) illustrates, from Rooms 51 and 141,
two specimens very similar to our a and c. He describes them as
"incense burners," a type of utensil known in Mexico and Central
America but not in the Pueblo country. The first of his is accompanied
by a lid whose external decoration almost duplicates that on a
fragment we found in Room 315 (pl. 62, figs. e, e′). Half of a second
cover, from Room 307-I, is shown in figures d and d′. Neither fragment
has a seating groove on the inner edge; in neither case is the
edge worn by attrition.

Pitchers, so-called from their resemblance to a familiar form in our
own ceramic complex, were numerous at Pueblo Bonito. They were
obviously designed for holding liquids, but it is not at all certain that
they served as individual drinking vessels. We must confess we do
not know the specific use to which pitchers were put in pre-Spanish
Pueblo households. Their distribution is not uniform throughout the
Anasazi area. While of common occurrence in ruins of the San Juan
country, for example, they are generally lacking throughout the Rio
Grande Valley. Among the historic Pueblos, I believe, liquids were
not habitually drunk at mealtime until coffee and drinking cups were
concurrently introduced.

Bonitian pitchers, like bowls and ladles, are separable by form,
finish, or decoration into various groups. In the oldest style, the body

as a container was the important feature; in the latest, the neck
received major attention and apparently for esthetic reasons only.

Transitional-type pitchers are round-bottomed, full-bodied, and
rather squat; decoration is zoned, on body and neck. Handles, which
are always decorated and sometimes represent animals, extend from
the rim to the bottom of, or just below, the upper zone of decoration
(pl. 57, figs. c, f). On the latest type (fig. a) the decoration likewise
occurs in two encircling zones, but handles are attached entirely
within the upper one; the neck is tall and cylindrical; the body, low
and square-shouldered with a concave bottom in which a circle or other
simple device frequently appears as superfluous embellishment.

Only the early form was represented in the old dump under the
West Court. Even so, close examination of sherds from the several
layers shows a succession of minor variations. Shoulders are gradually
raised; neck curves are eliminated; walls develop a more uniform
slope from shoulder to mouth. In addition, zoned decoration is largely
discarded in favor of designs extending from top to bottom without
interruption. This modified early form and this over-all style of
ornamentation persist into the final period when square shoulders are
again in vogue. Handles, sometimes transversely concave, are invariably
attached a half-inch or more below the rim; the indented or
recessed base becomes progressively more popular. These two late
features, the indented base and the concave handle, both appear on
a superb example decorated in Transitional style from Room 323
(U.S.N.M. No. 336422).

Including miniatures and major fragments, our list of Pueblo
Bonito pitchers numbers 83. On the basis of form only, 42 of them
are Old Bonitian, but, as with that last cited, a few combine early
designs and late shapes. Rims are almost always painted and, with
few exceptions, provided with a spirit path. The latter usually lies
directly above or close to one side of the handle; occasionally it is
emphasized by one or two vertical brush strokes inside the neck.
Pitchers belonging to the Chaco-San Juan group have the dotted rim
so characteristic of the northern area with the small, concave-based
body and cylindrical neck typical of Late Bonitian pitchers, or a conical
neck that, in shape and ornamentation, closely resembles the wellknown
"beer stein" mug of the Mesa Verde area (pl. 63, upper, figs.
a, c). The paneled design on b, with its dotted negative squares,
duplicates that on the fragment of a cylindrical-necked pitcher Fewkes
collected in 1916 at the Mummy Lake site, Mesa Verde (No. 298851).

Our stratigraphic tests at Pueblo Bonito proved this small-bodied,
cylindrical-necked type of pitcher belonged exclusively to the later

periods. It is of interest to note, therefore, that of 41 restorable examples
83 percent were recovered from four Old Bonitian burial
rooms Nos. 320, 326, 329, 330. Of the remainder, one came from
Room 226, a dwelling of fourth-type construction; one each from six
third-period structures, including Kiva R. Many of those in the burial
rooms were accompanied by sandstone covers, slightly larger in diameter
than the vessel's mouth, in such a position as to indicate that
they had slid off when the pitchers toppled from an upright position.
No cover was actually found in place.

Three "duck-shaped" vessels may also be regarded as members of
the class under consideration (pl. 63, lower, figs. f-h). The first comes
from Room 323, next on the north of burial room No. 326, and is
decorated in good Transitional style; g, from Room 330, bears a
surface finish and a design in organic paint that, found in a lesser
ruin, would readily identify it as of Pueblo I origin; h has a hollow
handle and the concave base of Late Bonitian pitchers, but its design
hatching is squiggled. The second specimen has a plain rim; the other
two, painted rims with a line-break directly above the handle.

Water and storage jars.—As Kidder observed after only superficial
examination of local rubbish heaps, large decorated ollas or water jars
appear to be less common in Chaco Canyon than in other black-onwhite
areas (Kidder, 1924, p. 53). Why this should be remains a
puzzle. Even though we assume that water was formerly more abundant
and more accessible than now, each family had to carry its daily
supply from source to kitchen. Earthen jars were the means of
transportation.

One of the most pleasing sights at any modern pueblo is a young
woman returning from well or river with an olla gracefully balanced
upon her head (pl. 59, right). Within her home she places the vessel
on a bench beside the wall, safe from careless feet, perhaps protecting
its contents with a piece of board or the end of a packing box. In like
manner Pueblo women have always carried and stored water for
household use.

When the Rodriguez Expedition in 1581 stopped at a Tigua pueblo
near present-day Albuquerque, Hernán Gallegos observed that the
villagers made "earthen jars in which they carry and keep their water.
They are very large, and they cover them with lids of the same
material. . . . They make a palm knee-cushion similar to those of
Old Castile, put it on the head, and on top of it they place and carry
the water" (Hammond and Rey, 1927, p. 266).

So, too, at Pueblo Bonito. From well or reservoir housewives daily
replenished their supply of water for cooking and drinking. This was

Plate 58.—a-c, Bowls from the Mesa Verde area; d-h, small jars of early and late types;
i-n, six foreign bowls restored from fragments found in Room 266.

Plate 59

"Black Bottom," a regular camp visitor. (Photograph by
Neil M. Judd, 1927.)

A school girl at Zuñi dresses up for the camera on her way to
the village well. (Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1926.)

Plate 60.—A Zuñi grandmother gives a lesson in pottery decoration. (Photograph by Charles Martin, 1920.)

Plate 61.—Late Bonitian (a-d) and Old Bonitian (e-i) ladles.

Plate 62.—Ladlelike vessels of unknown purpose (a-c), and fragments of covers,
obverse (d, e) and reverse (d′, e′), for similar vessels.

Plate 63.—a-c, Three Late Bonitian pitchers that show northern influences; d, e, birdshaped
bowls with T-openings; and "duck-shaped" pitchers with Old Bonitian (f, g) and
Late Bonitian (h) ornamentation.

Plate 64.—Ollas, or water jars, from Late Bonitian rooms (a, b), and two (c, d) from
Old Bonitian Room 326.

Plate 65.—Canteens are invariably provided with small orifices and, usually, with lug
handles perforated for insertion of a carrying cord.

carried in large small-mouthed jars whose round bottoms necessitated
discoidal rests or cushions for upright transportation and placement.
We unearthed fragments of such vessels in all parts of the ruin, in
every rubbish pile, but they seemed at the time noticeably few in
comparison with sherds of other vessel types. And our collection
supports this early impression. In contrast to our 29 cooking pots, we
recovered only four restorable water jars from Pueblo Bonito.

Two of these (pl. 64, lower) came from Room 326, that on the
right being one of the burial offerings with Skeleton 12, a female.
Both jars are round-bottomed; both carry two zones of decoration,
painted in the old Transitional style. The first illustrates very clearly
the secondary shoulder bulge frequently noted on olla sherds of that
period. It is comparable in all respects to an olla Pepper found in the
east corner of Room 78 half buried in the floor and covered by a stone
lid (Pepper, 1920, fig. 108, p. 261). Like Room 326, Room 78 was
an Old Bonitian dwelling but its southeast end had been replaced by
the Late Bonitians during their initial local building program and
further altered during reconstruction activities a few years later.

We do not know precisely when these three Old Bonitian ollas were
made, but we can approximate the ages of the houses in which they
were found. Room 326 unquestionably was built at the same time as
its immediate neighbors, Rooms 320 and 325, from which we recovered
five datable timbers, all cut in A.D. 919. Two ceiling beams from
Room 296, adjoining Room 78 on the north, were cut in 932 and 1047,
the second possibly marking the period of reconstruction referred to
above.

With these construction years in mind let us recall two water jars
salvaged in 1922 from a Pueblo I pit house 1 mile east of Pueblo
Bonito—a lone, midvalley dwelling whose roofing poles were felled in
A.D. 777 (Judd, 1924a, p. 408, pl. 4; Douglass, 1936, p. 30). Despite
their greater age, 142 years at the very least, these pit-house ollas are
indisputably and directly related to those from the older part of Pueblo
Bonito. The two from Room 326 have higher shoulders; their slip is
less chalky and definitely stone-polished; they have secondary zones
of decoration on the upper shoulder instead of unframed interlocking
scrolls and each has a round mouth with low, circular neck instead of
an oval orifice with no neck at all. But most of these features appear
among miscellaneous sherds from our Pueblo I pit house—stonepolished
slips, framed shoulder ornamentation, round mouths with
just the suggestion of neck, and perhaps a flat, slightly projecting rim
lug. And every design element on these Pueblo I sherds, including

the waved composing line, occurs repeatedly on fragments from Old
Bonitian dumps.

Interlocking scrolls or volutes comprise the principal decoration for
a queer-looking olla we restored from fragments found in Room 262
(pl. 64, fig. a). Lesser scrolls above the inset handles join larger ones
on either side; in the spaces at left and right of the two larger scrolls
are indistinct figures that apparently represent, respectively, a bear's
footprint and a human with limbs at right angles to the body, forearms
upraised and legs downturned.

The unorthodox shape of this vessel and its relative crudity of
execution evidence lack of skill on the part of the potter rather than
unusual age. Indeed, it was probably made fairly late in the history
of Pueblo Bonito, for locally the inset jar handle occurred most frequently
with the later pottery types. Although occasional examples
bearing squiggled or other early designs were noted elsewhere, only
one inset handle was found in our two stratigraphic cuts through Old
Bonitian rubbish under the West Court and that came from Stratum
C (3′-3′ 8″ below the surface) of Section I, 13 feet deep. Furthermore,
Room 262 was a Late Bonitian dwelling, originally built of
second-type masonry and subsequently twice altered. Its original floor
lay 6′ 5″ below the latest; the latter was covered mainly by fallen
masonry among which the olla fragments were found.

The shapely water jar shown as figure b, same plate, doubtless was
in use at the same time as that last considered. We retrieved its
fragments from a pile of household rubbish dumped into Room 266,
which stands only two doors away and which underwent the same
postconstruction alterations as Room 262. The jar lacks handles and
its smallish base is slightly flattened, but it has the small neck, high
shoulders, and ornamentation of Late Bonitian ollas.

Only five other vessels in our Pueblo Bonito collection could possibly
be assigned to this category and the three smallest probably were
never intended for carrying water (pl. 58, figs. d-h).[9] Figure f,
plate 58, somewhat uncertain in execution, has a slightly concave
base, a McElmo-like ornamentation, downraking loop handles indented
in the middle—all northern San Juan features—and a rim worn by
friction of a stone lid. The other four are round-bottomed and handleless;
e, with its old-style decoration, had suffered a broken neck, but
the rough edges were rubbed smooth and the jar continued in service.

It contained a quantity of potter's clay when we unearthed it. Holes
for a carrying cord were punched through the outflaring rim of g.

As if to counteract our Pueblo Bonito impression, Pueblo del
Arroyo gave up 13 restorable water jars, a goodly proportion. Two
of these are small, of four- and five-quart capacities, have concave
bases, and lack handles. The other 11 average 15¼ inches in diameter
by 13¼ inches to base of neck. They will be described more fully in
the Pueblo del Arroyo report, but we may note that three possess inset
handles, two have loop handles, one has downraking flat lug handles
2½ inches wide, and one bears, just under its outflaring rim, opposing
conical lugs bent right so the tip touches the vessel wall. The wide
mouth of this latter specimen, 9¼ inches from lip to lip, is as foreign
to Chaco Canyon as its decoration. Largest of the series, a once
magnificent vessel 19¾ inches in diameter by 18 inches to the base of
its neck, exhibits no trace of a handhold, and while it is possible such
formerly existed in sections we have restored, it is noted that the nextlargest
example has no handle of any sort. Eight of the eleven possess
whole or nearly complete bases and these are all concave.

Canteens, like water jars, are unaccountably few in our Pueblo
Bonito collection. We found only 11 that warranted restoration. Their
capacity varies from about half a pint to nearly one gallon. Each has
a small orifice, easily plugged with a corncob or wad of cedar bark;
each has a pair of rounded loop handles or lugs vertically perforated
for attachment of a carrying cord. Some have rounded or flattish
bottoms (pl. 65, figs. a-c); others, generally with cord attachments
placed high on the shoulder, have concave bases (figs. f-h). On
canteens, as on pitchers and ollas, a concave base marks the vessel as
late. A "doorknob" canteen lug still wrapped with a 3-ply yucca
carrying cord was found in the rubbish fill of Kiva B.

Of those figured, f had lost its neck, but the opening was reamed
out and the jar continued in use. Specimen h, with its northern-style
decoration, simulates a canteen resting in a black-rimmed bowl; the
lip of the canteen is flat and ticked with black paint while the bowl's
bottom, almost wholly restored, appears to have been flatly rounded.
This culturally late example and the little one with "doorknob" lugs
(b), came from Old Bonitian dwellings; the other four, from houses
architecturally later. Specimens c and f were found in Late Bonitian
rubbish.

Canteens modeled in the form of a gourd, with a round, rimless
orifice high on the curved stem handle, are generally regarded as
peculiar to the Pueblo I culture period. I do not recall a single reference
to one from a later ruin, and yet we found several stem ends

in the Old Bonitian dump under the West Court. Pepper illustrates a
whole vessel, an excellent example, from Room 28 in which a large
number of cylindrical vases had been piled (Pepper, 1920, fig. 47, b).

That Bonitian potters occasionally essayed the unusual in canteens
is evidenced by figures d and e. Straight-line hatching and a concave
base identify the first as of Late Bonitian origin and it was actually
found in a late dwelling, Room 327.[10] The second specimen, unfortunately
incomplete, came from Room 325, an old house adjoining
Room 327 on the west. Of its decoration all has been lost except a
few squiggled lines and traces of thin parallel lines bordering ticked
triangles—elements typical of Old Bonitian designs. But on its bottom
is a shallow depression, the size of a silver dollar, that hints of late
manufacture. Three hollow, angular pipes or arms connected the body
of the vessel with a single orifice, rimmed by the customary low, cylindrical
neck. Our sherd collection includes fragments of two other,
multiple-pipe canteens.[11]

Figure 52 illustrates a 4-armed, solid handle. Although the convex
surface is slipped and stone-polished, the under side is unslipped and
retains the potter's thumb prints. Body portions at the base of the two
complete arms show a heavily slipped, stone-polished interior, which
fact proves that the vessel was a bowl rather than a canteen.

Seed jars are so called only because examples containing seeds have
been found in cliff dwellings. They would have served admirably for
storage of seed corn, beans, etc., but we have no reason to suppose
this was their sole intended function. Their distinguishing feature is
a flattish top with constricted orifice often slightly depressed.

We recovered three restorable seed jars at Pueblo Bonito, all from
household rubbish in abandoned rooms (pl. 66, A, a-c). The little

one, very thinly slipped if at all, was smoothed by wet fingers and fired
to a cream color. Its rim line was painted on top, at the lip's edge,
rather than within the orifice as in the first example. The third,
clearly the work of a beginner, apparently was decorated with organic,

Fig. 51.—Potsherds used as toy dishes.

Fig. 52.—A four-armed bowl handle.

rather than mineral, paint. Its thin slip has been worn through, bordering
the opening, as though by a stone lid and completely effaced
from the base in consequence of long use. An almost imperceptible
concavity marks the base of a; the other two have flat bottoms.

From Room 32, Pepper (1920, p. 124, fig. 48, b) illustrates a lowrimmed
"kiva jar," a type well known from Pueblo II-III ruins north

of the San Juan. Our excavations disclosed only fragments of like
vessels and relatively few at that.

Cylindrical vases have contributed in no small measure to the fame
of Bonitian potters. Their uniqueness in the Pueblo country and their
graceful lines have focused attention upon them. Because the cylindrical
vase in one form or another was a familiar utensil in preSpanish
times from the Valley of Mexico, through Guatemala, Honduras,
and El Salvador southward as far as Peru, archeologists have
assumed the concept was introduced at Pueblo Bonito by Mexican
vendors of macaws and copper bells. But there is reason to believe
that the idea reached the Southwest, or originated there independently,
at an earlier date, for Roberts (1930, p. 106) has found a small
cylindrical vase in a Pueblo I ruin in southwestern Colorado. Another,
belonging to the next following culture period, is in the New Mexico
State Museum at Santa Fe.

This latter, provenience unknown, bears on its white slip a characteristic
Pueblo II design of stepped and ticked triangles bordered by thin
parallel lines. Its base is rounded; its rim flares slightly and is marked
within by a band of four parallel zigzag lines—the only instance, to
my knowledge, of interior decoration on a cylindrical vase. A second
Santa Fe specimen, from Puyé, is straight-sided with a convex base
and incised, over-all design in two zones separated and bordered top
and bottom by bands of four encircling lines. Each zone is divided
into triangles by a zigzag line and the triangles are variously hatched.
There may be others, but these three are the only Southwestern cylindrical
vases known to me that did not come from Chaco Canyon. Two
tall examples with slightly constricted bases, in the Wetherill collection,
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, are said to have
been found near Pueblo Alto. All others are credited to Pueblo
Bonito.

Cylindrical vases provide three of the many ceramic puzzles at
Pueblo Bonito. Who made them; when did they come into use; what
specific purpose did they serve? Because most of those he exhumed
were found in, or adjacent to, rooms containing stored ceremonial
paraphernalia, Pepper (1920, p. 377) suggested the vases were altar
supports for ceremonial sticks. Among those we collected, nothing
indicative of such usage was observed.

Of nearly 200 cylindrical vases recorded from Pueblo Bonito[12] all

but 17 were found in Old Bonitian dwellings, yet none is decorated
with characteristic Old Bonitian designs. Not a single fragment of
one was exposed by our cuts through Old Bonitian rubbish underlying
the West Court. Technique of manufacture, ornamentation, and stratigraphic
evidence unite in correlating cylindrical vases with the later
phases of Bonitian history. Nevertheless, differences are to be noted
among those recovered by the Society's expeditions.

Of our 17, the three with constricted orifices (pl. 67, figs. e-g) are
stone-polished externally, including the base; the large example with
base missing (a), salvaged from household debris dumped through
the southwest door of Room 251, is likewise stone-polished. All the
others are hand-smoothed and thinly slipped; only two (pl. 68, figs.
a, c) are slip-washed on the bottom. Excepting figure d on plate 67,
figure k on plate 68, and the three with constricted mouths, all exhibit
a casual band of slip paint from 1 to 4 inches wide on the inner lip.
With the same five exceptions, plus figure a, plate 67, all have blackpainted
rims; the line break is evident in all but one, and here a third
of the rim is missing. Perhaps in a moment of supercaution the potter
who painted the vase shown in figure l, plate 68, provided two line
breaks, one opposite the other, for escape of the vessel's spirit. Squiggled
composing lines appear in the designs on fully half the specimens.

Fifteen of our 17 vases are flat-bottomed, and unquestionably that
from Room 251 was also. Only one (pl. 67, fig. e) has a base so
rounded it cannot stand without support. Handles would, therefore,
seem superfluous and yet all are equipped, ¼ to 2¾ inches below the
rim, with loops, lugs, or punched holes. These may have been designed
for suspension cords but, if so, why the flat bottoms?

Whatever their purpose, horizontal loops were preferred: Eight of
our specimens are provided with four; two with three; and one with
two only. Generally the loops are sharply upturned, but in two instances
they lie at right angles to the vessel wall and are so small it was
necessary, after attaching them, to enlarge the opening with an awl or
stick. One vase has four vertical loops. The fragmentary example
from Room 251, with drilled holes near the rim evidencing ancient
repairs, is equipped with four lugs, horizontally punched. Our second
white-slipped, undecorated specimen likewise has four lugs, but they
are punched vertically. The three with constricted orifice were provided,

not with lugs or loops, but with paired holes about half an inch
apart, punched through near the lip while the clay was still moist.
That shown as figure f, plate 67, has four pairs; the others, two pairs
each.

If these cylindrical vases are of Late Bonitian manufacture, how
shall we explain their presence in Old Bonitian dwellings? Of the 17
recovered by the Society's representatives, 16 came from Rooms 320,
326, 329, and 330. In these four Bonitian rooms 68 bodies had been
interred, most of them to be disturbed within a few years. Although
none of our vases lay closely associated with a body, I have no doubt
all were burial offerings and on a plane with other vessels from the
same rooms (plates 96, right; 97, upper; 99, upper).

Hyde's list (Pepper, 1920, pp. 359-362) of 165 cylindrical vases
represents 14 rooms, 7 of which I regard as Old Bonitian structures.
From 3 of the latter, ground-floor Rooms 32, 33, and 53,
6 or more vases and at least 17 skeletons were removed. No vase is
reported from Room 56, adjoining, in which several bodies were interred;
no body is reported from Room 28 in which 111 vases were
found. Eight broken vases were recovered in 28B; 39 are listed from
the second story of Room 39b and from Room 52. One hundred sixtyfour
cylindrical vases from seven adjacent Old Bonitian houses!

Room 52, from which Hyde catalogs 20 vases, is the second story of
Room 32. The latter is described by Pepper (ibid., pp. 129-163) as a
small, sand-filled chamber that contained one disarticulated skeleton,
over 300 ceremonial sticks, and numerous other objects including
three or five cylindrical vases.[13] On the floor of the second story of
Room 39b, apparently grouped in three piles, were 19 vases and a
bowl, all broken (ibid., pp. 198-199, fig. 87). The other artifacts
reported from the two houses are, with the possible exception of a
cylindrical pipe and an elkbone club, implements and utensils of everyday
use.

Room 28 offers an entirely different problem. Here, according to
Hyde's tables (Pepper, 1920, pp. 359-372), were found 111 cylindrical
vases, 39 bowls, 24 pitchers, an earthenware effigy and a vessel of
animal form; 75 stone jar covers and 2 stone knives; 3 bone implements;
2 pieces of worked wood; 5 shell beads; and 2 bracelets.
Pepper (ibid., pp. 112-126) notes the presence of numerous items not
listed by Hyde, including shell beads of various types, turquoise beads
and pendants.

But we are less concerned at the moment with the diversity and
multiplicity of artifacts from Room 28 than with the number of

cylindrical vases. Hyde lists 111, while Pepper gives the total as 114.
The difference between the two figures is of little consequence, but
why should 114, or even 111, cylindrical vases be in a single room?
Three of them, together with four pitchers, twenty-six bowls, and two
or three coiled baskets, lay in the northeast corner, fronting the open
door into Room 51a. Opposite, a fourth vase and an accompanying
pitcher stood a few inches from the west jamb of the south door
(Pepper print No. 115, herein pl. 7, upper). On the same level but a
couple of steps farther west were 8 bowls, 18 pitchers, and 110 cylindrical
vases piled on "an area of twenty square feet."

At first glance, Pepper's photographs of this remarkable assemblage
show a more or less heterogeneous mass of pottery, but closer examination
reveals a majority of the vases lying in rows. Those in the
middle and at the left generally face north, while four of those at the
north margin of the pile face south, two face north, and one stands
upright. There can be no question that the whole lot had been intentionally
placed where Pepper found it.

The motive behind this grouping of 136 vessels is not to be discovered
in Pepper's published field notes. If they were being reserved
for ceremonial use, as Pepper believed, greater care surely would have
been taken to place them close to a wall for protection, or behind a
ceiling prop, as was done with the materials left in nearby rooms.

Most of the vases visible in Pepper's illustrations and most of those
we unearthed are decorated with the obliquely hatched, geometric
designs peculiar to Late Bonitian potters. None bears ornamentation
I would attribute to the Old Bonitians. No fragment of a cylindrical
vase appeared in our two stratigraphic columns through Old Bonitian
rubbish under the West Court—two tests that included 225 cubic feet
of previously undisturbed household waste. We may only conclude,
therefore, that the 110 cylindrical vases piled on the middle floor of
Room 28, together with their associated bowls and pitchers, were
produced and stored there by the Late Bonitian builders and rebuilders
of second-story Rooms 28B, 55, and 57. Otherwise it is necessary to
assume that all those vessels were the acquisition of some Old Bonitian
family retaining occupancy rights to Room 28.

The latter alternative is supported, however weakly, by two facts:
(1) A passageway at the east end of Room 28 afforded access to Old
Bonitian houses next on the north even after the west half of the room
was partly filled with debris of reconstruction; (2) the 35 earthenware
vessels at or slightly above sill level of the two open doors at either
end of that passage included several bowls bearing typical Old Bonitian
decoration (Pepper, 1920, p. 116, fig. 44).

Pepper reports no fewer than 47 vases from second-story rooms
28B, 52, and that over 39b. Room 28B was of Late Bonitian construction,
one of the last built in the village, and 52 may have been remodeled
at the same time. Room 39b, however, is one of eight with
quite un-Bonitian masonry right in the middle of Old Bonito. It is
not unlikely that this block of houses was erected by immigrants from
beyond the San Juan and thus a logical source for the Mesa Verdelike
mugs Pepper found in Room 32 (Pepper, 1920, fig. 47, a, c;
herein, pl. 7, lower).

Scraps of Mesa Verde pottery were found only in the uppermost
layers of household sweepings at Pueblo Bonito, a fact that places
such ware relatively late in local history. The pottery hoard on the
middle floor of Room 28 was overlain by debris of reconstruction
dumped in when the room above was repaired and partially rebuilt
with masonry of the fourth, and last, type developed here. We do
not know how many years that pottery had lain there undisturbed, but
it was long enough, according to Pepper, to allow 10 inches of blown
sand to settle about the pile before it was covered by constructional
waste.

Among the cylindrical vases from Room 28 was one of red ware,
burnished but without painted decoration. Because it was unique in
the lot, Pepper speculated upon its place of origin and even ventured
the thought that it might have been brought "from some other part
of the country to serve as a model for the potters in making their
whiteware" (Pepper, 1920, p. 120). The description and dimensions
of this vessel agree closely with three red-ware vases we restored
from fragments found in Room 15, Pueblo del Arroyo, one of which
is shown on plate 67, figure c. As with that noted by Pepper, absence
of handles plus a conical shape—each has a flat base the diameter of
which is about half that at the lip—set these three apart from our
other vases. They may indeed be foreign to Chaco Canyon but only
expert analysis of the paste could determine this point. Each is stonepolished,
the strokes being lengthwise of the vessel externally; each
has a thin tapering rim that varies from round to flat and lacks the
familiar black line of local wares. Tempering agents, identified under
a hand lens, are sand, pulverized rock, and a substance that looks like
bits of white clay, these being predominant in at least one vessel.

Miniature vessels duplicate, or seek to duplicate, the form and
ornamentation of normal vessels. Of those illustrated (pl. 69), several
conceivably were designed as children's toys. Larger examples are
included only because they happen to be among the smallest of their
class in our Pueblo Bonito collection. Since the gradation between

presumed toys and useful utensils is imperceptible it is quite impossible
to say where one group leaves off and the other begins.

The fragmentary pitcher, plate 69, figure i, was made of bands, not
coils. After its current height was attained, its walls were thickened
to increase their external regularity and carried upward perhaps another
inch; a vertical loop handle was attached without riveting; the
outside was heavily slipped and inexpertly polished. Abrasion has
worn through the slip on the base, which is centrally cupped. In
keeping with its shape and decoration, the bottom of figure k is likewise
concave. Figure l was found in Old Bonitian rubbish 35 feet
north of Room 135 during the digging of our West Court exploratory
trench.

To the little bowl, c, additional clay was applied in an effort to improve
its basal contour. But the added material was too dry and
eventually scaled off, revealing the original base, crosshatched by a
sharp instrument in a vain effort to insure adhesion. Bowl f, of
Chaco-San Juan workmanship and decoration, was found in debris
filling the second-story door between Rooms 13 and 14-85. Pepper
(1920, p. 67) observes that a number of like bowls lay near floor level
in Room 13.

Our two small ladles, a, b, are both of the old-fashioned, half-gourd
type. The first, unslipped and undecorated, came from Room 350, one
of two adjoining subterranean structures at the south end of the West
Court. Neither the nondescript masonry of the two rooms nor the
few objects found in them, including fragments with late hatching,
gave a certain clue to the builders. The second ladle is that found
with a very amateurish bowl in Old Bonitian Room 307 (see fig. g,
pl. 53). Our smallest bowl-and-handle ladle is illustrated on plate 61,
figure d.

The foregoing may have been made to serve either as toys or as
lessons in technique for youthful potters. Contrasted with them, are
the six miniatures shown in figure 53. All are from household rubbish;
all are relatively crude, unsurfaced, unslipped, and unpainted. The
two smallest bowls were modeled over the end of thumb or finger.
Miss Bartlett (1934, p. 53) describes comparable miniatures from
Pueblo II sites in the San Francisco Mountain region and notes that
modern Hopi potters make like examples as offerings to be left at
clay pits. And I have heard it stated these same potters make and
fire miniatures to insure successful manufacture of standard earthenware
vessels, just as Hopi men plant effigies in their fields as a sort
of objective prayer for bountiful crops of corn, squashes, melons, etc.;
just as men of the Hopi and other Southwestern tribes deposit effigies

of domestic animals in corrals and on the range as prayers for herd
increase.[14]

Among reworked potsherds, we have several inset jar handles, their
broken edges smoothed by abrasion. It is quite possible that these
also were utilized as toy dishes by small girls (fig. 51).

Fig. 53.—Crude miniature vessels.

Effigy vessels.—In contrast to the Toltec, Zapotec, Maya, and other
tribes of Middle America, the prehistoric Pueblos did not make special
funerary vases. Their pottery was almost wholly utilitarian. But,

like their living descendants, they occasionally ventured forms utterly
impractical (from my point of view) as household utensils. Some of
these represent birds or human beings, deer, and other mammals.
Fragments of effigy vessels were recovered from every trash heap and
from exploratory trenches here and there. A majority of such fragments
are of Old Bonitian origin.

Mention has already been made of animal figures painted on bowls;
as sculptured handles on pitchers, canteens, and small jars. Those
now before us are more ambitious attempts at modeling since they
were actual containers that individually portrayed a creature the potter
had seen or fancied. Their possible purpose is suggested in Stevenson's
discussion of the diverse objects purchased in Pueblo villages in
1879 wherein it is stated that representations of animals were "made
hollow for use as drinking vessels" (Stevenson, 1883, p. 334).

Bird bowls were perhaps most common among effigy vessels at
Pueblo Bonito. Two restored examples are illustrated on plate 63,
middle). Both are thinly slipped outside; both have T-shaped openings,
the inner edge of which is painted black. In the case of the
smaller specimen, this edge line is broken by a "spirit path" directly
behind the head; on the other, the break occurs slightly to one side.
Both vessels have heads with protuberant eyes marked by central dots;
on the smaller, these dots are ringed about—a frequent practice. Such
heads, attached by the riveting process, are generally solid and faced
front. Only one in our sherd series has its beak turned sidewise; only
one, from a larger vessel, is hollow.

Most of our bird-bowl sherds are ornamented with straight-line
hatching. In this, successive periods are represented. The series also
includes a pinkish, stone-polished but undecorated fragment and two
black-on-white body sherds each with a flattish back that was made
separately and attached so its edge projects slightly.

To judge from sherds in hand, Bonitian bird vessels generally had
a T-shaped orifice on the back and a small modeled head projecting
from the upper breast. Exceptions, of course, are the so-called "duck"
pitchers (pl. 63, lower). The fragment of one such, exhibiting a
longer, broader back than usual, has two holes punched through the
tail end at back level. The stub remaining is flat, solid, and an inch
and a quarter wide. It suggests a handle that reached rearward and
then toward the neck with more than customary freedom and flourish.

This fragment has further interest as one on which the potter
clearly altered her planned ornamentation. Single lines as borders for
hatched figures were first drawn from either side of the handle forward
to meet in a sharp angle behind the neck. Then, with only two

lines painted in, the whole design was changed. Instead of elements
curving forward from the rear, straight-hatched bars swept up from
both sides to incorporate the extremes of the two lines initially drawn.
Their unused portions had to be removed and this was accomplished
by scraping off the paint, together with the thin underlying slip.

Next to birds, the ungulates seem most to have inspired Bonitian
creators of effigy vessels. A goat clearly is represented in figure 54, a,
but what kind of goat? Found in Old Bonitian Room 323, the fragment
possesses the nose and beard of modern Navaho and Pueblo
goats—descendants of Spanish flocks first introduced into the Southwest
no less than 400 years after Pueblo Bonito was abandoned. The
modeling is skillfully done; the ornamentation appears typically Bonitian;
the broken edge has been rubbed. There is no native animal with
like beard and nose known to the Southwest.

Still puzzled over this sherd, as I was while reviewing these paragraphs
in 1945, I sent a small fragment to Miss Shepard and asked
her opinion. She replied: "The chip has a sherd-tempered, dense,
buff-burning paste which is perfectly typical of Chaco. This type of
paste, however, is not limited to Chaco because buff-burning cretaceous
clays are widely distributed in the San Juan and the practice of using
sherd temper was also common. Composition of paint and quality of
finish might help to localize the piece." The fragment remains, for
me, entirely enigmatic.

We found bones of mule deer, pronghorn, elk, and mountain sheep
in local rubbish piles and there is probably no reason why the potters
of Pueblo Bonito should not have modeled all four species. But it is
quite impossible to recognize any of them among the sherds before us.
Head fragments show a more or less bovine face; horns, without
exception, curve to the rear and outward. The head may be hollow,
but the horns are always solid and painted black, striped, or spotted.
Branched antlers are not indicated. Legs are usually solid and clovenfooted.

Ruminants are also suggested by the three fragments of smallmouthed
containers illustrated by figures 55, a-c. The butt of a flattish
handle remains at the back of the first head (a) (field No. 2206misc.);
the third (c) is provided with a small, semiround loop. This
latter fragment, from which ears or horns have been broken, apparently
served as a toy after its fractured lower edge was smoothed by
abrasion. Our goat-head fragment was similarly treated. Part of a
fourth vessel, the constricted orifice of which features an animal, is
shown in figure 56.

Fig. 54.—Fragments of animal-effigy vessels.

Fig. 55.—Mouthpieces of effigy vessels.

Bear effigies surely are represented by two broad-soled feet (fig.
57). On the second of these, painted black except for sole and heel,
claws are incised and painted; the bare sole is marked by four lines
incised heelward from between the toes and ending midway at the
second of two subsequently scratched cross lines. In 1925, Gus Griffin,

Fig. 57.—Fragments of bear-effigy vessels.

then custodian of Chaco Canyon National Monument, had in his possession
the major portion of a bear effigy, of stone-polished but unpainted
red ware, said to have been found near Pueblo Bonito (pl.
66, C).

We recovered only two sherds of black-on-red effigy vessels: Part
of a broad, flat-soled foot from a bear or human figurine and a fragment
of what probably was a "duck"-shaped pitcher. Color and surface

treatment of both are of early type. Quartz sand is visible as a
tempering agent in the first; pulverized potsherds, in the second.

Because of its length and high hock, the leg shown in figure 58 is
very likely from a mountain-lion effigy—the left hind leg.

That lower forms of life occasionally furnished themes for Bonitian
potters is evident from head fragments representing, respectively, a

turtle- or tortoise-shaped container and one in the form of a toad
(fig. 59). A third fragment shows a toad as subject for a pitcher
handle. Among the present-day Hopi and Zuñi, toads are associated
with water; they bring rain.

Human-effigy bottles seemingly were more common at Pueblo Bonito
than at other southwestern ruins. Our collection includes fragments
of 41 distinct vessels and a half dozen additional questionable
pieces. Of this total, three were recovered from as many kivas; eight
from six separate dwellings; and the remainder chiefly during the
course of trenching operations in the two courts and the south refuse

mounds. One, possibly two, of the kivas and four of the dwellings
had been abandoned and utilized as communal dumping places; lesser
amounts of debris were indicated in the other structures. Thus all
our human-effigy fragments may be regarded as sherds of vessels
broken and casually tossed aside. And the same is apparently true of
those Pepper found below the floor of Room 25 and in the fill of
Room 38 (Pepper, 1920, pp. 100, 192).

Although the drawings herewith are offered in lieu of detailed
description, a few general observations may add to their interest. Both
standing and seated figures are represented; among the latter, a squatting
position with knees elevated and feet flat upon the ground is

most common. We note only one example in which the knees actually
touch. In one instance only the left shin crosses behind and against
the right calf. Our lone example in which the lower legs and heels
are modeled against the body is illustrated by figure 60. Forearms,
when present, are shown in the round, with hands resting on knee,
calf, or shin.

Our six forearm fragments are all solid; of 20 lower leg fragments,
15 are solid. Ordinarily the inside ankle joint, if shown at all, is less
prominent than its opposite; the calf bulge is rarely represented. A
partially polished but undecorated pair (field No. 2257) possess solid
calves, hollow thighs; they are two of the five effigy fragments unearthed
while digging our West Court trench. Limb ornamentation,
when present, depicts arm bands and bracelets, anklets and sandals
(fig. 61). On one fragment a sandal is represented by oblique, painted
lines on the sole while, above, crossed tie cords lead from the ankle
forward to pass outside the second and third toes and twice around
the two. One small foot has six toes. The only sherd in the whole
lot evidencing re-use is a braceleted forearm ground off at the upper

end (fig. 61, b). One left leg fragment is unique for two reasons: It
was modeled over a round, ¼-inch stick that, withdrawn, left a cylindrical
tube through the leg and out the bottom; a hand, presumably
the right, reached backward to rest against the inner calf. The inside
front quarter of this leg is only partially smoothed and slipped, showing
that the posture of the figure interfered with its modeling.

Three of the six head fragments retain portions of the small,
direct-rimmed orifice that led me to classify as "bottles" all the effigy

vessels here represented (fig. 62). A like opening is to be seen on a
head from Room 38 and on the only complete human effigy from
Chaco Canyon of which I have record (Pepper, 1906, pls. 28, 29).
This latter portrays a squatting hunchback with elbows on knees,
hands crossing on chest. Morris (1919a, pp. 82-83), who found
fragments of at least six human effigies in Aztec Ruin, illustrates the
torso of one seated with arms crossed and hands resting on knees.

As might be expected, unequal skill in modeling facial features is
evident in our series. Faces are rather flat, eyes and mouth usually
represented by incised lines. On two specimens, the ears were pierced
during the manufacturing process; the nose of another (fig. 62, d),
with painted dots for nostrils, was drilled transversely sometime after

Fig. 61.—Arm and leg fragments from human-effigy vessels.

Fig. 62.—Head fragments from human-effigy vessels.

firing. Painted decoration on cheek or upper lip may represent tatooing
or mere space filling.

The original purpose of these human-effigy vessels remains unknown.
As containers they were of limited utilitarian value. We
have no fact to justify belief in their ceremonial import. Nevertheless
it is quite possible they served in unknown rituals just as bird and
animal figures serve on certain modern Pueblo altars. Stone "idols"
of the recent past are better known. Chroniclers of the Conquest
period repeatedly refer to them and to the "idolatry" of the Indians.
Mrs. Stevenson (1904, pp. 428-429) reported that one of the Zuñi
fraternities, between 1880 and 1890,
guarded and periodically employed as
an altar piece a rude stone carving of a
female, 10 inches high. Nelson (1914,
p. 91) found a sculptured figure and
other objects on an altar platform in
Pueblo Blanco, a Galisteo Basin ruin.
Kidder (1932, pp. 86-89) exhumed
four human effigies of stone at Pecos,
one of them seated with elbows on
knees and hands on chest. But nowhere
do I find record of an earthenware figure,
male or female, unquestionably
associated with Pueblo religion, past

Fig. 63.—"Napkin ring."

or present.

"Napkin rings."—The Bonitians assuredly never dreamed of tablecloths
and napkins. They had no need for napkin rings and yet the
earthenware object represented in figure 63 resembles one more
closely than anything else. It was one of the funerary offerings
buried with a woman (Skeleton 5) in Room 326 (pl. 94, right). It is
oval in shape, red-slipped, and decorated with thin black paint. Marks
of the polishing stone lie at right angles to the longer dimension. Both
edges, right and left, are rounded and unpainted. That on the right
is bordered by a black line; that on the left is perceptibly thinner except
at its curved ends, the reduction being entirely on the inside
wall. On the left side only, the edge at each end has been worn away
as if a slight projection were purposely eliminated. This fact, together
with the black border opposite, suggests that our specimen was
designed to stand on what I have described as the left side, perhaps
attached above the mouth of a canteen or comparable vessel.

Pepper (1920, p. 101) likewise was reminded of a napkin ring
when he found a jar neck, the broken edge of which had been
smoothed by abrasion.

Potrests (?).—On plate 53, upper, are shown neck portions of two
cooking pots which might have been utilized as supports for water jars
or other round-bottomed vessels. That on the left is a typical example
of Late Bonitian corrugated-coil from third-period Room 285; both
upper and lower edges have been evened by chipping. The other
is the coiled neck of a smooth-bodied Pueblo II pot, broken where
the two parts joined. Its deeply indented design was formed with a
blunt instrument as the coils were laid down. The fragment came
from Old Bonitian Room 326.

Re-used vessel fragments.—The vast quantities of sherds unearthed
during the course of our explorations evidence a high mortality rate
for earthenware vessels at Pueblo Bonito. However, fragments large
enough to serve some household purpose were not always discarded.
We have several ladle bowls, for instance, that were continued in use
after the stub of a broken handle had been rubbed away with a piece
of sandstone. And there is the bottom of a pitcher whose broken edge
had been smoothed by abrasion to leave a shallow, if lop-sided, dish
(U.S.N.M. No. 336315); half of a small proto-Mesa Verde bowl that
long served as a scoop or ladle (No. 336375).

Pottery scrapers.—In the two principal refuse mounds south of
the ruin and in every lesser accumulation of household debris we
encountered numbers of purposely shaped fragments of earthenware.
A majority of these, from their form and worn edges, are identifiable
as potters' tools—scrapers for thinning and smoothing the walls of
vessels during the manufacturing process. Two typical examples are
illustrated in figure 47. On smaller ones, two or even three edges
show use, the wear being more abrupt and usually toward the concave
face.

Sherds of culinary wares were apparently never utilized as pottery
scrapers. Bowls and ollas only are represented among the specimens
before me. Black-on-white scrapers naturally predominate, with proportionate
numbers of black-on-red and polished-black-interior. One
of them, found in Kiva H, was made from a fragment of protoKayenta
polychrome.

Miscellaneous worked sherds.—Our collection includes a number of
pottery fragments, their broken edges rubbed in greater or less degree,
for which we have no explanation. Many doubtless are the work of
children and perhaps served as toys. Thus the body fragment of a
small pitcher (fig. 51, a), and two inset olla handles (b and c) could
have answered small girls as bowls for imaginary housekeeping.

Pottery disks are commonly found about Pueblo ruins and have
been described as "gaming disks" or "unfinished spindle whorls."

Those we recovered at Pueblo Bonito range in diameter from ¾ to
2½ inches; their edges are usually rubbed but rarely do the results
evidence a serious effort toward symmetry. In a few instances the
middle of the convex side or the rim of the concave face, rarely both,
have been abraded as though to flatten the disk. Culin (1907, pp. 799800)
calls attention to the resemblance of such disks, both drilled and
undrilled, to those employed in a Zuñi game of "stone warriors,"
described by Cushing.

Pendants made from colorful potsherds have been considered under
ornaments.

Earthenware stamps.—The
two broken objects illustrated
in figure 64 are undeniably
stamps, but we have no clue
to the materials on which they
left an imprint; neither can
we determine whether they
were made locally or imported.
They are unique, I believe,
in the Pueblo area. Both
are made of a whitish clay
containing much calcium carbonate
and a little fine sand,
elements not sufficiently distinctive
to identify the place

Fig. 64.—Earthenware stamps.

of origin. The first has a smoothly puddled surface, while tool marks
remain on the second. The carved design on this latter is still partially
filled with the dried remnants of a liquid clay the same color as the
stamp itself. Both were lightly fired, if at all, since a thumbnail
scratches the surface. Both are too soft to have impressed anything
more resistant than moist clay, cloth, or the human skin. There is no
trace of attrition on either; no object bearing their imprint was found
in all our digging.

The first is one of nine artifacts, mostly fragmentary, recovered
from Room 200, a formerly sealed ground-floor chamber of secondtype
masonry in the outermost northern tier. Its lesser end, elevensixteenths
inch in diameter, may also have been a stamp, for it has
been ringed to a depth of one-eighth inch leaving a centered flattish
cone whose apex lies flush with the rounded rim. Our second specimen
was found in debris of occupation that overlay 3 feet of sand in
Room 248, a reconstructed dwelling on the east side of the village.
I have no published record of like stamps from the Southwest, including
Chihuahua and Sonora.

Cloisonné work.—Pepper describes one fragment as sandstone,
painted in black, red, yellow, and white, and adds that "a similar specimen
was found in another part of the ruin" (Pepper, 1920, pp. 51-52).
Other writers have referred to these important pieces both as sandstone
and as pottery; have suggested their probable source as late
Toltec ruins in the states of Zacatecas or Jalisco, west-central Mexico.
My own memorandum, written in 1921 while viewing the fragments
as then exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History, is
annoyingly incomplete at this moment. It notes two pieces: H-12742,
cloisonné on pottery or sandstone (through the glass I could not be
sure) from a room in the northern section; H-12743, cloisonné on
sandstone found 2 feet below the surface in the southwestern corner
of Room 9. This second fragment is clearly that described and figured
by Pepper; it is undoubtedly the one Vaillant had before him when
he wrote: "The cloisonné specimen found at Pueblo Bonito is not
pottery but sandstone, and there is a strong possibility of its being of
local manufacture" (Vaillant, 1932, p. 9). The Society's representatives
unearthed fragments of painted wood and gourd rind but nothing
comparable to the bit of incised, painted sandstone described by
Pepper.

Jar stopper.—Our one complete clay jar stopper, unfired, bears on
its lower side several angular imprints as though the mud had been
pressed down upon a quantity, say, of turquoise matrix (U.S.N.M.
No. 336082).

Several other miscellaneous objects of clay or earthenware might
have been paraded herein, but I believe we have seen enough—except
for those described in chapter VII as having some possible religious
connection. Let us turn, then, briefly to review our findings regarding
Pueblo Bonito ceramics.

RECAPITULATION

Many of the earthenware vessels recovered by the National Geographic
Society were burial offerings; others were casualties of the
kitchen. All, irrespective of their fate, are separable into various
categories on the basis of shape, ornamentation, and technique of
manufacture. The stratigraphic studies and sherd analyses conducted
by Roberts and Amsden produced conclusive evidence that
local pottery styles changed repeatedly during occupancy of Pueblo
Bonito.

Stratigraphy revealed the cultural unity of fragments in previously
undisturbed old rubbish underlying the West Court. Only in the
upper layers were late sherds encountered and they were proportionally

few. Elsewhere, in the two great rubbish piles south of the
pueblo and in debris-filled rooms, fragments of early and late pottery
were intermixed. The fact that the one group of wares stood alone
during the period required for 8 feet of household debris to accumulate,
and thereafter invariably occurred in association with wares of
the second group, seems to me contributory proof that Pueblo Bonito
at its height was the product of two culturally unequal but contemporaneous
peoples, the Old Bonitians and the Late Bonitians.

The older ceramic assemblage comprised plain-bodied, banded- or
coiled-neck cooking pots and painted vessels whose design elements
included ticked and waved lines, interlocking whorls, squiggled hatching
chiefly in curvilinear figures, and thin parallel lines often bordering
stepped triangles. Among the earlier bowls in this group are
those slipped inside and out and often stone-polished. But time
brought a decreasing interest in surface finish; a moist hand or gourd
scraper replaced the polishing stone.

Most conspicuous among Late Bonitian pottery were new vessel
forms ornamented largely with straight-line hatching, over-all corrugated-coil
culinary ware, and a black-on-white organic paint variety
Amsden and Roberts designated the "Chaco-San Juan." Our exmination
of stratified rubbish underlying the West Court showed that
while squiggled hatching occurred in practically all layers, straightline
hatching appeared in Strata A-C only (the upper 4′ 2″) of
Test II and not at all in Test I. So, too, with the Chaco-San Juan
group: Not a single sherd was found in Test I, although 31 fragments
were recovered from the three uppermost layers of Test II.
Corrugated-coil appeared only in Stratum A, Test I; in A-D of
Test II. The lower 8 feet contained fragments of Old Bonitian
wares only.

Whether the Chaco-San Juan ware was manufactured at Pueblo
Bonito by potters migrant from the San Juan country or imported
from the north is a question our studies do not answer. Its style
of decoration and its use of organic paint were contrary to local
practice, but its treatment of bowl exteriors, even to the slip band at
rim, was in the Chaco tradition. The ware made its appearance at
Pueblo Bonito suddenly, about the same time as straight-line hatching
and before pottery of Mesa Verde kinship was introduced; it continued
to be used in Bonitian households after the village had passed
its prime and while the population gradually dwindled and dispersed.
Fragments of it, comprising 6.6 percent of all tabulated sherds from
rooms excavated, occurred most frequently in the rubbish fill of
later-type dwellings but were not entirely wanting among Old Bonitian

debris. We collected fragments of it underneath the floor of
Old Bonitian Room 307 and under several Late Bonitian rooms of
third-period construction. The presumption is, therefore, that ChacoSan
Juan ware came in with the Late Bonitians, introducers of our
second-type masonry.

Earthenware vessels hereinbefore described as "Mesa Verde" constitute
our largest intrusive group. But they originated in some of
the earlier and less spectacular ruins of southwestern Colorado and
southeastern Utah, rather than in the famous Mesa Verde cliff dwellings,
for beam dates indicate most of these latter were constructed
in the twelth and thirteenth centuries whereas sherds of what we
have called Mesa Verde ware actually were found underneath Bonitian
structures erected before 1100.

Reporting upon his 1916 examination of the two rubbish mounds
fronting Pueblo Bonito, Nelson (1920, pp. 384-385) observes that
he first encountered typical Mesa Verde sherds in the middle strata;
that fewer of them appeared in the upper layers. Our own inquiries
provide corroborative evidence as to the relative recency of Mesa
Verde pottery at Pueblo Bonito but no suggestion of any reduction
in numbers. We found only one sherd of it in our two stratigraphic
sections through old household debris under the West Court and
that was in Test II, layer B, 18 to 24 inches below the surface. The
proportion of like fragments gathered in excavated rooms (0.4 percent)
indicates that importations from the Mesa Verde district were
never numerous. A few vessels filtered in before Kivas A, T, and V
were built; the majority arrived while the village was at maximum
development.

Of the 36 rooms from which we recovered Mesa Verde sherds, six
had been Old Bonitian dwellings; the rest, Late Bonitian houses of
which five (Rooms 153, 226, 244, 249, 256) were constructed of
fourth-type masonry. Of these five, only two had clearly served as
neighborhood dumps. A majority of our Mesa Verde fragments
came from buildings of third-period stonework in the east and southwest
quarters of the village. Two restored bowls and part of a third
are shown on plate 58, upper. The bowl and mugs found in Burial
Room 32 and the two small mugs from Room 36 (Pepper, 1920, pp.
129-130, 183) prove that these Old Bonitian structures were not
sealed until trade with the Mesa Verde district had become established,
somewhere around the end of the eleventh century or the beginning
of the twelfth.

Commerce with other culture areas was less frequent, if we judge
correctly from recovered fragments of their distinctive earthenware.

A, So-called seed jars were provided with constricted orifices that could be covered by
stone disks.

Plate 66

B, Wooden stool; C, bear effigy.

Plate 67.—Cylindrical vases and fragments.

Plate 68.—Cylindrical vases from burial rooms 329 and 330.

Plate 69.—Miniature bowls, ladles, and pitchers—probably toy dishes for little Bonitian
girls.

Of more than 200,000 sherds tabulated, less than a hundred were
recognized as from the Kayenta and Houck districts, eastern Arizona.
Proto-Kayenta black-on-red and polychrome are both included. Classic
Kayenta is wanting, as would be expected, since Pueblo Bonito
was abandoned approximately a century before Betatakin, Keet Seel,
and their contemporaries were built. A few fragments of Tularosa
ware evidence an occasional traveler from southwestern New Mexico.
Although it is reasonable to assume most of these foreign pieces were
acquired through trade, others doubtless were left by visitors.

Listing the artifacts he obtained from Pueblo villages in 1879,
Stevenson (1883, pp. 307-465) repeatedly directs attention to vessels
he suspects originated in villages other than those in which his purchases
were made. Jeancon (1923, p. 34), remarking upon the diversity
of foreign pottery he unearthed at Poshu, added: "It is still the
custom of the Pueblo people to carry gifts of pottery to their friends
in other villages where they go to visit." And I distinctly recall that
several San Ildefonso acquaintances I met at the Santo Domingo Green
Corn Dance in 1920 had some of their own native pottery with them.

Now what is meant when one refers to "typical" Chaco Canyon
pottery? At Pueblo Bonito, the only ruin with which we are herein
concerned, earthenware divides itself into two principal classifications:
Old Bonitian and Late Bonitian. The first of these, on the basis of
form, technique, and ornamentation, is readily identified as Pueblo II.
Gladwin (1945, pp. 56, 95) remarks its similarity to pottery of his
Red Mesa and Wingate Phases. Miss Hawley (1936) and other
investigators have each suggested other names.

Geometric designs of straight-line hatching within somewhat heavier
frames have long been regarded the earmark of Bonitian ceramics.
It is true that pottery so ornamented reached its greatest perfection
at Pueblo Bonito, but our studies prove it was not known locally until
the village was well along in years, and that it never became preponderant.
Early and late types of straight-line hatching together
comprised only 8.9 percent of the 203,188 sherds tabulated from
rooms excavated. The two principal varieties of Old Bonitian blackon-white
ware, Transitional and Degenerate Transitional, formed
practically the same proportion (9.3 percent) of the total. Fragments
of Old Bonitian culinary pots made up 14.7 percent of the sherds
tabulated; corrugated-coil, 33.5 percent. So the older pottery complex
is just as typical of Pueblo Bonito as the later. Both early and late
vessels are, in large measure, sherd-tempered and decorated with
mineral paint.

Straight-line hatching and every design element that distinguishes

our Transitional ware are to be seen also on pottery from Pueblo
II-III ruins in southwestern Colorado and in southeastern Utah.
They provide the "Chaco-like" quality various students have noted in
pottery from that area. This resemblance, together with a not-infrequent
Chaco-like quality in both domestic and kiva architecture, have
been attributed by some investigators to influence from Chaco Canyon.
Although I have made no recent first-hand observations north of the
San Juan, the same evidence, it seems to me, points more strongly in
the opposite direction. My own observations in Chaco Canyon and my
interpretation of the data published by others lead to the conclusion
that Old Bonitian pottery developed out of Pueblo I practices inherited
from beyond the San Juan; that the more spectacular ceramic
art of the Late Bonitians likewise drew its inspiration from the north
and attained perfection in Chaco Canyon.

Since the National Geographic Society's Pueblo Bonito investigations
were concluded, Dr. Earl H. Morris has published his voluminous
study of La Plata Valley archeology, accompanied by Miss Shepard's
analysis of the pottery (Morris, 1939). Our immediate interest
in these two important reports lies in the fact that both incorporate
a few comparative notes on the pottery and ruins of Chaco Canyon.
Morris—and there is no one more intimately acquainted with the
prehistory of the entire San Juan basin—observes a varying degree
of "Chacoesqueness" in much of the early Pueblo III earthenware
he unearthed north of the San Juan; he regards as trade pieces the
rare pure Chaco pottery encountered, and considers the still rarer
Chaco-type ruins evidence of migrant colonists from the southern
center. He believes (pp. 205-206) pure Chaco, Chaco-like, and nonChaco
pottery contemporaneous in La Plata Valley and perhaps
throughout the entire northern district, and that Mesa Verde ware
came into being just as the pure Chaco made its last appearance. This
latter conviction is quite in harmony with our deductions at Pueblo
Bonito.

Miss Shepard analyzes pastes, paints, and firing methods. She
learns that La Plata Valley potters varied their ceramic practices
from time to time; that they favored iron oxide paint throughout one
period, organic paint in another. Powdered igneous rock was long
preferred as a tempering agent only to be partially displaced by
pulverized potsherds or a mixture of sherd and rock. Relying upon
geological data, Miss Shepard points out the probable places of origin
indicated by minerals in the paste. She believes the presence of andesite
in earthenware found in Chaco Canyon indicates trade from
the La Plata where andesite continued a prominent temper from

Basket Maker III to late Pueblo III times; she believes sanidine basalt
in the sherd temper of Chaco-like vessels exhumed in the La Plata
country evidences trade from the Chaco, since inclusions of this rock
frequently occur in Bonitian sherd-tempered pottery but are not
found in La Plata sherd-tempered types (ibid., pp. 279-281).

Now there is something of archeological heresy in all this. Heretofore,
lacking precise analytical methods, we had no reason to suspect
an extensive prehistoric commerce in pottery and especially in culinary
ware. But sanidine basalt was an important and increasingly popular
temper in cooking pots used at Pueblo Bonito and the only known
accessible source of the rock lies at Washington Pass, in the Chuska
Mountains, 50 air miles to the west. Bonitian women either walked
that distance and back to get the rock or they imported pots in which
it was the temper, unless a nearer outcropping remains to be discovered.
At the moment, importation seems the more logical explanation;
especially so since sanidine basalt is the strongly dominant
temper in cooking-pot fragments from ruins in the vicinity of the
rock's known source.

With every confidence in Miss Shepard and her methods of analysis,
I sincerely regret that circumstances prevented her thorough inquiry
into the makeup of Pueblo Bonito pottery. For me, the whole
problem still hangs in midair; I feel certain significant factors still
lie hidden. The sherd samples I placed before Miss Shepard in 1936
seemed at the time to offer a trustworthy cross section of local ceramic
history. But I am now dubious; I believe a larger, broader sample
should have been examined. I find myself hesitating to believe, for
example, that andesite in Chaco Canyon pottery always indicates trade
from north of the Rio San Juan. Andesite was the temper in 1 out
of 18 mineral-paint sherds in a sample of 43 from a Basket Maker III
site in upper Chaco Canyon; it was a minor tempering agent in both
culinary ware and mineral-paint black-on-white sherds from bottom
to top of Test II, through 12 feet of Old Bonitian household waste
under the West Court at Pueblo Bonito.

So, too, with the sanidine basalt which Miss Shepard believes may
indicate traffic in cooking pots from the Bennett Peak district at
Washington Pass to Pueblo Bonito and the subsequent utilization of
fragments of those pots as temper in Bonitian earthenware. Because
there are, to me, so many pertinent questions not quite convincingly
answered by these technological analyses, I should like to
see them extended to a larger representation of the successive Chaco
Canyon ware. And I should like very much to have Miss Shepard
conduct those analyses.

After reading my paragraphs summarizing the data she derived
from samples of our Pueblo Bonito sherds, Miss Shepard generously
submitted the following in rebuttal: