Ancestral Pueblo: Southern Colorado Plateau (Anasazi)Central AnasaziNorthern San JuanNorthern San Juan Gray WareMesa Verde Corrugated

Type Name: Mesa Verde Corrugated

Period: 1150 A.D. - 1300 A.D.
Culture: Ancestral Pueblo: Southern Colorado Plateau (Anasazi)
Branch: Central Anasazi
Tradition: Northern San Juan
Ware: Northern San Juan Gray Ware


First posted by C. Dean Wilson 2012

Corrugated rim sherds or vessels from the Mesa Verde region exhibiting eversion greater than 55 degrees are classified as Mesa Verde Corrugated (Abel 1955; Breternitiz and others 1974; Wilson and Blinman). Corrugated vessels exhibiting such eversion are extremely rare prior to A.D. 1100, but they increase in frequency to form at least a plurality and usually the majority of the post A.D. 1200 corrugated rims.

The overwhelming majority of corrugated vessels assigned to this type are wide mouthed cooking and storage jars. The earlier corrugated vessels (Mancos Corrugated) generally continue the flaring neck pattern set for the later neck banded vessels, but this shape is augmented and modified through time so that a diversity of shapes (such as egg shaped and globular) can be found in Mesa Verde Corrugated. The trend toward narrower openings relatively to vessel size continues with Mesa Verde Corrugated. Although these body shapes vary somewhat with rim eversion, the temporal trends in body shape are not consistent enough to support typological distinctions in sherd collections. Surface textures of utility ware from late Pueblo III contexts commonly reflected by a mixture of Mesa Verde and Dolores Corrugated exhibit a lesser range of variability which has been characterized and standardized corrugated (Brew 1946; Reed 1957). Corrugated pottery from late Pueblo III contexts in much of the Mesa Verde region commonly exhibit narrow coils with small and regular coils.

References:
Abel, Leland J.
1955 San Juan Red Ware, Mesa Verde Gray Ware, Mesa Verde White Ware and San Juan White Ware, Pottery Types of the Southwest: Wares 5A, 10A, 10B, 12A. Museum of Northern Arizona Ceramic Series 3B, Flagstaff.

Breternitz, David A., Arthur H. Rohn, Jr., and Elizabeth A. Morris
1974 Prehistoric Ceramics of the Mesa Verde Region. Museum of Northern Arizona Ceramic Series 5, Flagstaff.

Brew, John O.
1946 Archaeology of Alkali Ridge, Southeastern Utah. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology 21, Cambridge.

Reed, Erik K.
1958 Excavation in Mancos Canyon, Colorado. University of Utah Anthropological Papers, No. 35, Salt Lake City.

Wilson, C. Dean, and Eric Blinman
1995 Ceramic Types of the Mesa Verde Region. In Archaeological Pottery of Colorado: Ceramic Clues to the Prehistoric and Protohistoric Lives of the State's Native Peoples, edited by R.H. Brunswig, B. Bradley, and S.M. Chandler, pp. 33-88. Colorado Council of Archaeologists Occasional Papers 2, Denver.




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