Ancestral Pueblo: Greater Upper Rio Grande ValleyNorthern Rio GrandePecosPecos Plain WarePecos Plain Polished Smudged Faint to Heavy Striated

Type Name: Pecos Plain Polished Smudged Faint to Heavy Striated

Period: 1600 A.D. - 1838 A.D.
Culture: Ancestral Pueblo: Greater Upper Rio Grande Valley
Branch: Northern Rio Grande
Tradition: Pecos
Ware: Pecos Plain Ware


First posted by C. Dean Wilson 2013

Pottery assigned to these types refers to a subset of pottery originally referred to as having faint striated and heavily striated exterior surfaces (Kidder and Shepard 1936). While utility ware produced in Pecos Pueblo during most periods at Pecos Pueblo exhibited a range of textured exterior manipulations resulting in their assignment to various Northern Rio Grande pottery forms known to have been produced produced during earlier periods, culinary pottery produced during later occupations often exhibit distinct distinct striated marks that may result in their classification as Pecos Plain Striated. Utility ware jars began to exhibit fairly faint but noticeable exterior striations at early sometime during the second half of sixteenth century (Powell 2002). Heavily striated jars with polished and smudged exteriors produced during the later periods of occupation of Pecos Pueblo (1700 to 1838) are characterized by exterior surfaces covered by deep parallel striations indicative of brushed surfaces (Wilson 2007). Striations on the upper portions of the jar are oriented horizontally while those on the body are oriented vertically or angularly (Kidder and Shepard 1936). While there was variation in the size and shape of striated jars that include a range of utility ware forms, certain trends are evident. The later heavily striated forms tend to be rounded in body and more squat than earlier forms (Kidder and Shepard 1936).
Pottery exhibiting such exteriors but with polished and smudged interiors are distinguished from unpolished gray wares dominated by jars and included here with Pecos Plain Ware. Walls tend to be thick and vessels are very large. Rims often exhibit a high degree of eversion with an angular break. Kidder applied the term Cajete a word used in early twentieth century New Mexico to designate large tub-like pottery vessels, that appear to have been during the later periods of occupation of Pecos Pueblo. Shapes are often represented by fairly squat jars with sharply flaring rims.
Exterior surfaces noted for examples assigned to these categories are usually smoothed with slightly striated to heavily brushed surfaces. Interiors surfaces are often well-smoothed to polished and often sooted or smudged. Pastes are gray to reddish brown in color. Temper usually consists of sand or sandstone and sometimes crushed igneous rock. This type is distinguished from similar polished forms produced in the Tewa Basin by the absence of micaceous slipped exteriors and presence of striated exterior surfaces.

References:
Kidder, Alfred V., and Anna O. Sherpard
1936 The Pottey of Peocs, Volume II Glaze Paint, Culinary, and Other Wares. Papers of the Phillips Academy No.7, New Haven.

Powell, Melissa S.
2002 Ceramics. In From Folsom to Fogelson: The Cultural Resources Inventory Survey of Pecos National Historic Park, Vol. I, edited by G. N.Head and J. D. Orcutt, pp. 237–304. Intermountain Cultural Resource Management Professional Paper No. 66. Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Wilson, Gordon P.
2007 Guide to Ceramic Identification: Northen Rio Grande Valley and Galisteo Basin to A,D. 1700. Technical Series Bulletin, no. 12, 2nd ed. Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe.




Related Photos

Pecos Valley Plain Polished/Smudged Utility sherd

Pecos Plain Striated cajete

Pecos Plain Striated cajete

Pecos Plain Striated cajetes