Ware Name: Chaco-Cibola White Ware

First posted by C. Dean Wilson 2014

White ware sherds were assigned to Cibola tradition types based on combinations of temper, pastes, paint, and styles indicative of pottery produced in area centered in the San Juan Basin but include a wide area covering much of the southeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau including much of northwestern portion New Mexico. Pastes tend to be white gray to white and often fire to buff colors in an oxidization atmosphere, and reflect the use of low-iron clays derived from shale outcrops in the Colorado Plateau. Painted decorations in most Cibola white ware types are executed in mineral pigments derived from iron oxides. These are usually black but may range from brown or red depending on firing atmosphere. White ware types produced in areas across the Cibola region prior to the twelfth century tend to display similar characteristics. The earliest Cibola white ware types tend not to be polished or slipped and are tempered with sand. Later types are almost always polished, are often slipped, and are commonly tempered with sherd and or sand. In earlier versions of this web-site white ware exhibiting vitrified high-iron pastes were assigned to equivalent types of the Puerco Valley traditins. Examples assigned to the Puerco Valley variety of this type exhibit porous gray, dark gray or gray-brown pastes indicative of the use of high iron clays and abundant sherd temper.

By the early twelfth century, white ware types produced in the northernmost areas of the Cibola region such as the Chaco Canyon were distinct from those produced elsewhere in this region. Later pottery produced in these areas was influenced by traditions to the north where later pottery forms were commonly decorated with organic paint. Chaco-McElmo refers to examples of pottery produced in the Chaco area reflecting such influences.

White wares produced during later periods over wide areas in the Southern Cibola region continued to be decorated with mineral paint. Pottery types associated with this late sequence are often well made and elaborately decorated. Cibola White Ware types were widely distributed and include the great majority of the white ware pottery from sites in northernmost regions of the Mogollon.

Decorated pottery types associated with this sequence were produced from A.D. 550 to 1350. Pottery types associated with the Cibola White ware sequence, roughly in order of their time production , include Tohatchi Red-on-brown, La Plata Black-on-white, White Mound Black-on-white, Kiatuthlanna Black-on-white, Red Mesa Black-on-white, Gallup Black-on-white, Escavada Black-on-white, Puerco Black-on-white, Chaco Black-on-white, Chaco McElmo Black-on-white, Cebolleta Black-on-white, Reserve Black-on-white, Tularosa Black-on-white, Snowflake Black-on-white, Klagetoh Black-on-white, and Pinedale Black-on-white.

Related Types

• Cebolleta Black-on-white
• Chaco Black-on-white
• Chaco-McElmo Black-on-white
• Escavada Black-on-white
• Gallup Black-on-white
• Kiatuthlanna Black-on-white
• Klagetoh Black-on-white
• La Plata Black-on-white
• Pinedale Black-on-white
• Puerco Black-on-white
• Red Mesa Black-on-white
• Reserve Black-on-white
• Snowflake Black-on-white
• Tohatchi Red-on-brown
• Tularosa Black-on-white
• White Mound Black-on-white