Ancestral Pueblo: Greater MogollonJornada MogollonSouthern Jornada (El Paso)

Tradition Name: Southern Jornada (El Paso)

First posted by C. Dean Wilson

Pottery types assigned to the Southern Jornada or El Paso ceramic tradition appears to have mainly been produced in the valleys and drainages along the Rio Grande between south-central New Mexico and far west Texas, but commonly occurs over a much wider area including Southeast New Mexico, Northern Mexico, and central New Mexico. A possible migration and connection between groups in the Southern Jornada region and the La Junta who occupied the southern part of the Trans Pecos region of Texas until the mid-eigtheenth century, and practiced agriculture and made similar brown ware ceramics, has been noted but is debated (Cloud and Piehl 2007; Kelley 1952; Miller 1992). Characteristics noted for the sequence noted for this tradition seems to be consistent with the characterization of the Southern Jornada Mogollon as representing a conservative and mobile adaptation to a combinations of riparian and desert environments (Whalen 1994). The conservative nature of the associated ceramic tradition is reflected first by very long production of simple unpolished or poorly polished undecorated brown ware forms, followed by similar painted forms.

Types assigned to this tradition seem to commonly reflect the use of granite temper much of which appears to have been derived from the Franklin Mountains. The distribution of El Paso Brown Ware types may reflect both the mobile nature of early subsistence patterns as well as extensive exchange networks associated with later periods. El Paso brown ware types reflect the long-use of similar resources and technologies within this region include El Paso Brown, El Paso Smudged, and El Paso Polychrome (Miller 1995 2004; Whalen 1981; Wiseman 1996). The main change associated with this tradition seems to be the increasing application of simple slipped and painted decorations for much of the pottery produced in this region after A.D. 1200.



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