Ancestral Pueblo: Southern Colorado Plateau (Anasazi)Western AnasaziTusayan (Kayenta)Tusayan White WareTusayan Black-on-white

Type Name: Tusayan Black-on-white

Period: 1200 A.D. - 1300 A.D.
Culture: Ancestral Pueblo: Southern Colorado Plateau (Anasazi)
Branch: Western Anasazi
Tradition: Tusayan (Kayenta)
Ware: Tusayan White Ware


First posted by C. Dean Wilson 2012

Tusayan Black-on-white was defined by Gladwin and Gladwin (1930). This type refers to white wares with surfaces and decorations indicative of distinct late Pueblo III decorated forms known to have been produced in the Tusayan region Anasazi (Hays-Gilpin and van Hartesveldt 1998; Smith 1971). Pottery assigned to this category appears to have been produced from about A.D. 1200 to 1300.

Paste noted in examples of Tusayan Black-on-white tends to be hard and dense. Temper commonly consists of a sparse fine sand and occasional sherd. Decorated surfaces may be unslipped are covered with a thin washy slip. Vessel forms include jars, seed jars, colanders, canteens, dippers and bowls. Painted styles are distinguished by the extensive coverage of intricate and well executed decorations in organic paint across most of the decorated surface, often creating small white negative designs. This effect seems to reflect an extreme in the pattern of increasingly elaborated and filled decorations of vessels in the Northern Anasazi, reflected in other late Pueblo III types produced in the Colorado Plateau. Common designs include opposed sets of triangles, interlocking scrolls, step triangles and finely checkered squares (mosquito bars). A common effect results from the application of serrated-looking edges, through lines of small connected triangles or short ticked lines between decorations and unpainted negative space, and reflects an elaboration of an effect created earlier by Flagstaff Black-on-white. These decorations were applied over highly polished surfaces that are white to light gray.

References:
Gladwin, Winifred, and Harold S. Colton
1930 Some Southwestern Pottery Types, Series I. Medallion Papers VIII, Gila Pueblo, Globe.

Hays-Gilpin, Kelley., and Eric van Hartesveldt
1998 Prehistoric Ceramics of the Puerco Valley: The 1995 Chambers-Sanders Trust Lands Ceramic Conference. Museum of Northern Arizona Ceramic Series No.7, Flagstaff.

Smith, Watson
1971 Painted Ceramics of the Western Mound at Awatovi, Papers of the Peabody Museum of Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 38, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.




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Tusayan Black-on-white bowl

Tusayan Black-on-white bowl

Tusayan Black-on-white bowl

Tusayan Black-on-white bowl

Tusayan Black-on-white bowl

Tusayan Black-on-white bowl

Tusayan Black-on-white jar with handle

Tusayan Black-on-white jar with handle

Tusayan Black-on-white seed jar