Ancestral Pueblo: Greater Upper Rio Grande ValleyNorthern Rio GrandePecosPecos Plain WarePecos Plain Polished Red

Type Name: Pecos Plain Polished Red

Period: 1500 A.D. - 1838 A.D.
Culture: Ancestral Pueblo: Greater Upper Rio Grande Valley
Branch: Northern Rio Grande
Tradition: Pecos
Ware: Pecos Plain Ware


Pecos Plain Polished Red as described here includes most of the examples described by Kidder and Shepard (1936) as Plain Red Ware under the heading of Modern Ware. This type, while not previously formally defined, appears to be fairly common at late components at Pecos Pueblo. and reflects the great majority of pottery described as Plain Red Ware by Kidder. Vessels are usually not slipped. Slip when presence is of variable thickness with slight to moderate polish, with a slighter polish than commonly noted in examples of Tewa Red. Slips when present are often thin and are sometimes difficult to distinguish slips from the red paste. The paste is friable and fractures irregularly. Surface sometimes exhibit vertical streaking. Pastes tend to be brown to deep and sometimes dark red or maroon color. The great majority of vessels are reflected by relatively small bowls often with flat bases. Other vessel forms include narrow jars, chamber pots, large storage vessels, soup plates, dough bowls, rectangular bowls, canteens, and candle stick holders, with European influenced forms being relatively common (Powell 2002). The great majority of Plain Polished Red Ware vessels recovered from sites in Pecos Pueblo are tempered with a alluvial sand indicative of local production (Powell 2002; Kidder and Shepard 1936). The sand is weathered, and angular to sub-angular, with grain size being variable. Fragments of fine sandstone and granite may also occur. Thus, this type is distinguished from other red slipped polished plain ware types such as Tewa Red by the presence of alluvial sand rather than fine tuff temper indicative pottery produced at Tewa Pueblo sites in areas to the west. Vessels assigned to this type are also very similar to very late glaze ware forms, that may often display extremely sparse decorations, sometimes by the presence of a enigmatic dot or two. Thus, may sometimes be extremely difficult to impossible to distinguish sherds or partial vessels derived from late glaze ware or Pecos Plain Polished Red vessels. This difficult indicate that Plain Red Ware vessels produced at Pecos Pueblo developed directly out of sparsely decorated vessels produced during the very end of the glaze ware sequence.
While examples of this type do not appear to have been explicitly at sites outside the Pecos Pueblo, sand tempered polished red wares very similar to those described here have been identified at Colonial period contexts in Santa Fe, indicating that some of the plain red wares at Pecos were traded to Spanish settlements an missions. It also likely that a similar shift from glaze wares to plain polished pottery forms including Tewa Polished Red and Salinas Polished Red occurred at other Pueblo occupied during the Late Seventeenty century.

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.




Related Photos

Pecos Plain Polished Red bowl

Pecos Plain Polished Red vessels

Pecos Plain Polished Red bowl

Pecos Plain Polished Red bowl

Pecos Plain Polished Red bowl

Pecos Plain Polished Red bowls

Pecos Plain Polished Red bowl

Pecos Plain Polished Red bowls