Park Brochure

Basketry

[ Page 8 ]

The finest Ancestral Puebloan baskets were produced before they started making pottery. Using the spiral twilled technique, they wove handsomely decorated baskets of many sizes and shapes which were used for carrying water, storing grain, and even cooking. They waterproofed their baskets by lining them with pitch and cooked in them by dropping heated stones into the water. Split willow was the most common coiling material, but other times they used rabbitbrush or skunkbrush. After the introduction of pottery about AD 550, the quality and quantity of basketry declined.

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