Chaco-style pottery bowl. Maximum diameter, 9"; Height, 4-1/4".

Man in the San Juan Valley

THE AZTEC PUEBLO. (continued) The Great Pueblo Period was a period of continued specialization, not only in architecture but also in ceramics and in the minor arts and crafts. North of the San Juan, most of the pottery seems to have been decorated with a carbon paint, that is, a paint made from vegetal dye. South of the San Juan, in the Chaco area, they generally seem to have used mineral paints. The pottery designs of this period were often hachured patterns, with the thin filling lines surrounded by heavier boundary lines. Band designs of steps, frets, and triangles were also used. Bowls, pitchers, ollas, and ladles were the common shapes; and some cylindrical vessels and effigy pots are known.

An equally popular ware, which was not painted, was the cooking, or "corrugated." ware mentioned earlier. In this period the coils of the vessel wall were still sometimes pressed together to form decorative designs, or sometimes were smoothed over so that an almost-plain vessel resulted.

In the field of minor arts and ornaments, the people of this period reached a high degree of achievement. Olivella shell beads were still widely used as well as stone beads and stone and shell pendants carved in the forms of birds and animals. Turquoise, which first seems to have been used in late Basketmaker times, was used extensively for some of the finest ornaments, not only for beads and pendants but also in beautiful mosaics.

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Last Modified: Sat, Jan 13 2001 10:00:00 am PDT http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/hh/36/hh36a4-1.htm