BLANDING RED WARE PROJECT
REPORT OF THE 2000 FIELD SEASON
By
William A. Lucius and Irene Lopez-Wessell
The following report represents a summary of our activities on Forest Service and BLM lands in San Juan County, Utah during the 2000 field season of the Blanding Red Ware Project.
Only 42SA13085, located on Forest Service lands in North Cottonwood Wash adjacent to the King Edward Mine, was subjected to surface collection of its redware as outlined by the Blanding Red Ware Project research design, primarily in order to evaluate the utility of the project research design. Following are some of observations about this site.
We created a ceramic index and collected red ware from area D (Feature 3 on the Site Form map). Although there were a few sherds in the road (Area C), the majority of cultural artifacts were in direct association with what we think is a collapsed, slab-lined campfire feature located just uphill from the road. The Tusayan Polychrome sherds (crushed sherd and quartz sand temper) was a suprise but consistent with a Pueblo II component (AD 950-1050?) over a more substantial Pueblo I (AD 750 - 850) use of the feature.
Feature Ceramic Index (* indicates items collected)
Gray Ware (n=54 or 75%)
Early Pueblo Gray Body Sherds – 42
Moccasin Gray - 3
Corrugated Body Sherds – 8
Mancos Corrugated - 1
White Ware (n=7 or 10%)
Early Pueblo White Body Sherds – 5
Piedra Black-on-white – 2
Red Ware (n=11 or 15%)
Tusayan Polychrome – 4
Polychrome Body Sherds – 2
* Early Pueblo Red Body Sherds – 2
* Abajo Red-on-orange – 1
* Bluff Black-on-red – 2
We also created a ceramic index for the very disturbed midden area located below the tailings pile. Our interpretation of the site, based in part on exposed wall alignments, is that the site represents a medium-sized Late Pueblo I (AD 850 – 900) village site approximating a horseshoe with the open end pointing south (Mancos Gray is diagnostic of a post AD 850 village date). It appears that western portions of the site are buried under the tailings pile. Due to the amount of disturbance from heavy machinery, no pitstructure depressions (usually located within the arms of the arc) were observed. Perched upon the back curve of the PI site is a PII (AD 950 – 1050?) rubble mound responsible for the PII ceramics of the ceramic index.
Feature Ceramic Index (* indicates items collected)
Gray Ware (n=452 or 83.55%)
Early Pueblo Gray Body Sherds – 403
Moccasin Gray - 36
Corrugated Body Sherds – 10
Mancos Corrugated – 3
White Ware (n=43 or 7.95%)
Early Pueblo White Body Sherds – 32
Piedra Black-on-white – 3
Cortez Black-on-white – 7
Mancos Black-on-white – 1
Red Ware (n=46 or 8.50%)
* Early Pueblo Red Body Sherds – 21
* Bluff Black-on-red – 25
We did not look at the remainder of the prehistoric components of the site. Despite all of the disturbances, there is still the promise of a lot of in situ deposits, especially in the expected pitstructure(s).
Binocular microscope inspection of the 51 red ware sherds revealed that all but one contained crushed diorite temper. The odd sherd has a temper type with a strange admixture of quartzite, quartz sand and hornblende, possible indicating a manufacturing locale in the area without access to diorite cobbles. Refiring analysis revealed two different clay types. By weight, 80% have the refired Munsell color of 2.5YR6/8. The remaining 20% have a slightly darker clay color of 2.5YR5/8. The source of the lighter clay is probably in the middle Morrison (we found a close clay match in Montezuma Creek). A major concern of subsequent resource sampling will be the location of this distinctive clay outcrop. The darker clay nicely matches the Burro Canyon red clays visible in the old road cut above Recapture Wash and in Alkali Canyon near the site of Alkali Ridge.
The majority of our time was spent in vehicle reconnaissance of the various south trending drainages and the collection of clay (20) and temper (3) voucher samples. With the exception of one sample each collected from the Entrada, Chinle and Shinarump formations (for comparative purposes), the rest of the samples were collected from the Morrison Formation in Montezuma Creek, Recapture Wash, Big Canyon and Cottonwood Wash. Diorite cobble samples were collected from the Big Canyon wash and from cobble aprons at the King Edward mine and Recapture Wash.
In order to compare clay and temper voucher samples with the collected sherds, a portion of each clay voucher sample was mixed with enough water to create a workable mass, into which ground diorite (from temper voucher sample #1) was added. With the exception of three clay samples that would not stick together (not really clay), standardized tiles were made, numbered, dried and fired in an oxidizing atmosphere in a small portable kiln along with the red ware sherd samples to approximately 950 degrees Centigrade. The majority of the clay voucher samples were not ceramic grade clays. The resulting data has been computerized and summarized.
The field procedures outlined in the Blanding Red Ware Project Research Design were found to be workable, with the following modifications. Time restraints and the sheer number of sherds on even the relatively small King Edward Mine site led to the descision to focus on selected features (such as middens) to create ceramic indices and for the collection of red ware. The proposal to break each red ware sherds with retention of only a portion proved to be unworkable in practice. Therefore each red ware sherd was collected, numbered, subjected to refiring analysis and retained for eventual curation.
A summary report of the 2000 field season and some tentative interpretations was presented at the annual Pecos Conference, held outside of Dolores, Colorado. The presentation, along with a complementary paper presented by Ted Oppelt, emphasized that archaeological work in San Juan County, Utah is key to understanding the structure of the early Ancestral Pueblo adaptation of the Northern Southwest.
The 2001 field season will focus on the Recapture Wash drainage as one possible locale of red ware ceramic production. Given the co-occurrence of ceramic grade clays, diorite tempering cobbles, fuel and water resources and resident Pueblo I populations, we plan to establish a field camp on Forest Service lands just north of the Forest Service boundary fence. From that base camp we will venture out to collect appropriate clay voucher samples, create ceramic site indices and procure redware collections from various archaeological sites. We will be especially interested in locating possible clay mines and kiln features indicative of localized ceramic production. Concurrently we will perform microscopic analysis of temper types and refiring analysis of clays to determine if local clays were used to produce ceramics. If time permits, we also hope to replicate this research in the other primary drainages in order to evaluate the proposal that each drainage had its own ceramic production locale(s).