MATERIAL CULTURE (p 2)
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Ceramics
American archaeologists refer to broken fragments of pottery as
“sherds” or “potsherds,” which is a corruption
of the English term “shard” that is often applied to
fragments of historic pottery and glass fragments. The pottery recovered
at El Macayo reflects the diverse nature of the borderlands experience.
A wide range of ceramic types is present: the Hohokam and Trincheras
traditions are well represented, and there are a few fragments of
pots made by other groups with whom the inhabitants may have been
in contact. In addition, some of the ceramics were locally made
to supply everyday needs.
The various excavations at El Macayo have produced a ceramic assemblage
of 6,881 sherds and several partial vessels. Of these, roughly 633
pieces are decorated with painted designs, and eleven sherds are
coated with a red slip made of fine clay. The rest of the sherds
(90%) are plain, undecorated pottery for everyday use. Much of the
plain pottery was probably for cooking and food preparation, and
storage. Most (93%) of the plain pottery was locally produced, which
is not at all surprising, because production of this day-to-day
utilitarian pottery would likely have been in response to local
needs and not necessarily for exchange.
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| Vessel 16-1: A coarsely
shaped plain vessel. »Enlarge
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The local material ranges from coarse, hand formed vessels with
a rough and uneven finish to finer-textured decorated vessels with
a smoothed, brown-colored surface. Potters added sand temper to
stiffen the clay during the forming process. They often included
mica in this mix, which gave the vessel a glittery finish. Most
of the rest of the plain pottery fragments falls within the Trincheras
tradition. Trincheras vessels were formed by coiling the clay and
then thinning the vessel walls by scraping away the interior surface.
This was usually done with a wad of grass, which resulted in the
scoring and striations we see on the interior surface.
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Interior view of Red-on-brown bowl. »Enlarge
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Artist reconstruction of the design. »Enlarge
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Side view of red-on-brown bowl. »Enlarge
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Surface scoring on interior of Trincheras
sherd. »Enlarge
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Decorated Ceramics at El Macayo
Ceramic Tradition |
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|
Number of Sherds |
Percentage of Decorated |
| Local Tradition |
|
40 |
6.4% |
| |
| Non Local
Ceramics |
|
|
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| Trincheras Tradition |
|
260 |
41.7% |
| Hohokam Tradition |
|
|
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|
Tucson Basin (Santa Cruz Tradition) |
|
242 |
38.8% |
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Phoenix Region |
|
77 |
12.3% |
| Other Decorated |
|
|
|
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San Simon Tradition |
|
5 |
0.8% |
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| Subtotal |
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584 |
93.6% |
| Total Decorated |
|
624 |
100.0% |
The 40 local decorated sherds appear to be hand-modeled with an
uneven finish. They are decorated with pigments that fired reddish-brown
to purple and black. These sherds reflect influences from contemporary
traditions known from the surrounding regions. Many are a variety
of red-on-brown that is very similar to the Rincon Red-on-brown
type found among contemporaneous Hohokam to the north in the Tucson
Basin area.
Rincon Red-on-brown sherds are also present at El Macayo, but can
be distinguished on the basis of their polished surface. The designs
on both types tend to be crudely executed and include curvilinear
and angular scrolls, fringed lines, and other linear elements.
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| Locally made ceramics. »Enlarge
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Examples of Rincon Red-on-brown pottery (A.D.
950-A.D. 1150).
»Enlarge
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The decorated ceramics associated with the Hohokam traditions to
the north and the Trincheras culture to the south considerably outnumber
the “local” wares. These two traditions account for
over 90 percent of the decorated ceramics in the site’s collection;
Hohokam types slightly exceed the Trincheras pieces. The Trincheras
ceramic tradition features dark brown ceramic bodies with dark reddish-brown
and purple painted designs. The pigments used to make the paint
came from the iron-rich mineral hematite. In some cases, red or
white slips (coatings of fine clay over the surface) were employed
to provide colorful—and relatively uniform—design backgrounds.
Some of these pieces are quite colorful. Trincheras pottery was
made by inhabitants of the desert region of northwestern Sonora
and the modern border area. At El Macayo, archaeologists found 260
Trincheras sherds. This represents over 41 percent of the decorated
ceramics.
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| Trincheras decorated ceramics
found at El Macayo. »Enlarge
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Formed pigment block. »Enlarge
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| Examples
of Trincheras polychromes present at El Macayo. »Enlarge
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There are two regional variants represented among the Hohokam ceramics
that were recovered at the site: these derive from the Tucson basin
region, and from the area around the Phoenix basin southward along
the middle Gila River. The decorated ceramics from these two regions
share a common iconography (decorations), but the clay composition
is very different. The northern Salt-Gila basin tradition features
a buff-colored clay base, over which a lighter buff or cream-colored
wash was often applied . The clay was usually mixed with crushed
micaeous schist for temper that stiffened the clay and allowed potters
to make larger vessels. The designs were then painted with a reddish-maroon,
ochre-based paint. In contrast, the Tucson Basin area pottery employed
denser, brown-colored clay tempered with sand.
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Hohokam buff wares from El Macayo. »Enlarge
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Tucson Basin Red-on-brown ceramics. »Enlarge
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The ceramics recovered at El Macayo span a period of about four
hundred years (A.D. 850 to A.D 1150). During this period, designs
and motifs transformed considerably. The earlier material was decorated
with elements composed of fairly broad lines. Later examples feature
finer line work and more complex motifs based on scrolls and interlocking
elements. Areas of fine linear fill were subsequently replaced with
solid blocks of paint enclosing angular scrolls and abstract representations
of animals.
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