Pottery type
Salado Polychrome Pottery
Salado Polychrome1280 - 1450 A.D.Salado / Roosevelt Red WareKey facts
- Age
- 1280 - 1450 A.D.
- Cultural period
- Salado / Roosevelt Red Ware
- Material
- Brown to reddish-brown paste tempered with fine to medium sand. Surfaces are usually covered with a red slip, a white or cream slip, or both. Black paint is most often organic-based, applied over white or cream slip panels and usually framed by red-slipped zones. Firing in mostly oxidizing conditions produces red cores with occasional gray to dark centers.
Description
Late prehistoric polychrome ware characterized by red, white/cream, and black paint arranged in striking geometric designs. Vessels usually have red-slipped interiors or exteriors, with black designs painted on white or cream panels framed by red areas. Forms include hemispherical and recurved bowls, jars, ollas, seed jars, and a smaller number of effigy vessels. This ware is associated with the Salado phenomenon and often appears in multi-cultural communities across the southern Southwest.
Size
Bowls commonly range from 18–32 cm in rim diameter and 8–18 cm deep. Jars and ollas typically range from 24–45 cm in height, with rim diameters of 14–28 cm. Small bowls and seed jars are often 10–18 cm in diameter.
Distribution
Heavily concentrated in the Roosevelt Basin, Tonto Basin, Gila Basin, Verde Valley, San Pedro Valley, and areas around Globe and Safford, Arizona, with outlying finds in the Little Colorado region, Rio Grande area, northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and as far east as El Paso, Texas.
Mainly found in
Additional information
Roosevelt Red Ware (also called Salado Red Ware or Salado Polychrome) is a key marker of Classic period interaction between different cultural traditions. Archaeologists use its distribution to track population movement, religious networks, and exchange among Ancestral Puebloan, Mogollon, and Hohokam-related communities.