AhT. 13 WHITE MOUNTAIN" APACHE EESEEVATION HOUGH 19 



for many years as the best method of ascertaining the ceramic index 

 of an ancient ruin. The association of tlie red with the gray is 

 normal, as on the San Juan, but there is reason to believe that in the 

 Concho region there exist sites in which soft red only occurs with 

 coiled ware. 



The designs in the interior of soft red bowls follow the San Juan 

 tradition and show none of the divergences of design characteristic 

 of the region south of the little Colorado. This is evidence of an 

 older stratum of design. 



A rare type of brown ware with unusual surface decoration is 

 found very sparingly at Grasshopper. It's position among ancient 

 Pueblo ceramics is at present uncertain. The decoration noted on a 

 red-brown bowl with polished black interior and slightly rugose ex- 

 terior is in chevrons bordered by white lines and tinted in soft choco- 

 late brown color. The effect is highly artistic. The affiliation of this 

 ware appears to be with the decoration-on-coil ware found mostly 

 in the high mountain ruins as at Linden, Arizona, and sometimes 

 in ruins in the Little Colorado valley as at Four Mile and the Petri- 

 fied Forest. It is interesting in showing the application of basket 

 patterns to coiled ware in pigment instead of indented or scratched 

 patterns on the coil. It is observed that in the period of elaboration 

 of ceramic art in the area south of the Little Colorado pieces of note- 

 worthy excellence were produced that place themselves outside the 

 classes of ceramics influenced by conventional tribal standards of 

 art. As a suggestion the ware described may come under this head. 



A specimen, evidently sporadic, consists of a bottle form of thin 

 brown undecorated ware, and was found at Grasshopper. The 

 specimen relates itself to the ware characterizing a wide belt from 

 feouthern California eastward to the Pima. This specimen would 

 seem anomalous at Grasshopper were it not from the circumstance 

 that the writer observed two sites north of the Sierra Anchas cov- 

 ered with surface fragments of plain thin brown. Mr. Earl Morris 

 is authority for the statement that a number of other sites of this 

 character are found in thi's region. The group responsible for the 

 ware is conjectural, but if decorated specimens are recoverable, as 

 seems likely, this point may be cleared up. 



Coiled ware. — At Grasshopper this is in most instances rude in 

 form and technique. In a site yielding so many types of pottery, none 

 apparently indigenous, this is to be expected. There is no clear cut 

 coiling, the ridges and indentations being partially smoothed, a fea- 

 ture common in mountain ruins. Some specimens of very delicate 

 coiling were found, but these probably came from some other work- 

 shop. 



In the ruin there is a complete absence of the brown ware with 

 polished black interior so common at Blue and entering prominently 



