20 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 8l 



POTTERY 



The pottery from Llano may be classed in three groups, the black 

 cooking vessels ; the black on white bowls, ollas, and jars ; and the 

 black on red pottery. 



There were no examples of the indented or corrugated pottery in 

 the ruin at Llano, but on the surface there was an abundance of such 

 sherds. The large jars from the ruin appear to have been made in 

 the usual coil technique but the coils were obliterated, by wiping the 

 surface with a corncob or some other object with a rough surface, 

 as work on the vessel progressed. After the completion of the pot, 

 decorations were incised around its upper part. On many the lower 

 portions show traces of the coils which were not completely obliterated 

 by the rubbing process. 



The following quotation from Kidder gives a good impression of 

 the general appearance of the ware : 



The latest black ware so far identified is the striated ; there is, of course, no 

 sign of the coil, but the surface is scored with a series of fine and more or 

 less parallel scratchings, criss-crossing over each other in all directions. These 

 were produced evidently, by some finishing tool used while the clay was moist. 

 Experiment shows that a corncob with the kernels removed most nearly 

 duplicates these marks.* 



Although the coiling is still slightly apparent in places on the Llano 

 vessels, the striations described by Kidder are also in evidence. As a 

 matter of fact, the Llano forms seem to represent a combination of 

 Kidder's black corrugated and striated forms. 



The incised designs are of the simplest character consisting usually 

 of horizontal lines, although on one pot (pi. 12, a) there has been an 

 attempt to establish three zones of decoration, the middle zone dif- 

 ferent from the upper and lower ones. The short dashes of the mid- 

 dle zone appear to have been made with a long thumb nail. 



The writer encountered a somewhat similar ware in an investigation 

 of La Jara Cation, New Mexico, situated at the southern end of the 

 Jicarilla Apache reservation. However, there was considerable dif- 

 ference in the pastes of the two areas, that of Llano being much softer 

 and without a great amount of temper, while that of La Jara Cation 

 was composed of materials that burned almost to a vitrified brick. 

 The vessel marked C on plate 12 shows unobliterated coils on the 

 neck beginning just above the shoulder. Below the coils are incised 

 lines. The bottom has the usual obscured coils observed on practically 

 all of the pots. 



* Kidder, A. V., Notes on the Pottery of Pecos. Amer. Anthrop. n. s., Vol. 19, 

 p. 339, Lancaster, 1917. 



