NO. 4 SAN JON DISTRICT, NEW MEXICO ROBERTS I9 



While they indicate that the people had a knowledge of and possessed 

 some pottery, they also suggest that it was not a highly important 

 trait in the complex as far as activities around the basin were con- 

 cerned. Most of the sherds are from a buff or brownish-colored 

 ware with smooth surface and hard, compact paste. The tempering 

 material, as studied with a hand glass, appears to be sand. In a few 

 cases there is a slight admixture of mica. None of the fragments 

 show any form of decoration. Both bowls and jars seem to be 

 represented. As a group the sherds fit the description for Sayles' 

 Panhandle wares, although no paddle-marked examples were found. 

 The Panhandle wares are associated with house ruins concentrated 

 along the Canadian River (Sayles, 1935, p. 84) and on the basis of 

 associated sherds from the Rio Grande have been dated as about 

 middle fourteenth century. The affinities of the wares have not been 

 definitely established. They probably belong to the broad basic form 

 represented in the pottery of the Wichita and the Jumano which in 

 turn points toward the Caddo. It is possible that the presence of 

 such sherds near the basin at San Jon is to be attributed to hunting 

 parties from the Canadian settlements to the northeast and that the 

 small number is due to the fact that people on the move rarely bur- 

 dened themselves with many pottery vessels. 



There are a few black-on-white sherds from vessels that probably 

 belonged to a type of pottery from an adjacent area to the west. 

 This form has been called Chupadero Black on White (Mera, 1931) 

 and is one that is commonly found in association with brown wares 

 such as those represented by the sherds in the present collection. 

 Chupadero Black on White is a Pueblo ware that was taken over 

 bodily and adopted by the makers of the brown wares (Scholes and 

 Mera, 1940, p. 293). Traces of it have been found as far east as 

 the sand-dune camp sites in western Texas (Mera, 1935, p. 30). 

 It was a late development out of an earlier type of Pueblo ware and 

 seems to have been absorbed into the ceramic complex of the brown- 

 ware region during the thirteenth century. -It apparently persisted 

 into early historic times and its presence in an assemblage of ma- 

 terials dating from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century in 

 the San Jon district is wholly in keeping with the general picture. 

 Although both bowls and jars were made in this ware, jar fragments 

 only were found during the San Jon investigations. 



The occurrence of actual hearths was noted only in the horizons 

 represented by the fourth and fifth point types. However, scattered 

 pieces of charcoal and sporadic ashes were found in all of the archeo- 



