SMITHSONIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 81 



exhibits a human head, with the nose, chin, and ears distinctly marked. The 

 occipital portion forms the aperture (Fig. 297, mound in Union County, 

 Kentucky). Vessels in the shape of rude human figures or of animals occur 

 not unfrequently in the tumuli of the Mississippi Valley. 



There are in the collection numerous fragments of pottery from all States 

 and Territories of the Union, and from other parts of North America. Many 

 arc large enough to show the original shape of the vessel to which they be 

 longed, while others serve to illustrate the different styles of ornamentation in 

 vogue among the aboriginal potters. Of particular interest are the fragments 

 of pottery obtained among the ruins of ancient settlements on the Little 

 Colorado and Gila, and from other parts of the &quot;Western Territories. The 

 specimens, for instance, collected during Lieutenant Whipple s survey of those 

 districts are all in the collection, together with many other interesting objects 

 obtained by his party. 7 The sherds in question betoken a much higher state 

 of the potter s art than that ever attained by the aborigines of that part 

 of the United States which lies east of the Kocky Mountains, and the tribes 

 inhabiting now the localities where such fragments occur, produce no earthen 

 ware of equal quality. The fractures of such sherds usually exhibit a 

 compact clay of a gray, yellowish, or light-red color, and they are coated, 

 sometimes on both sides, with durable whitish-gray, yellow, or bright-red 

 paint, forming a ground on which parallel lines, lozenges, and other (some 

 times very complicated) patterns arc executed in black or in other colors. In 

 many instances the paint on these fragments appears as a thin layer which 

 presents a glossy surface, and is almost as hard as the glaze on the clay vessels 

 made by whites. A number of specimens, however, exhibit no paint, but 

 ornamentation of another character, in the shape of raised or indented figures, 

 Avhich betoken, in many instances, considerable taste and knowledge of the art 

 of decoration. &quot; It may not occur to every one,&quot; says Thomas Ewbank in 

 Lieutenant Whipple s report, &quot; that most, if not all, the elements of decorative 

 art, as regards curved and straight lines, which are supposed to have origi 

 nally occurred to the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, and other advanced na 

 tions of the eastern hemisphere, have been exhibited by the ancient occupants 

 of the western one. In the relic just noticed, 8 we have the line rolled spirally 

 inward and outward the involute and evolute. In other samples of pottery 

 the guilloche, or curved fillet, in various forms, is met with; also, waving lines, 

 arched, invected, engrailed, radiant, embattled ; the trefoil, cross, scroll, and 

 numerous other initial forms, though less expanded and diversified than in the 

 Old World.&quot; Generally speaking, broken pottery answering more or less the 

 description here given, has been found in the Territories of Arizona, 

 Mexico, Utah and Colorado. 



Described and figured in Vol. Ill of the &quot;Reports of Explorations and Surveys to ascertain the most 

 practicable and economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.&quot; Washing 

 ton, 1856. 



&quot;Fig. 12 on page 49 of Whipple s report. 

 11 



