JHANCON] EXCAVATIONS IN THE CHAMA VALLEY 41 
yellowish and grayish tone and by its lightness and softness. The 
paste is usually yellowish gray, homogeneous in structure, somewhat 
granular, and in most specimens a trifle porous. The majority of 
sherds contain no tempering material, but where it does occur it con- 
sists, in all of the pieces that I have examined, of bits of water-worn 
quartz three-fourths to one mm. in diameter. The visible surfaces 
of all vessels are coated with a slip varying in color from almost lemon 
yellow to dark gray. A light gray is perhaps the commonest shade; 
pure white is never seen. While the slip is apparently incapable of 
taking a high polish, it was evidently always worked over with the 
rubbing stone. The decoration is in sharp, clear, black paint, much 
less variable in color than that of black-and-white ware; it is quite 
lusterless and therefore entirely distinct from the glaze paint of the 
red ware. 1 
As will be seen by reference to the chronological sequence, the bis- 
cuit ware has been subdivided into three groups in this paper. It has 
sometimes been argued that because a piece of pottery was crude, 
badly made, and of inferior paste, it does not necessarily follow that 
it is of an earlier type, but the great improvement in material, deco- 
ration, and finish of the biscuit ware is so marked that it is fairly 
safe to assume that the poorer made pieces preceded the better ones, 
and it is upon this assumption that the subdivisions were made. It 
does not necessarily follow that any great period of time elapsed be- 
tween the cruder and the better made ware. 
Before taking up the first group it will be necessary to consider 
some of the sherds and one small whole piece which seem closely re- 
lated to the earliest types of the true biscuit ware. The two pieces 
are fragments of the bottoms and sides of very small bowls. The 
paste of these is very sandy, but contains no mica or other temper. 
Both show, more or less, the coiling, but no marks of fire or soot. 
They are in every way different from the pre-Pueblo pieces and seem 
to bear a direct relation to the biscuit ware. Neither one has a slip 
or outside wash and both are very crude. The only whole piece in 
the preliminary group is a small bowl 55 mm. in height by 11 cm. at 
the largest diameter. (Pl. 37,H.) The paste is typical, very sandy 
biscuit. It is porous and bears the marks of fire on the outside. 
Whether it was once decorated or not can not be determined now, 
as all traces of a decoration, if there ever were any, have been effaced. 
In form it is similiar to the smaller pieces of incised ware and biscuit 
ware. Whether these specimens were forerunners of the biscuit ware 
or only crudely made pieces of it we have no way of telling at pres- 
ent, but I have thought it worth while to consider them first as com- 
pared with the first subdivision of the true biscuit ware. 
1A. V. Kidder, Pottery of the Pajarito Plateau. Mem. Am. Anthrop. Asso., vol. ll, pt.6, pp. 419- 
420, 1915. 
