ANTHROPOLOGY: L. SPIER 
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the Tano tribe^ and Kidder's suggested sequences for the Pajarito pla- 
teau^ and for Pecos pueblo,^ all on the Rio Grande. A chronology from 
the western section of the Pueblo area is therefore a desideratum. 
The procedure involved in this task presents some novel aspects. 
Simultaneously in 1915, N. C. Nelson, A. L. Kroeber and A. V. Kidder 
arrived by three different inductive methods at the same conclusion, 
viz., that the characteristic Southwestern pottery was of the highest 
evidential value for the purpose of reconstructing the sequence of pueblo 
occupation, or, in the widest sense of the term, estabHshing a chronol- 
ogy. Their methods of reconstruction were respectively stratigraphic 
observation of refuse deposits, the hypothetical ranking of surface finds 
and the observation of concurrent variations, and the hypothetical 
seriation of the several pottery techniques. Of these three methods, 
the advantages rest with the first, but its application in the case of 
Zuni finds was precluded by the shallowness of the refuse deposits at 
most of those ruins. The writer was therefore led to combine the 
two methods of stratigraphic observations and hypothetical ranking of 
surface finds. 
Where stratigraphic observations could be made it was observed 
that the variable value of one fluctuating pottery type, 'corrugated' 
ware (so named for its characteristic plastic decoration), could serve 
as an index of stylistic variations in the whole pottery art. On analyz- 
ing for their type content the samples of potsherds collected from the 
surface of ruins for fifty miles up the Zuni valley and from their refuse 
deposits, it was found that the resulting data fell into two groups. In 
both groups corrugated ware was present in the samples in amounts 
varying from 2% to 60%, but in each group the accompanying wares 
differed in type or in proportions, or both. For instance, samples of 
sherds collected from two ruins showed corrugated ware present in 
each to the extent of 40% of the whole pottery art, but associated with 
this at one ruin was 60% of a white ware, while at the other 23% of red 
ware and but 37% of white were found. For synthetizing these data 
we had at hand three premises: some of the ruins were claimed by the 
Zuni as their former villages and others were so mentioned in historic 
records, the whole group of ruins stand somewhat isolated from other 
groups in the Southwest, and finally, the decorations on the pottery 
found in them had sufficient individuality to set off the whole group 
from the rest of the Southwestern ruins. 
To synthetize these data we had two guides. It became clear while 
making stratigraphic observations at the historic ruins that while cor- 
rugated ware is represented to the extent of only 2% in historic ruins 
