POTTERY
Plain Pottery ([Figs. 59] and [60])
Plain pottery includes one restorable bowl and eight additional sherds. Construction is hard to determine from so small a number of sherds, but indications suggest coiling and scraping. Coils were fairly wide ([see Fig. 60]). Core color is usually grey to black though one sherd is oxidized to a brick red. Firing was done in a “reducing atmosphere”, with some scattered spots oxidized. The temper is angular with occasional mica fragments visible; it is probably crushed granite. Some sherds may contain a small amount of quartz sand. The size of the temper is variable, usually fine with a few large granules mixed in. Vessel walls are usually fairly strong. The pottery is friable, not flaky. Both surfaces are unslipped, and smoothed on all specimens. The exterior is a brownish black, the interior is black. One sherd, however, is dull grey. Thickness is from ¼-⁵/₁₆ inch, one sherd ³/₁₆ inch. The only partially complete form observed is a bowl. However, another large sherd (about 8 inches square) suggests part of the wall of a pot, perhaps with an incurving shoulder. The bowl has a mouth diameter of 5½ inches, and in vertical cross-section resembles a parabolic curve 3¼ inches high. Rims in general are gradually tapered.
Figure 59— Plain pottery bowl.
White portions restored,
⅔ actual size.
Figure 60— Plain pottery sherd, showing coiled construction.
Actual size.
Surface Roughened Pottery ([Figs. 61-65])
Pottery in this category is divided into three classes. Pottery of Class I includes 7 sherds. These were manufactured by the paddle and anvil technique. Temper is sand, and is not too abundant. The clay is micaceous and the texture somewhat granular, tending to shatter along fairly regular lines. Hardness is 3.5-4.5; color grey to brownish continuous all the way through. Exterior surfaces all show parallel lines of cord-marks, about five to the inch. Impressions of individual strands can be seen in the clay, somewhat flattened and slightly smoothed. Interior surfaces were smoothed and scraped. One rim sherd has diagonal impressions that extend to ¼ inch of the flattened lip. There is no decoration. Vessel size cannot be determined. Thickness is from ⁵/₁₆-⁶/₁₆ inch. One sherd from near the base suggests a conoidal bottom.
Two sherds of this class have different exterior treatment. One of these appears to have been impressed by basketry, apparently coiled with a simple rod foundation. The other has been impressed with an unknown fabric.
Figure 61— Surface roughened pottery, Class I.
Class II includes 15 sherds. These resemble those of I in many respects: The manufacture was by paddle and anvil; the temper is of sand or possibly crushed rock, generally fine and not too abundant, and the clay is micaceous. The texture, however, is flaky with a tendency to fracture along irregular lines. Hardness is about 3.5, color grey to brown generally continuous through the sherd. A few have blacker cores. Exterior surfaces were treated with parallel lines of cord impressions 10-15 to the inch with very little smoothing. Interiors were smoothed, but do not show the evidences of scraping as with I. There is one rim sherd; vertical impressions on this extend over the lip which has been flattened. No decoration occurs. The thickness ranges from ³/₁₆-⁴/₁₆ inch. One large sherd about 4 × 3 inches suggests vessels of considerable size.
Figure 62— Surface roughened pottery, A, Class I. B and C, Class I variant.
Pottery of Class III in most aspects resembles that of Class II: paddle and anvil technique in manufacture, temper of sand or crushed rock, fine, not abundant, micaceous clay. The texture is very flaky tending to fracture along irregular lines. Color grey to brown, usually the latter, generally continuous through the sherd; some, however, have blacker cores. Exterior surfaces were treated with two sets of parallel cord marks one extending vertically from the rim, the other at an angle of about 45 degrees. This gives a sort of criss-cross effect, different, however, from the random application of Upper Republican sherds ([see Wedel 1934, Strong 1935]). Interior surfaces were smoothed. On one large rimsherd cord marks extend over the flattened lip. No shoulder is in evidence, and indications suggest fairly large pots with mouth diameter of about 10 inches, height 12 inches. The camber of the sherds indicates forms with pointed bottoms. Thickness is from ³/₁₆-⁴/₁₆ inches. There is no decoration. Hardness is about 3.5.
Figure 63— Surface roughened pottery, Class II.
Figure 64— Surface roughened pottery, Class II.
Figure 65— Surface roughened pottery, Class III.
Geology of the LoDaisKa Site[2]
By Chas. B. Hunt
The LoDaisKa (Sanger) Site, about a mile and half south of Morrison, Colorado, is a rockshelter under a projecting ledge of Paleozoic (Pennsylvanian) sandstone that dips steeply east. The pre-ceramic occupation layers at this site are believed to correlate with the Piney Creek alluvium ([Hunt, 1954, p. 114]). The accompanying map ([Fig. 66]) illustrates the general geologic setting of the site; it shows the general distribution of one upper Pleistocene and two Recent units.
The upper Pleistocene unit (Qg on the map) is a bouldery gravel with which is included some variegated, silty and clayey alluvium. This bouldery gravel is exposed in Strain Gulch upstream from the site, and it covers much of the upland northwest of that part of the Gulch. Downstream from the site this bouldery gravel is southeast of the Gulch and forms the high terrace extending from the site to the highway. Because the deposit is bouldery, and because the boulders are little weathered the deposit is assumed to be Wisconsin in age.
The alluvium with variegated colors mapped with this bouldery gravel is exposed in Strain Gulch about 700 feet northeast of the site, and in the tributary from the west that joins Strain Gulch about 200 feet upstream from the highway. In this latter tributary the alluvium rests on strata of Paleozoic age. At both localities the variegated alluvium is overlain by dark-colored, sandy and silty alluvium.
The variegated alluvium has a distinct, lime-enriched zone, probably representing the alluviated layer of an old soil from which the upper layers have been eroded. The lime-zone is comparable in thickness to that found in soils in Wisconsin age in the Denver area. Moreover, at the outcrop in Strain Gulch, the lower part of the alluvium is stained with iron oxide about the way deposits of Wisconsin age are stained in the Denver area. However, the dating of the deposits is uncertain because it has not been established whether the layers enriched in lime and iron are the result of surficial weathering or ground-water action.
Probably, though, these deposits are late Pleistocene in age, and fossils in them probably will include the Pleistocene forms.
FIGURE 66—GEOLOGIC MAP OF LODAISKA SITE
Overlying the bouldery gravel and the variegated alluvium is a dark-colored, sandy and silty alluvium ([Qp on the map]), 1 to 6 feet thick, that looks quite like the Piney Creek alluvium in the Denver area. Both the Piney Creek and this alluvium are of Recent age. Fossil bones were found in the alluvium at two places near the site ([A and B on the map]). At A, 1 foot below the surface, articulated bones were found; at B, a single bone was found and it was not in place, but from a plowed surface on the upland. At this locality a chert flake was found also. The bones were examined by Edward Lewis of the U. S. Geological Survey and C. B. Schultz and L. G. Tanner of the University of Nebraska State Museum and Geology Department. Their identifications are as follows:
Locality A, fragments of a vertebra, femur, epiphysis, and ribs of Bison bison (Linnaeus) of Recent age, and
Locality B, the badly weathered astragalus of a large bovid, either Bos Taurus or Bison bison (Linnaeus) of Recent age.
The unconformity at the base of the dark-colored alluvium is well exposed at the localities indicated on the map.
Fragments of charcoal were found in the alluvium 200 feet upstream from the site. This alluvium probably correlates with the pre-ceramic layers of the occupation levels at the site, which, as reported by Lewis in an accompanying paper, also contains vertebrate remains of Recent age.
The youngest deposit, a bouldery gravel confined to the present washes, is a lag concentrate of the boulders and cobbles that are left by washing out finer grained sediments from the Pleistocene deposits. This deposit, and the arroyo-cutting with which it is associated, probably developed throughout the period of the ceramic levels.
REFERENCE CITED
Hunt, Chas. B., 1954 Pleistocene and Recent deposits in the Denver area, Colorado: U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 996-C, p. 91-140.
Mechanical and Chemical Analyses of the
Deposits of the LoDaisKa Site
By Robert J. Rodden