Antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park

by Jesse Walter Fewkes

The absence of bracelets, armlets, and finger rings of sea shells, objects so numerous in the ruins along the Little Colorado and the Gila, may be explained by lack of trade, due to culture isolation. The people of Mesa Verde appear not to have come in contact with tribes who traded these shells, consequently they never obtained them. The absence of culture connection in this direction tells in favor of the theory that the ancestors of the Mesa Verde people did not come from the southwest or the west, where shells are so abundant. Although not proving much either way by itself, this theory, when taken with other facts which admit of the same interpretation, is significant. The inhabitants of Spruce-tree House (the same is true of the other Mesa Verde people) had an extremely narrow mental horizon. They obtained little in trade from their neighbors and were quite unconscious of the extent of the culture of which they were representatives.

POTTERY

The women of Spruce-tree House were expert potters and decorated their wares in a simple but artistic manner. Until we have more material it would be gratuitous to assume that the ceramic art objects of all the Mesa Verde ruins are identical in texture, colors, and symbolism, and the only way to determine how great are the variations, if any, would be to make an accurate comparative study of pottery from different localities. Thus far the quantity of material available does not justify comparison even of the ruins of this mesa, but there is a good beginning of a collection from Spruce-tree House. The custom of placing in graves offerings of food for the dead has preserved several good bowls, and although whole pieces are rare fragments are found in abundance. Eighteen earthenware vessels, including those repaired and restored from fragments, rewarded the author’s excavations at Spruce-tree House. Some of these vessels bear a rare and beautiful symbolism which is quite different from that known from Arizona. The few [plates (16-20)] here given to illustrate these symbols are offered more as a basis for future study and comparisons than as an exhaustive representation of ceramics from one ruin.

The number and variety of pieces of pottery figured from the Mesa Verde cliff-dwellings have not been great. An examination of Nordenskiöld’s memoir reveals the fact that he represents about 50 specimens of pottery; several of these were obtained by purchase, and others came from Chelly canyon, the pottery of which is strikingly like that of Mesa Verde. The majority of specimens obtained by Nordenskiöld’s excavations were from Step House, not a single ceramic object from Spruce-tree House being figured. So far as the author can ascertain, the ceramic specimens here considered are the first representatives of this art from Spruce-tree House that have been described or figured, but there may be many other specimens from this locality awaiting description and it is to be hoped that some day these may be made known to the scientific world.

Forms

Every form of pottery represented by Nordenskiöld, with the exception of that which he styles a “lamp-shaped” vessel and of certain platter forms with indentations, occurs in the collection here considered.

Fig. 1. Lid of jar.

Nordenskiöld figures a jar provided with a lid, both sides of which are shown.[22] It would seem that this lid (fig. 1),[23] unlike those provided with knobs, found by the author, had two holes near the center. The decoration on the top of the lid of one of the author’s specimens resembles that figured by Nordenskiöld, but other specimens differ from his as shown in figure 1. The specimens having raised lips and lids are perforated in the edges of the openings, with one or more holes for strings or handles. As bowls of this form are found in sacred rooms they would seem to have been connected with worship. The author believes that they served the same purposes as the netted gourds of the Hopi. Most of the ceramic objects in Spruce-tree House were in fragments when found.[24] Some of these objects have been repaired and it is remarkable that so much good material for the study of the symbolism has been obtained in this way.