Fig. 686. (S. 1–4.) Double jar from the Chaco Group. Found in a lower room in Pueblo Bonito.
All writers on pottery observe a great difference between the ware of the North and that of the South. Professor Holmes points to this in more than one place in his writings, and he asks this question: “Is it due to differences in race? Were the Southern tribes as a body more highly endowed than the Northern, or did the currents of migration, representing distinct centres of culture, come from opposite quarters to meet along this line. Or does the difference result from the unlike environments of the two sections, the one fertile and salubrious, encouraging progress in art, and the other rigorous and exacting, checking tendencies in that direction? Or does the weakening art impulse indicate increasing distance from the great art centres in the far South, in Mexico, and Yucatan?”
Fig. 687. (S. 1–8.) A beautiful collection of ceramics from cliff-houses in Utah and New Mexico. M. C. Long’s collection, Kansas City, Missouri.
Fig. 688. (S. indicated.)
A jar of “coiled ware,” from a cliff-house in New Mexico. Collection of M. C. Long, Kansas City, Missouri.
Fig. 689. (S. 1–3.) Stones used in smoothing pottery, kneading clay, etc.
The antiquity of pottery in this country is a question of absorbing interest. Perhaps the shell mounds of Florida shed more light on this question than do other remains. Mr. Clarence B. Moore, who has explored for several seasons, and thoroughly opened numbers of shell mounds, states that sometimes there was no pottery in the lower layers of some of these mounds. This would indicate that some of the shell mounds are very old, and had been in use before the discovery and utilization of pottery by our aborigines. I regret that I have not space to quote Mr. Moore’s remarks at length, but must refer readers to his reports, which take up this important question in detail.
Mr. Brown reports on the pottery of his region as follows:—