Fig. 253.—Large vase from Tusayan.—1/4.
Fig. 254.—Bowl from cibola.—1/2.
From Cibola we have a bowl, the exterior of which is coiled and the interior polished and painted. It is undoubtedly of the most archaic variety of ware, and is almost a duplicate of the example from the Saint George tumulus, shown in Fig. 244. The interior is encircled by a series of five triangular volutes in black lines, and the exterior exhibits a very neatly laid and indented coil. Fig. 254.
PECOS AND THE RIO GRANDE.
In New Mexico, upwards of four hundred miles east of Saint George, in the handsome upland valley of the Rio Pecos, we have the most easterly of the ancient Pueblo remains. The site was occupied at the time of the conquest, but is now wholly deserted, a small remnant of the people having gone to dwell with their kindred at Jémez.
The site of this village has been thoroughly examined by that learned gentleman, Mr. A. F. Bandelier. It is his opinion that the remains show at least two distinct periods of occupation, the first being marked chiefly by a stratum of ashes, pottery, etc., of great horizontal extent. This underlies more recent deposits which belong to the people found in possession, and whose arts are nearly identical with those of the existing Pueblos.
The underlying stratum is characterized by great quantities of fragmentary coiled ware uniform with that of more western localities. At the same time there is almost a total absence of painted pottery.
The conclusion reached by Mr. Bandelier is that probably the coiled pottery wherever found marks the occupancy of a people antecedent to those who made painted ware. It is my impression, as already stated, that the coiled form may be the most archaic of the ancient Pueblo pottery, yet I think it best to notice two things in regard to the conditions at Pecos.
In the first place, it should be remembered that the painted pottery found by Mr. Bandelier is said to resemble that of Nambe of to-day, nothing being said of the painted ware characteristic of the ancient ruins of the west, and which is always found associated with the coiled fragments, as at Saint George, in the same graves and even in the same vessel, Fig. 244. We would not expect in Pecos, or in any other place, to find modern Pueblo ware like the more recent pottery from Pecos intimately associated with the ancient ware either painted or corrugated. The only strange feature at Pecos is that the coiled fragments are not associated with ancient painted ware as in other places.