Ceramic Design Structure and the Organization of Cibola White Ware Production in the Grasshopper Region, Arizona

This volume presents a new method of design structure analysis using a ceramic tradition, Cibola White Ware, from east central Arizona. Utilizing ethnoarchaeological studies of ceramic design, Van Keuren uses the sequence of brush stroke application as an indicator of the content of learning frameworks and potter interaction. As a result, this study confirms the importance of structural analyses of ceramic decoration to the inference of social interaction, learning exchange, and mobility or migration. In his application to Cibola White Wares, Van Keuren determined a coherent and standardized approach to design that was shared by potters across eastern Arizona at about A.D. 1300. The analysis of Cibola White Wares from Grasshopper Pueblo indicated that they varied in their design execution, suggesting a local potting community that was able to copy designs from producers of Cibola White Ware who immigrated to Grasshopper from the Colorado Plateau but who did not understand the execution of these designs. This successful application of brush stroke sequencing suggests a new fruitful approach to design analysis and interpretation with broad applications, even beyond the Southwest.