The Coolidge examiner., 1930-03-28

and caliche structures.
/ In the early part of this century
j. Walter Fewkes carried on rather
extensive digging for specimens
and considerable information was
gained. In 1925 H. S. Gladwin, for
the Southwest museum, did some
excavating and by dint of much
counting of potsherds established a
| pottery sequence which is of great
value to students of the culture.
But what is pottery sequence and
what is culture?
Whoever reads much about
archaeology today, especially about
the prehistory of the Southwest,
will find constant reference to both
terms. There was little mention of
them, in just their present mean
ing, 25 years ago.
Inasmuch as cultures in the
Southwest are for the most part
identified chiefly By pottery, it
seems that culture should be de-
fined before pottery sequence.
Experience has taught me that
an unabridged dictionary is none
too bulky to be carried into the
field. The trowel, the brush, the
shovel, are indispensable tools for
the archeologist; words are no less
indispensable. My Webster tells me
that culture, in the archaeological
sense, is "a particular state or
| stage Of advancement in ciViliza-
ton; the characteristic attain
ments of a people or social order,
as Greek culture, primitive cult
ure."
Culture of "Hohokam"
Using the Pima name for the
! builders of the Casa Grande and
its attendant ruins, Hohokam, we
are studying the culture of the Ho-
| hokam, the vanished people," Is it
a primitive culture? Yes, but not
not in the sense of a savage cul-
| ture.
The Hohokam were growers of
maize and doubtless of squash and
beans and cotton. None of the peo-
pie of Middle and North America
were pastoral They were either
nOmads or agricultural peoples !:
some of the tribes depending equal
ly on hunting and farming. The Ho-
| hokam were sedentary people, who
diverted living water from the Gila
river and with it irrigated their
crops. They were semi-civilized.
But what of the pottery Sc
/ quence?
Some observant digger in prehis-
toric ruins found that a refuse heap
was made up of layers or strata,
each containing pottery; that the
deepest layers contained a sort OF
! pottery which differed from that in
the middle and topmost layers. BY
dint of much counting and sorting
it was demonstrated that there had
been several changes in pottery
styles in the years during which
the refuse heap was accumulating o
Here at the Casa Grande sites
the deepest and oldest layers
might contain a buff colored pot
terry painted with a geometrical de
sign in red. This red-on-buff ware
was succeeded by pottery which
was white or gray, decorated with
black designs; and the black-on
white ware was succeeded by one
painted with black, red, buff anG
white. This many-colored pottery
is called polycrome ware.
Thus there was a succession Of
styles; or pottery sequence"
which is archeologese for the same
thing. There are evidences of sew
eral successive changes in styles o.
pottery decoration at our site; pos
sibly this indicates changes il
tribes as well. | cannot say as tt
this, but | grin every time l reaC
of the "red-on-buff'' the "black-on
white, the "polychrome people"
Certainly these Hohokam or van
ished ones were just good old-fash
ioned copper-hued Indians and il
was only their pottery which varied
color.
The Van Bergen-Los Angeles
Museum field party is digging a
the Casa Grande site in Arizona
not to find any sensational objects
not to secure a collection of speci