Fingerprints in the clay: a comprehensive analysis of Indigenous ceramics from Rio Blanco County, Colorado

Abstract

Ceramic analysis in archaeology is a broad technique to determine cultural affiliation, chronology, and trade networks across well-known regions. This project aims to investigate the nature of Fremont (AD 550-1300), Eastern Shoshone (AD 1300-ca. 1850), Ute (AD 1650-present) and other occupations in northwestern Colorado through the study of pre-contact and post-contact Indigenous ceramics from Rio Blanco County. Archaeologists over the past fifty years have identified 154 ceramic-yielding sites in Rio Blanco County. This accounts for approximately 3% of all sites in the county, implying that the use of ceramics in this region may have been limited by past peoples. The nature of ceramic research in northwestern Colorado has not been a standardized practice, causing a variety of local and non-local ceramic typologies, some of which have overlapping characteristics, to be named in the literature from this region. This thesis presents the results of over 2,059 ceramic pieces analyzed for this project with a focus on the general as well as typology-defining trends, including surface treatments, temper, wall thickness, and site dates, observed in this dataset. These trends are then compared to the expectations archaeologists have developed for ceramics in this and surrounding regions. The results of this data synthesis show that while our established expectations for typology dates seems to align with the site data collected, our expectations for mobile forager versus sedentary farmer manifestations of pottery do not align with the data collected. Additionally, this study demonstrates the dominance of typology-defining characteristics (surface treatment-temper combinations) which suggest primarily local manufacturing of ceramics over different ceramic typologies being imported or traded from elsewhere.