Pottery and agriculture usually appear in ancient cultures at about the same time. Pottery is more practical for settled people who do not move frequently. Nomads commonly use baskets for storage and transport, but pottery better protects stored food from insects and rodents.

Much of the earliest Puebloan pottery is not decorated, but simple decorations (lines, dots, zigzags) appear at almost the same time as the undecorated pieces, around AD 575 in the Four Corners. In general, designs become dens er and more precise over time up until about 1250-1300 AD, which is the end of the Anasazi (or Pueblo) period in Colorado. Pottery designs from Colorado usually are bold geometric patterns in black-on-white, although sometimes they include obvious representations of birds or lizards, or humans. These geometric motifs seem to have originated from basketry decorations, in which straight and right-angle lines and stepped patterns were easier to create than curving forms.

We do not know what the geometric designs mean. According to the Pueblos, some of them signify clan affiliation.They may also represent family or village affiliation, or simply the potter's imagination. Many have been identified by Hopis and other Pueblo groups as symbolic of clouds, birds, bear claws, spider webs, water, friendship, migration, etc.

Other kinds pf pottery included plain-surfaced and textured or corrugated cooking vessels. Black-on-red pottery from northern Arizona was traded throughout the Four Corners, as were Red-on-buff styles from Utah. Shapes included jars, bowls, pitchers, ladles, canteens, figurines, and a variety of miniatures.

Firing was done with wood fuel at relatively low temperatures, and apparently took place in earth trenches. To achieve a black-and-white result, the firing environment must be oxygen-deprived (reduction atmosphere) but without excess carbon which would produce an all-black surface.
 

Why is pottery important to archaeologists ?

Ancient pottery contains hidden clues about the people who made it. Styles and designs changed through time, and varied across regions. Pottery can be sorted or "typed" into categories based on grouped traits such as color, texture, decoration and vessel shape. Archaeologists often name a ceramic type after the place where the pottery of that style was first identified--for example, Mancos Black-on-gray (from Mancos, Colorado) or Tin Cup Polychrome (from Tin Cup Mesa, Utah).

Archaeologists follow the principle that most pottery made in one place and time tends to be fairly uniform in decoration. Consequently, ceramic fragments ("sherds") can indirectly show when a household or village was occupied. Since certain designs are unique to specific geographic areas and periods, studying and classifying designs helps to reconstruct social affiliation, communication networks, and trade relationships between regions. The distribution of certain styles indicates degrees of cultural continuity or discontinuity across times and places. It would be valuable to know if certain designs "belonged" to a family, clan, or village; or how free a potter was to invent or borrow designs.

Temper (gritty binding material) in the clay may be traceable to a geologic source area where the pottery was made. Its surface may retain pollen from food plants or scrapings from a meal.