Presenter: Emily Brown
Authors: Emily Brown
Faculty Advisor: Jim Allison
Institution: Brigham Young University
Painted redware ceramics make up less than 1% of the ceramics found at the Coal Bed Village archaeological site, and it is relatively unexplored compared to its whiteware counterpart. This research aims to identify and organize redware design patterns and their meanings. Coal Bed Village is one of the largest Ancestral Pueblo sites in Utah and studied by Brigham Young University since the 1960s. However, little has been done to study redware ceramics due to their sparsity. This research uses previous data collected on painted whiteware sherds from the same location and period to quantify a reliable analyzing method and use previous publishings' on Coal Bed Village to provide context around the redware sherds and pottery production. Due to the limited amount of redware from Coal Bed Village, redware sherds from Alkali Ridge 13 will also be used since both sites are relatively close and are from the Puebloan 1 time period. Lab analysis, including recording design types, measuring line width, porosity tests, temper, and reconstruction of the overall shapes of the vessels, will also be utilized. Questions this research hopes to answer are: what do the different design elements represent as a whole? What types of pottery use what kinds of designs? What influences from surrounding areas affected designs? And, what influence did redware have on other areas?