MONOGRAPH 44 Ceramic Production and Circulation in the Greater Southwest Source Determination by INAA and Complementary Mineralogical Investigations Edited by Donna M. Glowacki and Hector Neff The Cotsen Institute ofArchaeology University of California, Los Angeles 2002 IO Patayan Ceramic Variability Using Trace Elements and Petrographic Analysis to Study Brown and BuffWares in Southern California john A. Hildebrand, G. Timothy Cross,jerry Schaefer, and Hector Neff N THE LOWER COLORADO RivER and adjacent desert tain a large fraction of granitic inclusions, and when present and upland regions of southern California and in prehistoric pottery, me inclusions may not represent added 0 western Arizona, the late prehistoric Patayan temper but me remnants of incompletely weamered parent produced predominantly undecorated ceramics using a pad­ rock (Shepard 1964). In the lower Colorado River and Salton dle and anvil technique (Colton 1945; Rogers 1945a; Waters Trough regions, alluvial clays are available with a low iron 1982). Patayan ceramic vessels were important to both mixed content, hence their buff color, and which contain little or horticultural economies along the Colorado and adjacent no intrinsic inclusions. In this case, tempering materials may river systems, and to largely hunting and gathering econo­ be purposefully added to the alluvial clays. For the historic mies in the adjacent uplands. Patayan ceramic production Kumeyaay/ Kamia, a Yuman-speaking group known to have began at about AD 700 (Schroeder 1961), and continued into occupied both mountain and desert regions west of the low­ recent times among the Yuman speakers of this region, de­ er Colorado River (Hicks 1963), the same potters may have scendants of the Patayan (Rogers 1936). Broadly speaking, in produced both brown-ware and buff- ware ceramics while the lower Colorado River area, Patayan peoples produced occupying these rwo environments during seasonal migra­ light-colored buff-ware ceramics. In northwestern Arizo­ tions. The same may be said of the Pai groups and their an­ na, and the Peninsular Ranges of southern California and cestOrs to the east of the Colorado River. The point here is Baja California, Patayan peoples produced darker colored that material availability is an important component of ce­ brown-ware ceramics. In the Salton Trough desert region ramic manufacture. both buff- ware and brown-ware ceramics were produced, In the classical typologie sense of soumwestern ceramics with brown wares dominant in the west and buff wares (Wheat, Gifford, and Wasley 1958), Patayan ceramics have dominant in the east. been divided into rwo wares-Tizon Brown Ware and Lower A major problem for archaeologists working with Patayan Colorado BuffWare-based on their material and technical ceramics has been the lack of a reliable taxonomy to classify characteristics, but further subdivision into pottery types is these largely undecorated pottery wares into temporally and difficult. The initial definition ofTizon Brown Ware (Dobyns spatially meaningful types (Lyneis 1988). The subdivision of and Euler 1958) was spatially restricted to normwestern Ari­ Patayan ceramics into two nan1ed wares- Tizon Brown Ware zona and explicidy associated with me ethnohistoric groups and Lower Colorado BuffWare-is based primarily on dif­ of tills region. Seven Tizon Brown Ware types were defined, ferences in the materials used in manufacture, the choice of distinguished primarily by the coarse or fine character of which is more likely based on material availability, rather than their inclusions and by surface treatment, such as painting or on cultural selection. In the Peninsular Range, batholithic wiping. Tizon Brown Ware is described as a pottery tradition materials are present which weather into residual clays wim a of shaping vessels by paddle-and-anvil from residual granitic­ high iron content, hence a reddish-brown color results from derived clays, and firing in an uncontrolled oxidizing atmo­ firing in an oxidizing atmosphere. These residual clays con- sphere. Euler (1959) subsequendy expanded the scope of 121 John A. Hildebrand, G. Timothy Gross,)erry Schaifer, and Hector Neff Tizon Brown Ware to include southern California ceramics, to identify the sources of raw materials used in the produc­ because of their technical similarity to northwestern Arizona tion ofPatayan ceramics from the southern California coast, ceramics, but he advised against applying Arizona type names Peninsular Range mountains, and Salton Trough desert. A to­ to the southern California ceramics. Subdivision of southern tal of seventy-five archaeological sherds and twenty-five clay California brown wares into types has been attempted, based samples were analyzed using petrographic thin section and primarily on color, surface treatment, and inclusions (May instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). The petro­ 1978; Rogers 1945b). The difficulty is that there are signifi­ graphic thin sections allow observation of mineral and other cant local variations in the materials used in brown-ware inclusions in the clay, whereas the lNAA allows quantitative manufacture, and, in addition, there is a lack of recognized estimation of elemental abundance. stylistic variation to aid in type definition. Despite years of Archaeological sherds selected for analysis were obtained effort directed at developing a brown-ware typology, Mal­ from six sites that lie along an cast-west transect crossing the colm Rogers expressed his frustration in a letter to E. W Gif­ coastal plain, the Peninsular Range mountains, and the Salton ford dated june 27,1945: Trough desert (figure 10. 1). Detailed petrographic and trace Plain wares of residual clay derived from granitic magmas element studies of regional clay sources and of Patayan ce­ exhibit a bewildering amount of apparendy identical ramic wares allows constraints on the variability of Patayan sherds regardless of culrural origin. As a result I have a ceramic production, and thereby provides insight into Paray­ mass (or better yet a mess) of reddish browns extending in an population mobility, trade, cultural change, and other do­ a great arc out of Lower Califorma through the moun­ mestic activities. Our results suggest that long-range tams ofSouthern California and across the Mohave Desert mto northwestern Arizona. Even after years of east-to-west transport of pottery occurred, with vessels pro­ study, if one should hand me a bag of unidentified sherds duced in the Salton Trough appearing in the Peninsular representing that area, I could identify few as to their Range and on the Pacific coast. little comparable transport geographical origin. (Rogers 1945c:2) of ceramics from west-to-east is observed. Despite these difficulties, it is poss ibl ~ to improve typological systems for these brown wares on the basis of their technical GEOLOGIC BACKGROUND attributes. For example, results presented here suggest that The extreme southern portion of California can be divided southern California brown wares include a ceramic ware into several northeast-southwest trending geologic zones: the produced along the western margin of the Salton Trough that San Diego coastal plains, the Peninsula Range mountains, cannot be classified as Tizon Brown Ware because it was not and the Salton Trough desert. The origin of these zones is n:­ produced from residual clay. We call this class of ceramics Sal­ lated to the adjacent boundary between the oceanic and con­ ton Brown Ware, after the ceramic type Salton Brown de­ tinental tectonic plates. During Mesozoic times (about 150 fined by Rogers (1945b). The key characteristics of this ware Ma), a lithospheric subduction zone was active off the west are the use of reddish-brown firing alluvial clays and sand coast of North America, between the Farallon plate (oceanic) temper or inclusions. Other recent ceramic studies along the and the North American plate (continental). The subduction eastern margin of the Peninsular Range have:: described these zone accreted oceanic volcanic rocks (of island arc origin) to ceramics, but did not recognize them as being a separate ware the southwestern edge of the continent (Santiago Peak Volca­ from T izon Brown Ware (Cook 1986). nics), and emplaced volcanic rocks entirely within the conti­ For Lower Colorado BuffWare, a system of types has been nental crust (Salinia volcanics) as plutonic intrusions (Gastil presented by Waters (1982), based on Rogers (1945b). In de­ 1975). Accretion of oceanic crust and plutonic intrusion cre­ fining these types, the primary ceramic traits were variations ated the Peninsular Range at about roo Ma. These processes in surface treatment, jar rim form, and vessel form. Temper gave the Peninsular Range a strong geochemical gradient, and/or inclusion were of secondary importance in type defi­ with oceanic crustal affinities (basic-gabbroic rocks) grading nition, but these traits are important to subsequent classifica­ into continental crustal affinities (acidic-granitic rocks) in a tion of sherd collections, since on most sherds, rim and vessel west-to-east direction. form are indeterminate. Based on recent excavations, the Wa­ After plutonic emplacement had ended, an era of Penin­ ters/Rogers typological system has been modified for type sular R ange erosion began in Tertiary times. A low coastal geographical and temporal distribution (Schaefer 1994a). plain with substantial river systems running from east-to-west We present preliminary results from an on-going project stretched from the