Pottery Mound (LA 416) was a late prehistoric village on the bank of the Rio Puerco, west of Los Lunas, New Mexico. It was an adobe pueblo most likely occupied between 1350 and 1500. The site is best known for its 17 kivas, which yielded a large number of murals. A 2007 book, New Perspectives on Pottery Mound Pueblo (Polly Schaafsma 2007) provides a general introduction to the site.
Frank Hibben, a professor at the University of New Mexico (UNM) directed archaeological field schools at the site in 1954 (Ballagh and Phillips 2006), 1955, 1957, and 1958. He also directed a research project funded by the National Science Foundation in 1960–1961 and afterwards led "salvage" digs conducted by volunteers, as late as the 1980s. The "salvage" digs were highly disturbing to the cultural site, leading to complete destruction of historic Pueblo kivas and pottery. The poor planning, excavating, and over "archeological" study has proven to be far more destructive to the sites long-term health and has led to much scrutiny within the Pueblo community. In 1979, UNM anthropology professor Linda Cordell directed a surface sampling, mapping, and testing program at the site. In 2003 UNM began an effort to reorganize the site collections and publish detailed accounts of the fieldwork. In late 2012 UNM deeded the land comprising the "site" to the Isleta Pueblo. [1]
Pottery Mound is named after the large number of potsherds lying on the site surface, and after its low mound of melted adobe. The site was part of the Rio Grande Glaze Ware tradition that began ca. 1315 and continued until the time of the Spanish reconquest of New Mexico in 1693. The site's signature pottery, Pottery Mound Polychrome, includes red and black paint on a background consisting of two slip colors (on bowls, one slip color on the inside and the other on the outside). As is typical in the southern part of the glaze ware production area, Glaze A pottery (simple rim forms) predominates (Franklin 2007).
Pottery Mound has the greatest variety of pottery of any prehistoric site in central New Mexico. Imported pottery includes Hopi decorated and plain wares, white paste wares from the Acoma-Zuni region of west-central New Mexico, and biscuit wares from north-central New Mexico (Franklin 2007).
The Puebloans or Pueblo peoples, are Native Americans in the Southwestern United States who share common agricultural, material, and religious practices. Pueblo, which means "village" in Spanish, was a term originating with the Colonial Spanish, who used it to refer to the people's particular style of dwelling.
A kachina is a spirit being in the religious beliefs of the Pueblo peoples, Native American cultures located in the south-western part of the United States. In the Pueblo cultures, kachina rites are practiced by the Hopi, Zuni, Hopi-Tewa, and certain Keresan tribes, as well as in most Pueblo tribes in New Mexico.
Kewa Pueblo is a federally-recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people in northern New Mexico, in Sandoval County southwest of Santa Fe. The pueblo is recorded as the Santo Domingo Pueblo census-designated place by the U.S. Census Bureau, with a population of 2,456 at the 2010 census.
The University of New Mexico is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, UNM offers bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and professional degree programs. The Albuquerque campus encompasses over 600 acres (240 ha), and there are branch campuses in Gallup, Los Alamos, Rio Rancho, Taos, and Los Lunas. UNM is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, UNM spent $251 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 94th in the nation.
Acoma Pueblo is a Native American pueblo approximately 60 miles (97 km) west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. Four communities make up the village of Acoma Pueblo: Sky City, Acomita, Anzac, and McCartys. These communities are located near the expansive Albuquerque metropolitan area, which includes several large cities and towns, including neighboring Laguna Pueblo. The Acoma Pueblo tribe is a federally recognized tribal entity, whose historic land of Acoma Pueblo totaled roughly 5,000,000 acres (2,000,000 ha). Today, much of the Acoma community is primarily within the Acoma Indian Reservation. Acoma Pueblo is a National Historic Landmark.
Mogollon culture is an archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.
Old Town is the historic original town site of Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the provincial kingdom of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, established in 1706 by New Mexico governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés. It is listed on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties as the Old Albuquerque Historic District, and is protected by a special historic zoning designation by the city. The present-day district contains about ten blocks of historic adobe buildings surrounding Old Town Plaza. On the plaza's north side stands San Felipe de Neri Church, a Spanish colonial church constructed in 1793.
Maria Montoya Martinez was a Native American artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez, her husband Julian, and other family members, including her son Popovi Da, examined traditional Pueblo pottery styles and techniques to create pieces which reflect the Pueblo people's legacy of fine artwork and crafts. The works of Maria Martinez, and especially her black ware pottery, survive in many museums, including the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and more. The Penn Museum in Philadelphia holds eight vessels – three plates and five jars – signed either "Marie" or "Marie & Julian".
The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology is an anthropology museum located on the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The museum was founded in 1932 as the Museum of Anthropology of the University of New Mexico, becoming the first public museum in Albuquerque. In 1972 it was renamed the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology in honor of philanthropists Dorothy and Gilbert Maxwell.
Maria Margarita "Margaret" Tafoya was the matriarch of Santa Clara Pueblo potters. She was a recipient of a 1984 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Edgar Lee Hewett was an American archaeologist and anthropologist whose focus was the Native American communities of New Mexico and the southwestern United States. He is best known for his role in gaining passage of the Antiquities Act, a pioneering piece of legislation for the conservation movement; as the founder and first director of the Museum of New Mexico; and as the first president of the New Mexico Normal School, now New Mexico Highlands University.
John Gaw Meem IV was an American architect based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is best known for his instrumental role in the development and popularization of the Pueblo Revival Style and as a proponent of architectural Regionalism in the face of international modernism. Meem is regarded as one of the most important and influential architects to have worked in New Mexico.
The Estufa is a historic structure on the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was built in 1907–08 by a local social fraternity and has served since 1915 as the primary meeting location of the university's Pi Kappa Alpha chapter. The building's history is steeped in fraternity lore and supposedly no woman has ever seen its interior. It is listed in both the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties and the National Register of Historic Places.
Rio Grande Glaze Ware is a late prehistoric and historic pottery tradition of the Puebloan peoples of New Mexico. The tradition involved painting pots with black paint made with lead ore; as the pots were fired the black paint fused and sometimes ran. The tradition lasted from AD 1315 to 1700. Rio Grande Glaze Ware was made or used in a number of villages from the Santa Fe area to the north end of Elephant Butte Reservoir, and from the valley of the Rio Puerco east to the upper Pecos River Valley.
Frank Cumming Hibben was a well-known archaeologist whose research focused on the U.S. Southwest. As a professor at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and writer of popular books and articles, he inspired many people to study archaeology. He was also controversial, being suspected of scientific fraud during his studies of Paleo-Indian cultures.
Cibola White Ware is a ceramic tradition of Arizona and New Mexico, dating from 1225-1325 CE.
Tonque (TONG-kee) is a large abandoned Pre-Columbian pueblo in Sandoval County, New Mexico, United States, about 7 miles / 12 km southeast of San Felipe Pueblo. It was a site of significant ceramic industry, and may have provided up to one-third of the glaze decorated pottery used in contemporary pueblos in the middle Rio Grande valley.
Scholes Hall is the historic administration building of the University of New Mexico, located on the main campus in Albuquerque. It was the first of many buildings designed for the university by Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem, who helped to cement the Pueblo Revival style as the "official" architecture of the campus. Built in 1934–36 with Public Works Administration funding, it is regarded as one of Meem's most notable designs.
Pueblo pottery are ceramic objects made by the indigenous Pueblo people and their antecedents, the Ancestral Puebloans and Mogollon cultures in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. For centuries, pottery has been central to pueblo life as a feature of ceremonial and utilitarian usage. The clay is locally sourced, most frequently handmade, and fired traditionally in an earthen pit. These items take the form of storage jars, canteens, serving bowls, seed jars, and ladles, serving the needs of daily life. Some utility wares were undecorated except from simple corrugations or marks made with a stick or fingernail, however many examples for centuries were painted with abstract or representational motifs. Some pueblos made effigy vessels, fetishes or figurines such as Cochiti Pueblo. During modern times, pueblo pottery was produced specifically as an art form to serve an economic function. This role is not dissimilar to prehistoric times when pottery was traded throughout the Southwest, and in historic times after contact with the Spanish colonialists.
Coordinates: 34°48′22″N106°44′00″W / 34.80611°N 106.73333°W
