The Coronado Project Archaeological Investigations: A Description of Ceramic Collections from the Railroad and Transmission Line Corridors

During 1974-1978, the Museum of Northern Arizona conducted an extensive archaeological mitigation program for the Salt River Project prior to the construction of the Coronado Generating Plant near St. Johns, Arizona, and its energy corridors, the Coronado-Silver King Transmission Line and the Coronado Coal-Haul Railroad. Ceramic material from those corridors was separated from remaining project data and reported on herein. Over 148 ceramic-bearing sites produced a wide range of decorated and undecorated whitewares, redwares, and brownwares from this area of the American Southwest that is pivotal between the Anasazi region to the north and the Mogollon region to the south.
A discussion of cultural affiliation, exchange, and chronology of the study area through ceramic evidence from several sites is presented (human occupancy ca. Basketmaker III - Pueblo IV periods); and the larger problem of Southwestern ceramic typology is addressed, both in a narration of traditional problems, and in a typological consensus test employing Cibola whitewares. A thorough petrographic study of ceramic thin-sections was made to test specific hypotheses.