The Roosevelt Community Development Study, Number 14, Volume 2: Ceramic Chronology, Technology, and Economics

The Roosevelt Community Development Study (RCD) was one of three data recovery mitigative studies that the Bureau of Reclamation funded to investigate the prehistory of the Tonto Basin in the vicinity of Theodore Roosevelt Dam. The series of investigations constituted Reclamation's program for complying with historic preservation legislation as it applied to the raising and modification of Theodore Roosevelt Dam. Reclamation contracted with Desert Archaeology, Inc. to complete the research for this investigation.

The RCD study involved involved the testing and excavation of 27 sites in a four-mile continuous area along the north bank of the Salt River, in the lower Tonto Basin of central Arizona. Sites within the project area exhibited a great range of functional, temporal, and, likely cultural diversity. These sites included two with platform mounds (the Meddler Point and Pyramid Point sites), a 100-room masonry pueblo (the Griffin Wash site), smaller masonry compounds (e.g., the Porcupine site), and pithouse hamlets and farmsteads (e.g., the Hedge Apple and Eagle Ridge sites). Temporal components ranged from the Early Ceramic period (A.D. 100-600) at Locus B of the Eagle Ridge site, through the Roosevelt phase (A.D. 1250-1350) of the Classic period. .

The Center for Desert Archaeology's Anthropological Papers No. 14 consist of three report volumes that present the artifact and environmental analyses. More than 150,000 artifacts were recovered from the RCD excavations. The focus of this volume (Volume 2) is the ceramic artifact collection. The volume's organization and chapter thumbnails are presented in Chapter 5, and Chapter 6 offers an overview of the RCD ceramic collection. Temporal trends in the buffware and decorated brownware ceramics (Chapter 7), nonbuffware decorated ceramics (Chapter 8), utilitarian ceramic temper (Chapter 9), and utilitarian ceramic manufacturing technology (Chapter 10) are then reviewed. Chapter 11 places the early plainware pottery recovered from one RCD site in the context of the Greater Southwest. Chapter 12 uses temper and paste composition data to probe the origins of the inhabitants of one early Colonial period RCD site. Chapter 13 investigates the relationship between shaped ceramic and stone disks and the evidence for textile production recovered from the project. Chapter 14 explores the relationship between utilitarian vessel form and function, and that study leads into the discussion of technological style and methods for addressing cultural identity using utilitarian ceramics that is presented in Chapter 15. Chapter 16 uses a characterization of early Classic period utilitarian ceramic production, distribution, and consumption to model prehistoric Tonto Basin interaction. Finally, Chapter 17 summarizes the results of the chronological, technological, and economic studies given throughout the volume and places them in the context of the project area's settlement over time.

Volume 1 (Chapters 1-4) describes the stone and shell artifacts. Volume 3 (Chapters 18-22) covers the paleobotanical and osteological data.