The Brown and the Gray: Pots and Population Movement in East-Central Arizona

Decorated ceramics have long been used as markers of trade, population movement, and ethnic identity in the American Southwest. Undecorated ceramics have also functioned as ethnic markers. Brown wares have been equated with mountain people and gray wares with plateau people. Most of these studies have not distinguished the movement of pots from the movement of people. In this study, undecorated ceramics are shown to be useful in tracing population movement over short distances within a region, while decorated ceramics are more useful in detecting movement between regions.