Ritual and the individual: An analysis of Cibicue Painted Corrugated pottery from Grasshopper Pueblo, Arizona

Abstract

The focus of this thesis is twofold. First, multiple lines of evidence are used to reconstruct the role that Cibicue Painted Corrugated pottery played at Grasshopper Pueblo, a fourteenth century pueblo located in east-central Arizona. An analysis of provenience-based information, functional attributes, and the design work on Cibicue Painted Corrugated suggests that these pots may have been used as personal containers, reserved for use in ritual contexts and buried with their owner upon death. Second, a morphological and stylistic comparison of Cibicue Painted Corrugated to Cibicue Polychrome is conducted to clarify the confusion that surrounds the Cibicue typology. In much of the archaeological literature, Cibicue Painted Corrugated pottery is conflated with Cibicue Polychrome, a type that dates slightly later. The differences that emerge through the course of this analysis support the classification of the two as separate pottery types.