Chaco and Anasazi Culture Shards

[hawkewind]

Hello,

Here is a cross section of shards I have collected over the years from the 4-Corners area and from Grants, new Mexico area. Notice the difference in style (patterns and pigments) and construction (thickness, banded, etc) which refelct the age and type of sub-culture....also the color of the clay which helps identify the exact locations they were made;









And here we have 800 year old woven strings/rope along with an 800 year old corn cob (notice how small before cross genetic and artifically enhanced crops came about);

[Dicky the Rockhunter]

nice shards ! Have you tryed to age them.

Dicky

[arappaho]

That's some pretty pottery, hawkewind, but really cool cordage!
I'd like to order about 10 feet of it.
Joe

[hawkewind]

Hello,

Glad you like it. I have most dated (and a lot more than is shown). I notated the location found and through style and pottery construction you can get a good idea when you cross reference to archaeology books.....I also took a Southwestern archaeology class at University of Colorado at Boulder and most of the sites I have been to in the southwest were covered in that class....so applied that theoretical and classroom learning to my real life adventures.

It ranges from 800-1200 years old is the short answer

I have also found multiple, perfectly preserved metate and manos (mortar and pestle), both portable and a HUGE fallen rock that had 4 different sized ones in a row (from coarse to fine) that a village used. I left all alone as they were true treasures (pretty remote places where I found them).

I have had the honor of sleeping alone, under a star filled skies, at numerous 800-1200 Chaco and Anasazi villages out here in the west. Some of the remote villages had multiple full ladders, turkey pens still upright, levels of adobe housing units and massive kivas with the main keystone ceiling log still in place along with the stone hearth.

One of my top 3 experiences ever was one of these sites where I hiked for 5 days down a canyon and every night slept under a different ancient village as a lone eagle or hawk would scream overhead to track my progress.

[earthnhands]

what wonderful adventures! thank you for sharing. those shards are amazing! such electric and graphic patterns...full of life. very exciting finds.

wondering about the woven rope. how is that constructed? is there something woven around the outside?
peace,
rebecca

[hawkewind]

Hello,

The rope (looking at it as I type) and it looks like a very fiberous woven center that is very fine with a thin stip of bark woven tightly around the outside. Some of the bark looks to have a resin of some sort on it that varnished the rope.

I found it by sticking my hand under a huge rock, hoping no rattlesnake was inside and pulling this out with blind luck. Seems I was bred to be a rockhound with those instincts!

Once I find my caving pictures I will put those up....been in about 100 caves worldwide including some spectacular ones like rappelling 250 feet down into a shaft in New Zealand, supposedly being the first westerner to see a newly opened pocket in a sea cave in Vietnam where I barely got through (first and only time I have ever taken my shirt off caving) and was presented with the most amazing display I have ever seen of crystal formations that sparkled everywhere.......literally looked like a book on the most impressive cave morphology found on earth....I still dream about that one....and so on

[Dicky the Rockhunter]

I did not realize I was in the vicinity of a trained paleontologist . WOW I must take you out to some of the areas in the south park where the ancestors had many celebrations.

Thanks for the explanation -good
Dicky

[earthnhands]

interesting. i wonder if that center might be horsehair or some sort of plant fiber. would leather been used at that time to bound the outside?

and with those skills you would make a fine catfish grabbler (or whatever they call it, besides crazy)! ;D

[hawkewind]

Noodling!

They didn't have horses but now that you mention it......I just cut a very small section and it looks like plant fiber in the middle

Here are some close-ups;







And here are some close ups of the shards...notice the cross section of the clay itself;

[mollala]

Nice shards. I have a few peices too.