Vast regions of the prehistoric American Southwest were characterized by complex village societies which produced predominantly plainware ceramics. Archaeologists to date have considered these ceramics without decoration to be of little use in dating sites or in testing models of prehistoric social organization. The proposed research project will begin to remedy this situation by developing a new method, Integrated Ceramic Analysis, which will be used to systematically test relationships between sites using plainware ceramics. This method will combine typological atributes such as vessel form and decoration with compositional attributes such as the type of clay and temper. This research is experimental. It will use ceramics from four sites in the Payson area of central Arizona from the period A.D. 1000.1200 to test the applicability of the method. Since plainwares are very common, an integrative approach has much potential. If successful, it will be applicable to other sites in the Southwest and by extension to areas around the world. It could provide archaeology with a new research tool.
