The early Southwestern cultures, i.e. the Hohokam, the Anasazi, and the Mogollon, all had makers of earthenware. The general agreement is that the current Southwestern Puebloan potters are the Anasazi’s descendants (Pritzker 4). The cooking pot was the basis of the Anasazi earthenware culture (Blinman 15). Whilst maize became a major element of Anasazi meals, boiling gradually became more indispensable as a technique for preparing food. The residential setting was ideal for feedback between farming, sedentary living, and ceramics; pottery quickly became an essential constituent of culture in the Southwest (LeBlanc 29). Anasazi earthenware is different from that of other cultures in the Southwest owing to its principal colors, i.e. red, gray,…show more content… 200), and apparently, most of Anasazi earthenware was created from marsh clay (Blinman 15). Often, this sedimentary clay was utilizable because it was ground-sourced, and the clay’s high concentration of iron was what produced the brown exterior color. The hardiness of the brown ceramic ware had improved by A.D. 500; gray earthenware then occurred (Blinman 15). Anasazi artists by A.D. 600 dedicated their energies to gray ceramic ware, leaving brown earthenware out of production (Blinman 15). Apparently, the switch gray ceramics owed to the adaptation of the techniques of production of brown earthenware to novel raw materials. While the production techniques for brown ceramic ware shifted north from the Mogollon territory, ceramics makers continued to look for marsh clay, overlooking for some time the plentiful layers of geologic clays that were available. Testing with geologic clay started during the sixth century, and at the start of the following century, the technology had been perfected – it established the platform for the subsequent six centuries of Anasazi earthenware making (Blinman…show more content… When the Americans took control of the Southwest from the Spaniards and the Mexicans, they essentially disregarded the Pueblos because they were not like the Navajo and the Apache who were outrageously aggressive (the Navajo and the Apache raided homesteads and settler posts). Yet, despite this, Puebloan religion and culture have persisted nearly unaltered, until in the recent decades; the Pueblos – small isles within a sea of an isolated tradition, are realizing that their young are less persuaded to speak the Native dialect, and learn the challenging methods of scratching a livelihood from the earth. In spite of this culture erosion, American Indian Pueblo ceramics making benefits from its great resurgence. The Westward push of the Indians gave rise to another purpose for their ceramics. Always traditional and functional, pottery became a saleable product at a level never seen before. Pueblo Indian pottery, in terms of intrinsic exquisiteness in its forms and decorative art, did not go wasted on the new pioneers and wayfaring Easterners. The railroad significantly influenced the culture of Pueblo pottery, appealing to inquisitive travelers within the artists’ reach. Soon, a lot of Pueblo pottery was being made to be sold as keepsakes (Peterson). Traders served as negotiators, with some
