EXAMPLE 2 Patterns on Pueblo Pottery

The pitchers in Figures 19.14abc are from thousand-year-old Pueblo sites in what is now the Southwestern United States. Consider the patterns on the bodies of the pots, which continue on the back sides. Let’s suppose that they could be unwrapped and continued as strip patterns, but we’ll disregard the patterns on the handles.

What are the patterns on the pots? We immediately come up against the question of the perfectness of the patterns. In Figure 19.14c, the rendering of the jagged pattern near the top of the pitcher is done rather crudely, and the pattern lower down is not done much better. Is this lack of pattern? It hardly seems so—more likely, there was just a lack of perfection in executing a pattern in the mind of the potmaker. Generosity compels us to opt for this latter interpretation for our analysis.

Similarly, in Figure 19.14d, if we regard the pot as having a single pattern going around the pot, we notice that the top part of the pattern is not matched exactly to the bottom part. Also, it’s not clear if the vertical line in the middle of the pot face is supposed to be part of the pattern, or whether it is also reproduced on the unseen part. To be strict, we would decide at least that there are two separate patterns (upper and lower) separated by a white-line edge. But there also appears to be an attempted match-up between the two parts (however inexactly done) that we may not want to deny. We could attribute the variations (including the vertical line) to artistic license and consider the pot as having a single pattern around it.

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We follow the flowchart in Figure 19.13 on page 799 and get the following results:

  • Figure 19.14a: Is there a vertical reflection? No. Is there a horizontal reflection or glide reflection? No. Is there a half-turn? No. Hence, the pattern is . In fact, it looks a lot like the example at far right in Figure 19.13.
  • Figure 19.14b: Is there a vertical reflection? No. Is there a horizontal reflection or glide reflection? No. Is there a half-turn? Yes. The pattern is . (The “jags” may represent zigzagging lightning bolts.)
  • Figure 19.14c (top band): Is there a vertical reflection? No (notice the little “teeth” on the lower left and upper right edges only). Is there a horizontal reflection? No. Is there a half-turn? Yes. The pattern is .
  • Figure 19.14c (lower band): Is there a vertical reflection? No. Is there a horizontal reflection? No. Is there a half-turn? Yes. This pattern too is .
  • Figure 19.14d (lower band only): Is there a vertical reflection? Yes. Is there a horizontal reflection? Yes. The pattern is .
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Figure 19.14: Figure 19.14 Pottery from the Late Pueblo II Phase (culture), in the Southwestern United States (A.D. 1050–1150), and a more recent piece. (All vessels are owned by Logan Museum of Anthropology, Beloit College, which graciously supplied the photos and granted permission for their reproduction.)

Women made the pots in the Pueblo culture, and they strongly preferred the symmetry of half-turns. Very few of their pots have any reflection symmetry, neither mirror or glide reflection. The avoidance of reflection symmetry was a consistent feature of ancient pottery of the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.

The pot in Figure 19.14d, as you might then surmise, is much more recent.