The Roosevelt Platform Mound Study has generated a large collection of artifacts. These were analysed at our temporary field lab in Tonto Basin. The following slides offer a sample of the material that has been recovered.
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Pendants made from rare materials such as turquoise and imported marine shell are a common type of fine good found in Salado sites. Although many rare object are found as offerings in burials, others are found in rooms on top of the mounds, suggesting that residents of the mound may have had greater wealth than others in the community. |
| Other objects point to cultural ties that seem to transcend time and space. The three Zuni fetish carvings shown at the top were collected 100 years ago by F.H. Cushing. The five other specimens bearing striking resemblance were made over 500 years earlier and were found in sites excavated by ASU in Tonto Basin. | |
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Tools for cutting, scraping and hunting were made using chipped stone technology (flintknapping). A prized material for producing bifacially-flaked projectile points was obsidian (volcanic glass) from sources near Flagstaff and above the Mogollon Rim. Other more utilitarian tools were made from local, less valuable, materials such as quartzite and rhyolite. |
| Perforated disks made from stone or sherds from broken pots were probably used as spindle whorls. | |
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Much of the diet of the Salado came from domestic crops. Ground-stone tools such as this mano and metate are an important technology associated with agricultural societies. |
| Most of the ceramics used by prehistoric people in the southwest were undecorated. Plainwares such as these Salado Red jars and bowls were locally produced and would have been used in daily domestic activities. | |
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Decorated vessels make up a much smaller portion of the collection, but are often recovered intact from burials and from rooms that were fortunate enough to escape the attention of looters. Many of the earlier decorated ceramics in Tonto Basin were produced by Mogollon potters to the north and east and were imported. |
| By the late 1200's, however, locally produced
decorated wares such as this Pinto Polychrome jar and Gila Polychrome Bowl
began to increase in popularity, eventually eclipsing the use of imported
wares. |
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| An extremely rare find from the Bass Point Mound is this fragment of a Gila Polychrome vessel bearing an anthropomorphic design resembling Katsina masks known from areas above the Mogollon Rim. Such finds suggest that the Salado of Tonto Basin may have participated in a much larger sphere of cultural interaction extending beyond the local drainages of the Tonto and Salt Rivers. | |
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11/27/95- phm