Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

This paper has been primarily concerned with Tizon Brown Ware and Lower Colorado Buff Ware, but Great Basin Brown Ware (Bellinger 1986) also occurs, primarily north of the Mojave River. We have much to learn about the distributions of these three wares, and the implications of assemblages that include more than one of them. We can characterize the materials of the sherds in each ware, and ask if they are consistent with the proposition of localized production. If we keep to a rather narrow definition of Lower Colorado Buff Ware, we can distinguish some of the "intrusive" pottery, vessels that were moved, by transport or by exchange, some distance. In the groups of brown ware sherds, we can look for clues to vessel form, and perhaps function; we can examine the roles that ceramics played in different kinds of sites in the Mojave Desert and in different areas of the desert. And as we acquire more dated contexts for pottery in the Mojave Desert, we can begin to examine these issues in a temporal framework. But for now, the context will have to date the pottery: The temporal range of, and time-sensitive changes within, Tizon Brown Ware remain almost unknown.