TYPE: Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff

DATE: A.D. 850 - 950 (Wallace, 1995;465)

COMMON FORMS: Regular shaped, as well as, helmet (or exaggerated flare-rim) bowls, jars with “normal” rounded bottoms, many with flared rims. Censers.

COMMON BACKGROUND COLORS: Buff slipped.

EXTERIOR TREATMENTS: Hand smoothed (no scoring or incising on bowl or jar exteriors).

PASTE: Hand-smoothed, may or may not be porous, with variable amounts of observable mica that usually is muscovite (silver mica).

DESIGN PLACEMENT: Exteriors of jars with the design beginning well below the jars maximum diameter. Bowls usually have primary designs painted on the interiors, often with secondary designs (trailing lines) painted on the exteriors.

COMMON DESIGNS: Finer line work and motifs, repeated elements often arranged in concentric bands to give a spiral or whirling effect. Exterior bowl designs usually have four to eight (sometimes more or less, sometimes paired or tripled) equally spaced trailing lines. Opposed "keys" no longer used. The "key motif" became "wavy edged solid", and "ticked solid" in this phase. Concentric, zig-zag or alternating straight connected to wavy lines appear in this phase.

TEMPER: Most Santa Cruz vessels have observable mica on the surfaces.

COMMON DESIGN LAYOUTS: The offset quarter design begins at this time. The “fringe” design which began one phase earlier and lasted one phase later was at it’s finest during this phase.

KEY DIFFERENCE(S): Vessels no longer have any scoring, but many have multiple “trailing lines”. Designs are finer than earlier (and later) types.  Santa Cruz (Phoenix) is hand-smoothed, while Rillito (Tucson) is tool polished, consequently the surface of Santa Cruz vessels will look and feel rougher to the touch.

COMMENTS: Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff was manufactured in and around the Phoenix basin, while its counterpart Rillito Red-on-Brown (and Rillito Red-on-White) was manufactured in and around the Tucson Basin.

1Y Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff flare-rim bowl, with an offset quartered layout. 

The interesting design consists of fine wavy and straight vertical line hatching, and negative "thunderbirds".  The exterior has six equally spaced trailing lines.

Approximate Dimensions: 7 1/2" or 19cm. by 2 3/4" or 7cm.

2N Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff helmet bowl with a sun design in the bottom

and concentric stars radiating to the rim.  It also has at least six equally spaced trailing lines.

3N Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff deep recurved flare-rim bowl.

4Y Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff Flare-rim Bowl.

Approximate Dimensions: 12 1/2" by 6"

CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE FLARE-RIM BOWLS

5N Hohokam Santa Cruz Shallow bowl showing four pairs of copulating humans.

Approximate Dimensions: 15 1/2" or 39.4 cm by 3 1/2" or 9 cm

CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE SHALLOW BOWLS

6N Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff Scoop

Approximate Dimensions: 5 1/4 " by 3 1/2 " by 1 3/4"

7N Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff Bowl

Approximate Dimensions: 3 1/4" by 2 1/4"

8Y Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff Scoop

Approximate Dimensions: 8" by 5" by 2 7/8"

9Y Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff handled vessel possibly representing a basket.

Approximate Dimensions: 4" by 3 1/4"

10Y Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff Shouldered Fare-Rim Bowl

Approximate Dimensions: 4 5/8" by 1 5/8"

11Y Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff Seed Jar

Approximate Dimensions: 3 1/4" by 1 7/8"

12N Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff Jar

Approximate Dimensions:  4 1/2" by 3 1/4"

13Y Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-Buff plate or shallow bowl with lizards.

Approximate Dimensions: 11 3/4" by 2 3/8"

14Y Hohokam Santa Cruz Red-on-White jar, painted with bands of frogs and fringe.

Approximate Dimensions: 6 1/2" or 16.5cm. by 5 1/2" or 14cm.

This page last revised: 09/25/2011

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