A Case Study of Protohistoric and Historic Brownwares from La Junta de los Ríos, Presidio County, Texas, and Ojinaga Municipality, Chihuahua

This monograph presents data on late-period (A.D. 1450–1760) ceramics from villages in the vicinity of the confluence of the Rio Grande and Chihuahua’s Río Conchos, an area called La Junta de los Ríos or La Junta by early Spaniards. Ceramic sherds in archaeological repositories from four sites along the Rio Grande in proximity to the confluence—Millington/San Cristobal (41PS14), Polvo/Tapacolmes (41PS21), Kopenborger (41PS16), and San Bernardino (CH-E7-2)—were analyzed through both instrumental neutron activation analysis and petrography during the project. The former uncovered an unexpected compositional variability among the samples, given that all sites from which the specimens were found occur along the Rio Grande, while the latter was distinguished by the presence of a wide range of paste groups and tempering constituents. Overall, these findings indicate a robust brownware tradition was in place at La Junta during the period under study, strengthening thoughts on local manufacture originally espoused by J. Charles Kelley, a preeminent archaeological researcher of the region. Although the project did not identify discrete locations where clay and tempering materials were procured, patterning in the data from each of the analyses offers the beginnings of such an understanding.

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