More information provided by NAU American Southwest Virtual Museum:
Hohokam Buff Ware was the primary decorated type made in the Salt and Gila river valleys of central and southern Arizona. Although production centered in these areas, distribution of Hohokam Buff Ware reached west to the Gila Bend area, east to the San Francisco River, north to the Verde Valley, and south to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Archaeological Culture: Hohokam
Date Range: A.D. 500-1375.
Construction: By paddle and anvil.
Firing: In a neutral to oxidizing atmosphere; fire clouds common.
Core Color: Black, gray, buff, or brick-red.
Temper: Coarse-grained mica schist, sand, and calcium carbonate nodules.
Surface Finish: Smoothed and slipped with a buff wash or creamy slip (early types unslipped); wiped or lightly polished; mica often highly visible; porous if vegetative material was present in the clay; incised types smoothed on the interior only.
Paste Color: Buff, pink, white, tan, light brown, gray brown, and gray.
Forms: Bowls and jars with flaring rims, Gila-shouldered jars, ollas, plates, rectangular vessels, scoops, censors.
Decoration:
- Paint: Bright red, dull red, or purplish red.
- Pigments: Iron oxide mineral paint.
- Design: All types of lines, repeated elements in parallel bands or panels, interlocking rectangular or curved scrolls, some negative designs, banding, panels of straight lines, hatching, concentric circles, chevrons and triangles, trailing lines, and fringe.
- Incising: Bowl exteriors of earlier types; horizontal, patterned, or unpatterned.
Other Names: Middle Gila Buff Ware.
Comparisons: Estrella Red-on-gray is indistinguishable from other contemporaneous red-on-brown types, except by provenance. Schist temper is diagnostic of all Hohokam Buff Ware except for Casa Grande red-on-buff, which has distinctive Hohokam paste and designs. Coconino Red-on-buff and Winona Red-on-buff have Hohokam designs, but lack schist temper and are geographically separate.
Oppelt (2007:123): Hohokam Buff Ware (AD 500-1400) The types of this ware were coiled and thinned by the paddle and anvil method, fired in an oxidizing atmosphere, and decorated with mineral paint. The temper in all types was crushed micaceous rock and quartz sand in varying proportions. There are a wide variety of forms in the types of Hohokam Buff. The flared rim bowl occurred in the later types and the Gila-shouldered bowl was the hallmark of Sacaton Red-on-buff. The paint on all types is a red ocherous hematite. Most Hohokam Buff types are unslipped. Caliche was added to the paste to produce a light colored fabric. A shift from a brown-gray color to a rosy pink porous paste took place in the Colonial Period. The early types had a gray unslipped surface. Later a slip was applied to Sacaton Red-on-buff and better firing control produced the buff color. In addition to the painted decoration incising is present. It is most common on Gila Butte Red-on-buff. This ware was produced mainly in the middle Gila River Valley. It is distributed in a much wider region, west to the Gila Bend area and east to the San Francisco River. From north to south it is found from the Verde Valley to just below the U.S-Mexican border. Dates of these types are not firm because there is little tree-ring datable wood at the sites. There are 12 types of this ware listed in Colton's List of Pottery Types. (Major sources: Haury 1976; Wallace in Abbott 2001; Antieau 1981)
