Primitive Skills

The Oldest Potters Clay in the Southwest is Disappearing

I go looking for the oldest potters clay in the American Southwest near Tucson, Arizona only to find that this clay is rapidly disappearing beneath concrete. Explore the remote prehistory of ceramics and the long ancient ceramic traditions of the Tucson area.

To learn more about how to locate and process wild clay check out my online class "Wild Clay 101" at this link

Some images in this video came from the following sources:

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Making Sinagua/Anasazi Primitive Pottery With Native Clay

The prehistoric Sinagua or ancestral Hopi lived in the Flagstaff/Camp Verde areas 950 years ago. Like most ancient tribes of the American Southwest, the Sinagua manufactured beautiful plain ware pottery of different sizes and shapes. In this video Jeff Martin shows you how to craft a Prehistoric Sinagua style jar.

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Earth and Fire: Anasazi Style Pottery

Watch artist and primitive potter Kelly Magleby learn about and make Anasazi style pottery. Kelly went into the backcountry of Southern Utah with a knife and a buckskin to try to learn about Anasazi Pottery by doing it the way the Anasazi did it. "Earth and Fire" is a documentary poem about a passionate artist. Funded by Primitive Found (.org) Music by Jason Shaw @ audionautix.com Check out Kelly's art at anasazipottery.net This the 1st video of 2016 for The Talking Fly short documentary project by filmmaker Steve Olpin, Enjoy!
Check out a pottery film I did a few years back:

Learn Corrugated Pottery From Master Potter John Olsen

Master Potter John Olsen has been making Anasazi replica pottery for longer than I have been alive. He is well known as the master of corrugated pottery. In this video he talks about how he became a potter and teaches how to make authentic Anasazi corrugated pottery from his home in Boulder, Utah.

John often teaches pottery with Kelly Magleby, her workshops are listed here

He usually teaches pottery at the following primitive skills gatherings.
Winter Count –
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Check out my in-person pottery workshops and online masterclasses to improve your pottery making skills.

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How to Make Primitive Pottery

Follow me as I guide you through the whole process of making primitive pottery, some of my other videos show more details on parts of the process but this video shows the entire process of creating primitive pottery. Please post questions below and I will answer.

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To learn more about how to make pottery like the ancients look at my online workshops at

You can purchase a gourd scraper like the one I use in this video

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Anasazi Style Pottery Firing

In this video Kiowa Sage from Primitive Lifeways shows you how to fire Anasazi style pottery. This pottery type is a late prehistoric southwestern style.

First posted by C. Dean Wilson 2013

"Pottery assigned to the Southern Colorado Plateau or Anasazi culture as defined here includes many of the regional traditions long noted for groups described as the Anasazi and more recently as Ancestral Pueblo. The term Southern Colorado Plateau is used here to differentiate these groups from those known to occupy areas in the Northern Colorado Plateau such as that associated with the Fremont culture which covers much of Utah. The Southern Colorado Plateau culture area includes pottery associated with a variety of gray, white, and red ware pottery types long produced over much of Southwest Colorado, Northeast Arizona, Northwest New Mexico, and Southwest Utah. Developments noted for most of the Southern Colorado Plateau or Anasazi culture area most closely conform to sequences of developments defined for the Pecos Classification System which imply relatively similar changes in ceramics and other material culture from the Basketmaker III to the Pueblo III period (Kidder 1927).

Distinct trajectories of development, particularly for the decorated wares, can be used to define different branches of the Anasazi (Wilson in progress). The westernmost branch of the Anasazi reflect the very long sequence of related but diverse organic painted forms associated with the westernmost traditions of the Anasazi including the Tusayan, Little Colorado, Virgin Kayenta, and the organic painted series of the Chuska regional traditions. The north central branch reflects the long production of mineral painted forms, and then a shift to distinct organic painted types during the Pueblo II/Pueblo III transition associated with the Chaco series of the Cibola, the Mesa Verde, some periods and areas of the Upper San Juan, and in part with the Chuska tradition. The southernmost portion of the Colorado Plateau for which earlier sequences parallel that previously described for the north central branches, is later distinguished by the continuation of production of elaborately decorated forms decorated in mineral paint after the late Pueblo II period. The eastern most regions of this culture area are associated with a more conservative tradition of simply decorated organic painted forms that included the southern Upper San Juan and Gallina regions."

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