Basketry

The finest Ancestral Puebloan baskets were produced at an early stage of their culture before they started making pottery. Using the spiral twilled technique, they wove handsomely decorated baskets of many sizes and shapes and used them for carrying water, storing grain, and even cooking. They waterproofed their baskets by lining them with pitch and cooked in them by dropping heated stones into the water. The most common coiling material was split willow but sometimes rabbitbrush or skunkbush was used. After the introduction of pottery about A.D. 550, the quality and quantity of basketry declined.

 

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