SOLD Native American potters working in the southwest states area of the United States and the Northern area of Mexico have been making the same kind of pottery for millennia. The Acoma Puebla is the oldest continuously occupied area of what is now New Mexico near Albuquerque. With an altitude of nearly 7,000 feet above sea level, occupants of the  "Sky City" puebla were even higher than others, nearly 400 feet above the mesa. In order to climb up to the plateau, residents had to cut into the white rock mesa to get to this fortified position.

The pottery of this area is famous for its geometric patterns, which are very complex, and rendered primarily in black on white forms. The grey pottery is sheathed in white kaolin to make the contrast of colors stand out more starklly; the black is often derived from hematite and/or vegetation boiled down over the flame. 

The potting families of the region are often very close, with generations of the same families involved in the same enterprise. Our pot is signed M. Aragon. Aragons have been potting at Acoma since at least the end of the 19th century. 

5' H.