Basketweaving in the Mesa Verde Tradition

Baskets and related products, such as sandals and mats, have been critical to the lifeways of Native peoples of the Americas for millennia. However, due to poor preservation and a scholarly bias against women and their productive labors, they have been technologies historically neglected until recently in favor of more durable lithic, bone, and ceramic items. In the Mesa Verde region of the northern Southwest, excellent preservation of perishable materials at some sites has afforded archaeologists a rare opportunity to glimpse these sophisticated perishable industries that were so integral to Native American lives and livelihoods. Drawing on detailed analyses of hundreds of these rare objects housed in U.S. museums, this presentation sketches an overview of the forms and functions reflected in surviving basketry products and illustrates some of the details of construction that help discern a long-lived and regionally distinctive Mesa Verde basketweaving tradition into the A.D. 1200s. Comparisons with perishable manufactures from adjacent archaeological regions serve to highlight wider stylistic trends and amplify the skill and sophistication of Mesa Verde weavers, while also reminding us that their legacy remains strong today.