Sierra Vista Trail Project

This project funds research required to maintain compliance with the Permian Basin Programmatic Agreement. It supports a pioneering study of brownware (an earthenware pottery) to trace how it was acquired and used over time by prehistoric and historic peoples in southeastern New Mexico. By tracking brownware compositional groups from their origins to their final deposition, the study will clarify connections between Plains hunter‑gatherers and pottery‑producing communities in central and southern New Mexico. It will also define the role ceramics played in hunter‑gatherer lifeways through time.