f all the artifacts made by prehistoric peoples of the Southwest, no single class of items is as useful for tracing the development and movement of prehistoric cultures as basketry. Baskets are inherently functional as well as naturally adapted to artistic embellishment. The three basic techniques used in basketry production—twining, coiling, plaiting—were employed selectively by various cultural groups and embellished in a variety of ways by each. Specific techniques of twisting and binding fibers were handed down from mothers and aunts to daughters and nieces over generations, a fact that allows archeologists to trace culturally-specific basketry traditions through time and space.
For these reasons, I was excited and delighted when Grand Canyon river guide Barbara "Smitty" Smith told me about an almost complete basket that had been found by one of her passengers near Deer Creek in the summer of 1992. A female passenger was hiking around on a steep talus slope after a severe rainstorm near the popular river camp known as Poncho's Kitchen when she encountered the basket lying out on a slope. From the fresh appearance of the basket, it was obvious that it had been flushed-out from some sheltered upslope location by the recent rain. The passenger took the artifact back to camp. After some discussion, the crew convinced her to return it to where it had been found. Smitty accompanied her to the spot. Since it had been found in a very exposed location, and the original source of the artifact could not be determined, Smitty decided to cache the basket in a dry location under a nearby rock.
Smitty returned to check on the basket a couple of times during the ensuing year and noted that it was becoming progressively darker and more brittle. Concerned that the basket would eventually disintegrate if left in its current location, Smitty decided to tell me about it in hopes that I would study it and learn something valuable about the past. I am eternally grateful to Smitty for her concern and foresight, because this artifact—which I have nicknamed "Poncho's basket"—has indeed proven to be a very unusual and interesting addition to our inventory of prehistoric Grand Canyon artifacts. As with many serendipitous discoveries, it has also raised significant new questions and made an unexpected contribution to our understanding of Grand Canyon prehistory.

The number of prehistoric baskets recovered from Grand Canyon to date is exceedingly small. An inventory of basketry artifacts in the Grand Canyon Museum Collection revealed a grand total of 50 basketry items, of which 33 were modern baskets. Of the remaining 17 prehistoric items, seven were fragments collected outside of Grand Canyon National Park. The remaining 10 items include four small fragments and five partial or almost whole baskets. Only one is truly intact.
Poncho's basket is a type known as a "twilled ring basket" which was commonly manufactured by ancestral Pueblo peoples (Anasazi). Twilling is a type of plaiting (weaving) in which the woven elements cross over and under multiple strands at a time, producing an attractive herringbone pattern. Poncho's basket is manufactured with a 3/3 twill technique, which means that the plaited elements cross over and under 3 strands at a time. Two of the ten previously collected prehistoric basketry samples from Grand Canyon are plaited, but none are as finely crafted as Poncho's nor do they employ the 3/3 twill technique.
The construction of Poncho's basket followed the typical Puebloan pattern: a flat plaited mat was produced without finished edges and subjected to prolonged immersion in water to make it pliable. The mat was then molded to a desired shape (tray or bowl) and pushed through and around a prepared hoop of Squaw Bush (Rhus sp.) or willow (Salix sp.). Terminal elements of the plaited mat were attached to the hoop by a technique called twining, in which a single cord is woven back and forth around the stationary plaited elements. The excess matting was then trimmed off and the basket was ready for use.
The type of basket and manufacturing technique of this basket strongly pointed towards production by ancestral Puebloans, but its surprisingly fresh appearance suggested that it might be much younger than the widespread Pueblo II occupation of Grand Canyon. If the basket was less than 600 or 700 years old, then it might have been a trade item for late prehistoric Havasupai or Southern Paiute occupants of the Canyon. The only way to find out was to submit a small sample for radiocarbon dating. There was one major problem: how to pay for it. Radiocarbon dating is expensive, especially when using a technique called accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) which requires only a very small piece of organic material for dating. A standard AMS date costs $600-$800 per sample, depending on the laboratory (there are only a handful of radiocarbon labs in the world that can process AMS dates). National Park Service budget constraints were so severe that no funding could be procured.

In September 1995, I had the pleasure to accompany a Grand Canyon Field Institute river trip, chartered through Canyon Explorations. While standing near the Nankoweap granaries, I mentioned to the group that the granaries had received little study from professional archeologists, other than a cursory evaluation of construction methods and direct observations of what little remained of their contents. Our conversation then turned to the general state of research in national parks. While bemoaning the lack of financial support for research in the parks, I used the basket as an example of how a little funding could go far towards answering significant questions about the prehistory of Grand Canyon. Unbeknownst to me, that casual remark lit a fire in the hearts and minds of my companions. At the end of the trip, they announced that they had collected more than enough donations from trip participants and crew to cover the cost of dating Poncho's basket! Their generosity moved me to tears.
Due to unforeseen bureaucratic black holes, it took a while for the money to be deposited in a donation account, set up by Grand Canyon Association specifically to fund archeological research at Grand Canyon National Park. Finally, late last spring, the money and a small piece of Poncho's basket was transferred to Beta Analytic, Inc., a commercial radiocarbon laboratory in Florida. They in turn shipped the sample to Zurich, Switzerland, for AMS processing. Three months later we got the results: 750 + 50 BP (years before present). When calibrated to calender years with a 95% probability, this date translates to AD 1215-1305. The date was exactly what I had NOT expected. Standard interpretations of Grand Canyon prehistory tell us that the Canyon was occupied by Puebloan peoples until about AD 1150-1200, at which point they "abandoned" the Canyon, presumably moving southeast into the Little Colorado drainage area. A few sites in the eastern Canyon have been dated as late as AD 1225, but these are considered exceptions. As far as we know, these late sites are confined to the Canyon's eastern most areas. Following an occupational hiatus of about a century, or sometime after AD 1300, ancestors of the Havasupai/ Walapai and Southern Paiute Indians moved into the canyon from the west and northwest respectively. This is the standard archeological reconstruction of past events.
Of course, modern-day tribes in this area have their own ideas about the nature and timing of past events. The Hopi maintain that they never abandoned the Canyon, they just changed the way in which they used it. The Havasupai and Walapai, on the other hand, claim association with Grand Canyon since the beginning of time.
While one mid-13th century date on a single basket cannot resolve or prove anything conclusively, it does lead us down some interesting new avenues. For one thing, it strongly suggests that people were still in the Canyon during the so-called 13th-century abandonment. Whether it be Puebloan farmers camped at the nearby "Back Eddy Ruin," or Puebloan traders passing through, or Havasupai using Puebloan baskets, we cannot say for sure. The date strongly supports a Puebloan origin for this basket, however, because twilled-ring baskets are the most common form of basketry among the Puebloan peoples during P III times (AD 1150- 1300), and prehistoric Great Basin cultures did not employ this technique.
In addition to the dating of this basket, this study highlights an important point: even after thirty years of systematic investigation by National Park Service archeologists and other researchers, our understanding of Grand Canyon prehistory is far from complete. The discoveries and active participation of our visitors have made and continue to make significant contributions towards furthering our understanding of the past.

Helen Fairley

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Our knowledge of this basket would be non-existent if not for the anonymous passenger on the Arizona River Runners trip and her foresighted guide, Barbara "Smitty" Smith. The concern and generosity of all members of the Grand Canyon Field Institute's September 1995 Colorado River expedition made it possible for us to date and analyze the basket, thereby establishing its proper place in Grand Canyon prehistory. A special thank you is due to Mr. Chris Herbert, past president and current member of the Grand Canyon Association Board of Directors, and a member of the 1995 river expedition, whose inspiration, enthusiasm, and personal generosity lit the spark that made the rest of this story possible.