The Anasazi, or “Ancestral Puebloans” as contemporary anthropologists refer to them created pottery for utilitarian uses beginning about 200 A.D. They cooked in it, stored food in it, ate and drank from it. And, as anyone who has spent much time looking at the pottery from Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon or any of the early living sites of the early inhabitants knows, they spent an inordinate amount of time and effort decorating these vessels with beautiful designs.