Native peoples of the American Southwest have decorated their pottery with beautiful painted designs for more than a thousand years. Anthropologists have long recognized that, in all cultures, the materiel of daily life - including the way that style is used to embellish certain types of artifacts - can play a critical role in social relations by communicating important messages about individual and group identity. In this groundbreaking study, which focuses on Puebloan pottery made during the ninth century A. D. , Michelle Hegmon relates differences in pottery design style in southwestern Colorado and northeastern Arizona to differences in broad social and cultural developments in the two areas. Her innovative theoretical and analytical approach and her application of archaeological data to questions of broad anthropological concern will be of value to archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and all those interested in the development of prehistoric Puebloan pottery.