In a series of eight former articles, published elsewhere, the writer has described the designs on many of the prehistoric pottery vessels in the collection of the Museum of Archaeology of The Western State College of Colorado Of these eight articles, the last three1 have dealt with the designs on Mimbres vessels. Of the thirty-four vessels of this culture illustrated in these three papers, all but eight show naturalistic art in their decoration. The present, and subsequent papers will deal with geometric forms exclusively.

The Mimbres culture developed in southwestern New Mexico in the valley of the Mimbres River and adjacent regions. It is one of the smallest of the more or less definitely delimited southwestern culture areas. From the standpoint of variety of design, the black-on-white type of pottery reached its greatest degree of specialization in this region in prehistoric times.