The late thirteenth-century Southwest was characterized by environmental change and a related dramatic population shift from north to south. The associated appearance, dissemination, and subsequent disappearance of the pottery known as Salado Polychrome has until now been poorly understood.

Crown's exhaustive study provides evidence of a Southwestern Regional Cult, an ideology that unified the disparate groups who came to share the region and resulted in the manufacture of the distinctive pottery over a wide area.

In the most comprehensive study ever undertaken on southwestern pottery, the author examines the context of the recovery of vessels, their probable use, the imagery of the designs, evidence for the mode of production, and independent evidence for the existence of a new religious ideology. Her results suggest the presence of an inclusive ideology that helped to stabilize social relations during this time of upheaval and change in the prehistoric Southwest.

Ceramics and Ideology contributes to both the theory and methodology of the study of the greater Southwest.