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There is more information from the Edge of the Cedars State Park and Museum:

"The macaw feather sash is a unique artifact. The technique of using feathered cords is known from only a few Basketmaker Period cave sites (A.D. 750-950). The sash was taken from a cave site without documentation of any artifacts associated with it. However, the reported presence of certain pottery types in this cave site suggested that the sash dated to around A.D. 1050-1150. Radio-carbon dating confirmed a date of A.D. 1150.

The feathers are from the Scarlet Macaw, a parrot native to Mexico. This demonstrates that the Ancestral Puebloan people had a vast trading network. Because the method of tying the feathers is understood primarily from an Aztec artifact in Mexico, it is possible that the feathered cords were made there and traded in to our area. However, buried macaws have been found in several locations in the southwest, suggesting that some live birds were traded - so the feathered cords may have been made locally.

The color and fragility likely indicate the sash was used for ceremonial purposes. One of the tings seldom seen in prehistoric artifacts is how colorful they might have been. It is startling to see how beautifully these bright colors are preserved."

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More reading can be found from an article called "Origins of an Anasazi Scarlet Macaw Feather Artifact". Nancy Borson, Frances Berdan, Edward Strak, Jack States, Peter J. Wettstein
American Antiquity, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Jan., 1998)

"The artifact was constructed of 12 ropes of twisted yucca fiber; 11 remain. These ropes each roughly 5-6 mm in diameter and 470-495 mm in length, served as a structural base of the artifact to which were attached the tassel-eared (S. aberti) squirrel pelt, a buckskin strap, and more than 2,000 scarlet macaw feathers"

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