woodworth: geological expedition' to brazil axd chile. 133 



The hammer-stones are of a simple, world-wide type, slightly pitted 

 on two sides where held between the thimib and fingers. The smooth- 

 ing-stones are from two to three inches in length, and show on one or 

 more sides evidences of rubbing and polishing. They were in all 

 probability used in the manufacture of pottery, for smoothing the 

 irregularities of the surface, both inside and out. The celt is of basalt, 

 having a length of a little over six inches, with a width at the cutting 

 edge of two and a quarter inches, and tapering somewhat toward the 

 butt. One side of the implement shows somewhat greater convexity 

 than the other and the entire surface was finished by grinding. 



The pottery sherds collected represent four somewhat different 

 types. The first of these is a smooth, reddish ware, undecorated, 

 and with a thickness of three eighths of an inch. It was apparently 

 used for bowl-shaped vessels of rather small size. A second type is a 

 very coarse, red ware, from one half to five eighths of an inch in 

 thickness. The broken quartz and gravel used for tempering is 

 extremely coarse. The surface of the vessels was covered with thumb- 

 prints, often of large size, where the coils had been pressed together 

 in the process of manufacture. The vessels were probably of large 

 size. A third type of sherd shows a heavy and rather coarse gray 

 ware, the surface covered by a buff or yellowish slip. This ware is 

 nearly an inch in thickness, and the smoothed surface is decorated by 

 painted designs in red. The figures are rectilinear, and seem to be 

 zigzags and grecques. These vessels also must have been of large 

 size. A single sherd also with painted decoration but of much thinner 

 ware, and evidently a fragment of a small bowl, with decoration 

 consisting of cross-hatching around the margin only, may be regarded 

 as related to the thick, heavy ware in type. One other type is repre- 

 sented by a sherd of dark gray ware, very hard burned. In thickness 

 it is similar to the smooth red ware, but the surface is decorated by 

 parallel rows of thumb-nail impressions. 



The character of the sherds would seem to indicate that the site 

 was one belonging to Indians of the Guarani group of the Tupi. These 

 Indians are known to have occupied the region in this immediate 

 vicinity at the period of the earliest European contact, and sherds 

 resembling the second and third types here described, have been found 

 widely throughout this coastal region as well as over large areas of 

 Uruguay and along the lower Parana. 



