8 BULLETIN 14 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



No complete bowl of this type was recovered. In another cave were 

 unearthed fragments of large, shallow bowls with anthropomorphic 

 clay figurine handles similar to the Ciguayan shallow bowls from 

 Anadel, on the north shore of the bay. A few shards of decorated 

 pottery of the characteristic Tainoan rectilinear incised ware were 

 recovered at the " Kailroad " cave, but such fragments were far out- 

 numbered by innumerable fragments of shallow bowls and of pot- 

 sherds of plain ware, for the most part, of a thin, well-fired type. 

 Here, too, were found two large fossil conch shell gouges or celts 

 of the Barbados shoehorn type. Another interesting discovery was 

 that of a many faceted polishing implement of sandstone which was 

 dug up from the bottom of the shell deposit. This object has else- 

 where been called a celt polisher,^ characteristic of Tainoan stone 

 culture in Cuba and elsewhere in the Greater Antilles, but nowhere 

 in any of the cave middens worked were seen characteristically 

 Tainoan polished stone celts or fragments of such celts. 



Each of the caves worked yielded quantities of improvised imple- 

 ments of shell and stone. Hammerstones, polishing stones, and 

 llaked-stone implements betrayed a marked similarity and unifoimity 

 in type. Stone perforators, knives, scrapers, and picks were in- 

 cluded in the cultural objects from the middens in the caves. A 

 type of conch-shell implement resembling a pick was found in great 

 quantity. This pick appeared to be entirely improvised from the 

 lip of a small variety of conch, /Stro7)hbus pugilis Linnaeus and was 

 apparently used to extract the conch after it had been subjected to 

 heat by boiling or roasting in order to loosen the hold of the mollusk 

 on its shell. The characteristic Tainoan method of extracting a 

 conch was to strike off a small segment from the apex and side of the 

 shell, thus exposing the conch to the application of hot water, live 

 coals, or the prodding of a shell pick. Another method was to 

 pierce the shell with a hole 1 or 2 centimeters in diameter. The hole 

 was made through the thinnest section of the lip wall and was evi- 

 dently used in combination with the extemporized shell pick and a 

 process of heating. Crab claws in great abundance were apparent 

 everywhere in the refuse heaps in the caves. Quantities of small 

 mammal, fish, bird, and turtle bones also occurred in quantity in the 

 cultural deposits. The quantity of bird bones and of those of small 

 mammals was much less in the cave deposits than in the kitchen mid- 

 dens near the open village sites of San Juan and Anadel, on Samma 

 Peninsula. The quantity of shells was, however, correspondingly 

 larger in the cave deposits. The most striking observation was the 

 similarity of food remains in the middens of the caves and of the 

 open village sites, although the relative proportions varied from 

 cave to cave and from village to village. 



3 Cuba before Columbus, by M. R. Harrington, vol. 2, pi. 108. 



