ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL INVESTIGATIONS 

 IN SAMANA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 



By Herbert' W. Ivrieger 

 Curator of Ethnology, United States National Museum 



HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM EXPEDITION TO SAMANA, 1928 



The northeastern portion of the Dominican Republic, comprising 

 the peninsula and bay of Samana, with its many islets, has long been 

 known as a region rich in deposits left by its pre-Columbian inhabit- 

 ants. On the south shore of Samana Bay, which deeply indents this 

 coast of the island, William M. Gabb explored some caves in 1869- 

 1871 and found them to contain very extensive kitchen middens. 

 Pottery and bones collected by him have been in the National Museum 

 since 1872. Among these bones were found, early in 191G, by Gerrit 

 S. Miller, jr., of the National Museum, some jaws of a rodent sup- 

 posed at that time to be extinct. Stimulated by this discovery. Dr. 

 William L. Abbott visited the caves later in the same year. He 

 obtained material of great interest and reported that large accumula- 

 tions of shells, bones, and pottery remained to be examined. Doctor 

 Abbott's earliest expedition to Santo Domingo was in 1883 and 

 repeated visits were made by him since that time.^ 



Exploration of the caves. — ^With the chief object of working these 

 deposits more carefully than had hithereto been done, the writer of 

 this article and Gerrit S. Miller, jr., of the National Museum, spent 

 several months during the winter and spring of 1928 in exploring 

 the environs of Samana Bay and of the peninsula which separates 



1 In the coastal region Doctor Abbott investigated numerous caves in search of an extinct 

 mammalian fauna. Trips to several localities in the highlands of the interior were also 

 made, notably to Constanza Valley and to the upper valley of the Jimenoa. On these 

 expeditions he made very interesting collections of mammals, birds, reptiles, mollusks, 

 insects, and Indian artifacts. His success in obtaining living jutias (Plagiodontia 

 hylaeum) , long supposed to have become extinct, has been scarcely less notable than his 

 discovery of a form of crossbill (Loxia mcyaplaga) related to the white-winged crossbill, a 

 species restricted in the breeding season to the Boreal zone of North America. Accounts 

 of Doctor Abbott's work in Santo Domingo and Haiti have appeared from time to time in 

 the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 66, No. 12, and No. 17, pp. 36-39, 1917 ; 

 vol. 72, No. 1, pp. 34-36, 1920 ; vol. 72, No. 6, pp. 43-47, 1921 ; vol. 72. No. 15, pp. 44-47, 

 1922 ; vol. 74, No. 5, pp. 62-63, 1923 ; vol. 76, No. 10, pp. 43-47, 1924 ; also in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the National Museum, vol. 72, No. 16, 1927, by Gerrit S. Miller, jr. 



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