HISTORICAL NAERATIVES AND FIELD WORK 25 



the appearance of a paved road 21 feet in breadth, and as far as the trees 

 and bushes, which had grown from between the rocks, permitted me to as- 

 certain 2,270 feet in circumference. A large granite rock 5 feet 7 inches in 

 length, ending in obtuse points, lies nearly in the middle of the circle, partly 

 imebdded in the ground. * * * it has been smoothed and fashioned by 

 human hands * * * the cavities of the eyes and mouth are still visible. 

 A pathway of the same width as the ring extends from it firstly due west 

 and turns afterwards at a right angle to the north, ending at a small brook." 



The researches of William M. Gabb, 1869-1871, are of particular 

 interest in the stratigraphical study of cave deposits of the Santo 

 Domingan littoral in the vicinity of Samana Bay. 



During the years 1869-1871 William M. Gabb conducted explora- 

 tions in Samana Province, describing, among other archeological 

 sites, certain caves which he explored in the vicinity of San Lorenzo 

 Bay. These caves were also investigated by the writer in 1928. 

 Several of them answer the general description of the cave explored 

 by him. It is possible, in the time intervening since the San Lo- 

 renzo caves were explored by Gabb, that a general uplift of the 

 cave floors has taken place, thus making impossible the identifica- 

 tion of a cave " with floor flush with the level of the tide " as he 

 describes it, when, as at the present time, each of the caves in the 

 vicinity of San Lorenzo Bay has floors raised 10 feet or more above 

 the tide level. Gabb makes the following summary regarding his 

 investigations of the midden desposits in the cave. 



In the cave where I slept there is an extensive and interesting midden 

 divisible into two eras ; the older marked only by shells and a few turtle and 

 fish bones, resting on the rocky fioor and through which I excavated to a 

 depth of 9 feet. Over this is a thinner layer of ashes with bones of birds, 

 agouti, fish, and turtles, and an abundance of pottery evidently of the im- 

 mediately pre-Columbian era. Over this, liberally intermixed with bat guano, 

 is a modern deposit of broken earthen and iron kettles and beef and pig 

 bones, indicative of a higher, or at least, more modern civilization, though 

 justice requires us to admit that the pottery is inferior in workmanship, in 

 elaborateness, and in beauty of design to the preceding era. It is a remark- 

 able circumstance that, although the Indians of the pottery period manu- 

 factured polished stone hatchets and other implements equal in degree of 

 finish to the finest ever discovered, not a stone instrument was discovered 

 in the cave, unless we except some rough rounded pebbles found among the 

 shells." 



The first intensive archeological investigations to be conducted in 

 Santo Domingo were undertaken by Theodoor de Booy in 1913 for 

 the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. De Booy's 

 explorations extended southward from Cape Macao. Explorations 

 were also carried on in the caves of the island of Saona, which con- 



^ Schomburgk, Sir Robert, Etbnological Researches In Santo Domingo, Journ. Ethnol. 

 Soc, vol. 3, p. 121, 1854. 



" Gabb, William M., On the Topography and Geology of Santo Domingo, Mem. Amer. 

 Philos. Soc, vol. 15, pp. 146, 147, 1872. 



