TYPE EXAMPLES IN THE NATIONAL COLLECTIOIT 71 



facial features, indicates presumably a long period of isolated devel- 

 opment of forms and shaping technic. Symbolism also has an im- 

 portant place in the designs incised on stone, bone, and wood sculp- 

 tures, also in painted designs. In their decorative designs, the 

 incised figures are well suited to the space they are intended to 

 occupy. Characteristic is the ornamentation of a space in which the 

 central pit is surrounded by circular incised lines or a raised band, 

 which in turn is surrounded by a series of broken circles, the corners 

 between these broken circles being filled in with triangular or other 

 angular linear incisions. Whatever archaic forms exist in native 

 Tainan earthenware — that is, open pottery vessels with clay figurine 

 heads mounted at the ends and facing inward, likewise the punc- 

 tated decorative designs, and several of the peculiar arrangements 

 of features — luted ribbons of clay to represent eyes, mouth, and other 

 facial features — all these features in pottery decorative design may 

 not have come to the Greater Antilles by way of the Venezuelan 

 and northeastern South American coast, but might far more reason- 

 ably have been introduced by a less circuitous route from Central 

 American culture areas direct. 



In comparing the earthenware of Santo Domingo with that of any 

 locality in Middle, North, or South America many elements of form 

 and decorative design are encountered which are entirely dissimilar. 

 Along with these local excrescences of intensive pottery manufac- 

 ture are many elements of form and design iinmistakably closely 

 related to Antillean pottery types and wares. Elements not intro- 

 duced by the aboriginal potter of Santo Domingo are tripod bases, 

 vessels with free standing supports, cylindrical or annular bases, 

 feet with rattles, pottery whistles, polychrome painted decorative 

 designs, incised figures in realistic life patterns, or pottery decora- 

 tions consisting of multiple affixed spherical knobs. Such elements 

 are foreign to the Porto Rican-Santo Domingan pottery complex, 

 while incised and punctated decorative designs and applied animal 

 figurine heads from widely separated regions resemble those of a 

 particularly archaic type from sites in Santo Domingo. Roller 

 stamp designs in curvilinear and rectilinear patterns are common 

 alike to areas in Central America, Panama, and North America, 

 but are unusual in Santo Domingo. No conventionalized or realistic 

 designs representing fruit or vegetable forms as in the highland 

 areas of South America or in the central Mississippi Valley are in 

 evidence in prehistoric wares. 



The relieved and incised decorative embellishments on unpainted 

 earthenware fragments from ancient village sites at Titumate, on 

 the Colombian coast, mentioned by S. Linne (fig. 7, p. 27) are 

 identical with the technic of plastic design of the Santo Domingan 



