104 BULLETIN 15 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



laterally placed rectangular slabs representing some animal form 

 highly conventionalized but plain as to outer surface. (PI. 50, 

 bottom.) 



Earthenware vessel, boat-shaped, 5.7 inches (14.5 centimeters) 

 maximum diameter, 3.3 inches (8.4 centimeters) depth. Tainan 

 type of boat-shaped vessel remarkable for the freedom from decora- 

 tive design. Smooth-surfaced, even-textured, brick-colored walls 

 convexly molded into flowing curves with no angularity of the high 

 shoulder but with the opposite ends only slightly higher at margin 

 than at the center. Basal section is not marked. Andres. (PI. 50.) 



Griddles for baking cassava are South American, even with regard 

 to form, while the typical North American stone mortar (metate) 

 for the grinding of corn is apparently lacking in the West Indian 

 culture complex. Whatever forms of stone mortar do exist in 

 aboriginal Santo Domingo are divergent types, following Central 

 American stool-shaped patterns; locally developed forms occur in 

 the shape of a rimmed slab somewhat resembling earthenware 

 cassava griddles. 



Flat or slightly concave circular smooth-surface earthenware 

 griddles or roasting dishes for baking cassava or maize bread are 

 common to northern South America and to the West Indies. They 

 continue in use to a limited extent among the present-day Domini- 

 cans of Santo Domingo ; also among the Indians of Mexico. In the 

 pueblo area thin, flat, rectangular parching stones form baking slabs. 

 Apparently the griddle was unknown to the prehistoric inhabitants 

 of the Gulf coast of Florida, and, strangely enough, to the Andean 

 peoples of South America. They are mentioned by Harrington 

 from Cuba, by De Booy from Jamaica and St. Thomas, by Hatt 

 from St. Croix, by Linne from the Pearl Islands, Panama, and by 

 Fewkes from St. Kitts. De Booy also mentions them from 

 Marguerita Island off the Venezuelan coast. 



Earthenware griddle from cave near- Constanza, Province of La 

 Vega. Diameter 10.2 inches (26 centimeters), thickness 0.7 inch 

 (1.9 centimeters). Chocolate colored with patches of buff and black, 

 the latter perhaps unintentional coloring. A markedly elevated rim, 

 otherwise uniformly level and smooth upper surface; under surface 

 flat with impression of pottery stamp or fabric. An unusually 

 small type of eartlienware griddle. (PI. 53.) 



NORTHERN AFFILIATIONS OF SANTO DOMINGAN POTTERY 



Some of the problems of West Indian archeology are intimately 

 connected with those of eastern United States, the West Indian 

 Archipelago forming as it does an island chain extending for 1,600 

 miles in a direct line from the mouth of tlie Orinoco River and the 

 Venezuelan coast almost to the Florida coast. If we compare this 



