118 BULLETIN 15 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



whether they were ancestors of the Caliisa or Timucuan. This 

 determination awaits further study." 



Fewkes is of the opinion that the decoration of Florida pottery 

 is a survival of that used in the decorative technic of calabashes 

 or that the ornamentation of gourds and calabashes has been taken 

 as a motive for the decoration of pottery. In the absence of clear- 

 cut stratigraphical distinction in the pottery finds from the Florida- 

 Appalachian area we must accept the historical method of assum- 

 ing that aboriginal cultures are more or less static unless proof 

 is at hand to the contrary. Of course, as is well known, in any 

 area of intensive pottery manufacture recourse is had for decorative 

 motivation to life forms existing in the environment. It is, there- 

 fore, natural to expect a greater variety of zoomorphic representa- 

 tions when we compare with the pottery from an area as poor in 

 mammalian forms as is the case in aboriginal Santo Domingo. The 

 turtle, rattlesnake, deer, bear, beaver, are but a few examples of 

 life forms that we need not expect in examining West Indian pottery. 

 Combining a tribal mythology rich in animal lore with a ritual and 

 primitive religion intimately connected with animal life one may 

 readily see how an ornamentation may grow up in any ceramic 

 subarea entirely different from that of another with which it was 

 originally closely associated. 



The geometrical designs appearing on Floridian pottery, chiefly 

 those forms derived from the west coast, are spirals, ovals, scrolls, 

 circles, and rectangular figures, also parallel lines, all executed in 

 a peculiar roulette form of punctated design. Much of this punc- 

 tation is free-hand but the punctations always give the impression 

 of trailing and are not clear-cut with oval or rounded walls and 

 flat bottoms as is the case in punctated designs from the north coast 

 of Santo Domingo. Curved or straight incised lines in Floridian 

 west-coast pottery are often terminated with a puncture, usually 

 triangular in form, while in the Santo Domingan forms tlie punc- 

 ture is nearly always round. This puncture with rounded walls and 

 flat bottom appears also in Floridian west-coast pottery in isolation, 

 when it is usually larger than punctations appearing in series. A 

 somewhat similar indentation occurs rarely in pottery from Santo 

 Domingo. The stamped designs from Florida, like those from other 

 parts of the Appalachian area, appear in geometrical figures, includ- 

 ing squares, rectangles, curved lines, spirals, and crosshatching. 



In reference to stratigraphical work in the West Indies, much 

 stress has been laid on the culture of the supposedl}' pre-Arawakan 

 Guanahatibibes or Ciboney. Most writers on the Ciboney are not 

 quite sure in their own minds whether these culturally supposedly 

 impoverished aborigines made pottery or not. It fits in well with 



