138 BULLETIX 15 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



out one at a time and hot melted copal is poured over them. This 

 accounts for the glazed appearance characteristic of this pottery. 



" The various designs used in the decoration of the pottery must 

 have had some symbolic significance in the beginning, but at present 

 no one seems to know the symbolism. They say they have always 

 used these forms. Similar designs are used in making their bead 

 necklaces, in painting their cushmas, and in decorating their j)addles, 

 tobacco pipes, etc." In form, surface, finish, and decorative embel- 

 lishment the wares of the Conebo, the upper and the Central Ara- 

 wak tribes, differ from Antillean forms. The Conebo bowls and 

 vases resemble in their shape and after a manner in their geometric 

 painted designs the vases of the Pueblo potter rather than the in- 

 cised wares of the Antillean and eastern United States aboriginal 

 potter. The undecorated pottery bowls of the Mapidan Central 

 Arawak are not characterized by peculiarities in form or design 

 sufficient to differentiate the ware from any other undecorated South 

 American aboriginal ware, let alone any comparison with West 

 Indian prehistoric forms and designs. 



CONCLUSION 



A working classification of culture sequence in earthenware might 

 be worked out for the entire pottery-producing area of America. 

 If this were done, one would give primary importance to known 

 chronological sequence in those limited ?lreas where such sequence 

 has been discovered. This would apply to Yucatan, to the valley 

 of Mexico, and to the States of Arizona and New Mexico. Not 

 enough is known of the time element in South America and of 

 stratigraphy in the West Indies or in eastern United States to even 

 approach the problem of culture sequence in earthenware types from 

 the angle of chronology. Archaic earthenware forms and elements 

 of decorative design throughout northern South America, the related 

 wares in the southeastern United States and in the West Indies, per- 

 sisting up to the period of European exi^loitation of the Americas, 

 might be chronologically oriented if a midden or burial place of suffi- 

 cient magnitude with definite stratigraphy indicated could be studied 

 and the gradual replacement of the archaic forms with later wares 

 of local origin such as the painted wares of the Lesser Antilles, of the 

 Venezuela-Guiana region, or of the Pearl Islands-Panama area 

 might be determined. Such study has not 3'et been made. The diffi- 

 culty lies partly in the exuberance of development of pottery types in 

 the several areas and subareas under comparison. In each of these 

 wares several' factors must first be solved before a time and culture 

 sequence may be arrived at. For many of the subareas an independ- 

 ent origin for several developments in pottery form and design might 

 be cited; for example, the cylindrical foot, the tripod vase and free 



