^8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 92 



with a panel around the neck of sohd black and darker red steps 

 separated by strips of body color. These and the panel borders are 

 outlined by incision. From the two upper black borders pecuHar 

 linear designs extend to the lip. There are traces of a black body 

 design, but these are entirely obscure. It is somewhat paradoxical 

 that the paint on this sherd from the muck in front of cave i is better 

 preserved than that on two other fragments of the same vessel from 

 cave 2, which was bone dry. The sherds from cave 2 were covered 

 with a brown incrustation which can be only partially removed. A 

 l:)asal sherd from cave 2 may have come from this same vase, though 

 this is problematical. It is of similar ware and thickness with traces 

 of black paint over the exterior. The piece is a portion of a flat 

 bottom with one thin, solid rectilinear foot 5.5 cm in breadth. Three 

 other sherds from cave i are from a ]worer-grade vessel with a dark 

 red slip and irregular black linear design. The rim sherd (pi. 19, 

 fig. I, a) may be from this last vessel. These sherds do not fit into 

 any of the present Bay Island classifications, but two of them (pi. 18, 

 fig. I, c, e) are similar to pieces obtained on Helena by Mitchell- 

 Hedges and may be related to early Uloa Polychrome wares. One 

 rim sherd from a large straight-walled vase (pi. 18, fig. i, b) was 

 covered with a brown calcareous deposit, but where this can be 

 removed, traces of a white slip and black design can be seen. Below 

 this faintly preserved, painted-design panel is another of incised 

 frets. A rim sherd, from a smaller vessel, is so heavily coated with 

 this same incrustation that only bare traces of a similar incised design 

 can be seen. These two sherds are similar to the elaborately incised 

 monochrome pottery, but the presence of a shiny white slip on one 

 of them seems unusual. 



Elaborate monochrome sherds are fairly abundant in the present 

 collection. One-third of a large vessel of this type was recovered 

 (fig. 18). The panels of incised design, the monstrous human or 

 simian faces, and the " snakes " in applique are interesting. Two of 

 the heads appear to be extreme conventionalizations of the manatee 

 head motif though they resemble the duck-bill platypus as much as 

 anything else. The vessel had a tripod base, and the incised foot is 

 solid. There are three basal portions of medium-large jars with 

 annular bases showing incised, and in one case applique, decoration. 

 The largest has an outside basal diameter of 17 cm. Two have 

 slightly concave bottoms, but the largest has a convex bottom with a 

 marked "dimple" in the center. This broken vessel has external 

 design panels of opposed step elements, each pair enclosing a dot. 

 In the others, panels with short line and dot designs occur. In addition. 



