150 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 92 



those of shell from the Dixon site. Tetrapod or shoe-shaped vessels, 

 vessels with neatly engraved panels of Mayoid cast, and the spouted 

 chocolate pot, forms which occur in the Uloa, are not on record for 

 the Bay Islands. 



The polychrome wares from the Uloa are abundant and complex. 

 In the Vaillant classification, Uloa Polychrome I and II suggest 

 degenerate early Maya types. One vessel from Helena, collected by 

 Mitchell-Hedges, which has a white slip, crude red processional 

 figures, and a panel of skeuomorphic glyphs, and also some sherds from 

 there (pi. i8, fig. J, c, e) in our collection, suggest these styles. Uloa 

 Polychrome III and IV, however, find numerous analogies in Bay 

 Island Polychrome I. All three wares seem to have the same basic 

 colors, and all have design areas around the neck set off by black lines, 

 conventionalized plumed serpent, or elaborate step or other similar 

 painted designs. Bay Island Polychrome I and Uloa Polychrome 

 III and IV ceramics appear to be thin, without swollen lips, and all 

 three make use of similar animal head lugs. Owing to the rarity of 

 complete vessels, total forms cannot be compared. Although there 

 seems to be considerable resemblance here, the Uloa Polychrome III 

 and IV wares appear to be richer in color and more crowded in design 

 than the Bay Island Polychrome I. 



According to Vaillant, Uloa Polychrome V develops out of IV by 

 a simplification of patterns and a thickening of lines. Globular olla 

 shapes occur that have low necks and handles with knobs on them. 

 Although sometimes richer in color, the designs are more isolated 

 and geometric, consisting of frets, dots, circles, wavy vertical lines, 

 etc. This ware, Uloa Polychrome V, very definitely suggests Bay 

 Island Polychrome II. Plumbate ware in the Gordon collection con- 

 sists of two Type III effigy vessels, one of which has a Chorotegan 

 body. This ceramic type seems to fall between Polychrome II and 

 III in the Uloa series. 



Of the ceramics of the region, Vaillant summarizes as follows 

 (1927, p. 271): 



There are in western Honduras, isolated fragments that suggest an occupa- 

 tion of the country by people with a culture affiHated to that generalized stage 

 of human development in Middle America known as the " Neo-Archaic ". Scat- 

 tered through the Uloa valley are the remains of people who made a diverse and 

 variegated pottery. The polychrome phases of this development represent degen- 

 erations of late Old Empire Maya pottery (Uloa Polychrome I) and a varied 

 and complicated series of forms and decorations like those in the early (?) Pipil 

 horizon in Salvador (Uloa Polychrome II-IV). Another style is like that made 

 by the late (?) Pipil and the Lenca-Matagalpa in Salvador (Uloa Poly. V). 

 A mass of undecorated [unpainted?] pottery exhibits, in the main, features more 



