34 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 97 



bird- or animal-head foot is most the common type (pi. 3, t, u). The 

 painted ware is not very well made, and the designs are usually 

 badly eroded. A small proportion of unpainted and a few painted 

 sherds have either heavily incised or raised geometric designs (pi. 4, 

 q, s-v, x-s) in the interior. These were apparently made by some 

 sort of a stamp. In one case the raised design left by the stamp was 

 smoothed down and its outer border carved for emphasis. Three 

 plain sherds show finely woven textile designs impressed on their 

 inner surface (pi. 4, n-p). Sherds with incised designs also occur 

 (pi. 4, r). On the whole, Naco ceramics consist of these two wares, 

 the plain and the painted, but in excavations at mound I, two intrusive 

 types occurred. The first of these, consisting of two fragments of 

 European crockery (pi. 4, m), has already been mentioned. The 

 second type consisted of three sherds of well-made, highly pohshed 

 and painted ware which apparently belong to prehistoric ceramic series 

 from other earlier sites on the Chamelecon and Ulua Rivers. 



Incensario fragments from Naco are of the usual frying pan shape 

 (pi. 4, a) with the distinctive Naco painted designs. Two candelarios 

 (pi. 4, iv) are crude but unique. They are made of unslipped coarse 

 pottery and have tripod supports. They represent the only type found 

 by us at Naco. Spindle whorls are quite common at Naco and are well 

 decorated with incised designs similar to those painted on pottery 

 (pi. 4, i, j). Undecorated " bobbins ", probably to hold cotton thread, 

 are even more common (pi. 4, /). The occurrence of spindle whorls, 

 bobbins and textile-marked pottery bears witness to the importance 

 of cloth manufacture in aboriginal Naco. No distinctive type of 

 figurine was noted at Naco. The various pottery heads, ranging from 

 simple to complex, and the " speak no evil " monkey, are illustrated 

 (pi. 4, h-f). Whistles seem rare at this site. Only one specimen 

 was found (pi. 4, /i) and this animal form suggests Chiriqui, although 

 the red and black paint design is in the Naco style. The only other 

 artifacts noted were the ubiquitous obsidian prismatic flake knives 

 (pi. 4, k), and fragmentary legged metates and manos of lava. At 

 Naco, as elsewhere in Honduras, there appears to have been an amaz- 

 ing emphasis on pottery in comparison with any other type of non- 

 perishable artifact. Textiles and wooden implements have left only 

 indirect evidences of their probable importance. 



LAS VEGAS 



This site, also known locally as " Potrerito de los Calpullis ", is 

 located less than i kilometer in a direct line and about 2 kilometers 

 by trail from Manacal (see map, fig. 2). It is a neatly arranged 



