62 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, 97 



or black linear designs on the bright orange background makes them 

 very hard to distinguish from examples of negative painting since 

 the slip at present appears to form the design, in contrast to the darker 

 red or blackish overlay. Several sherds retain the black color of the 

 original design, whereas in the others this has faded to a brown or 

 even a dull reddish color. One very coarse potsherd, apparently 

 from a flat tripod vessel, has a dull white slip on the inside with 

 broad, criss-cross red lines (pi. 9, cc). Aside from the Usulatan type 

 sherds this is the only painted fragment. This is similar to the red-on- 

 white sherds from the old Playa de los Muertos horizon. 



Among the heavier, coarser sherds occur examples of low, flaring, 

 swollen lips ; direct rims ; broad, vertical loop handles, smooth rocker 

 zigzags (pi. 9, e), and both fine and coarse incised decoration (pi. 9, 

 a, c). At the present stage of preliminary analysis this coarser pottery 

 shows no very striking differences from the monochrome or domestic 

 wares associated with the upper polychrome horizons. The polished 

 orange ware and especially the Usulatan or related painted pieces are 

 unique so far as this site is concerned. Aside from pottery the only 

 other artifacts from these levels are a few fragmentary obsidian flakes 

 (pi. 9, k, m) and a heavy, stemmed, pottery stamp with a geometric 

 design (pi. 9, /). The stamp comes from P 8. The nature of the 

 deposit below the sand level in the northern extension rather suggests 

 the fringe of a midden whose concentration lay still farther to the 

 north. Unfortunately, it was impossible to follow up this problem 

 at the time, owing to the rapidly rising water level. These subsand 

 layer ceramics at Santa Rita suggest definite affiliations with the oldest 

 horizon at Playa de los Muertos. 



PLAYA DE LOS MUERTOS (FARM II ) 



This important site is located on the east bank of the Ulua River 

 close to the northwest corner of farm 11 (see map, fig. 5). In this 

 general vicinity Gordon (1898) carried on extensive excavations in 

 1895 and 1897, and later, in 1929, Mrs. Dorothy Hughes Popenoe 

 (1934; also see Vaillant, 1934) isolated the old Playa de los Muertos 

 culture at this exact spot. For this reason we visited the site on 

 January 18, 1936, the day after establishing our headquarters at 

 Progreso. First impressions regarding the possibility of further work 

 were extremely discouraging. The terriffic flood of the preceding fall 

 had removed most of the point where Mrs. Popenoe worked, as well as 

 the entire island just below it (see map, Popenoe, 1934, p. 81). A 

 small hard-pan or dense clay playa remained, on which we found a 

 few Playa de los Muertos type potsherds. However, we found none 



