80 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 97 



and complexity of Lake Yojoa ceramics makes any brief description 

 extremely difficult. However, since the majority of Yojoa collections 

 in various museums are highly selective, even a preliminary account 

 of the manner in which the various types of vessels and artifacts occur 

 in situ, should have value. Since complete or restorable pottery ves- 

 sels are more abundant in Lake Yojoa sites than in those previously 

 described, we will discuss them in this preliminary report, leaving 

 detailed potsherd analysis for a later time. 



AGUACATE AND AGUATAL 



Modern place names around the north end of the lake are usually 

 derived from certain trees that mark favorable areas for milpa farm- 

 ing. Aguacate and Aguatal (map, fig. 20) are so named, and it was 

 here that the first finds of Yojoa polychrome pottery were made. Both 

 sites have been sadly looted, and though we visited them on our first 

 trip to the lake, we were unable to find any mounds or promising areas 

 sufficiently undisturbed to merit scientific excavation. Probably a 

 very large proportion of Yojoa polychrome vessels in collections inside 

 and outside Honduras, have come from these sites which appear to 

 have been exceptionally prolific. We reached them after a long walk 

 along the trail to Dos Caminos (map, fig. 20), then cutting south 

 through the generally low but very dense bush. Each site consists 

 of a large (Aguacate is the larger) irregular area covered with low 

 mounds ranging from barely visible eminences to some 2 meters high. 

 Originally, the mounds were covered with rocks, many of large size, 

 but at the time of our visit both areas were entirely covered with 

 shallow, irregular burro wings and piles of rich black dirt and stones 

 which obscured almost all natural contours. The dense bush added 

 to the difficulty. The excavations ranged from 30 centimeters to about 

 2.5 meters in depth and, starting in what originally seem to have 

 been mounds, run labyrinthian courses wherever the machete-wielding 

 " huaqueros " believed they were in mixed soil. Potsherds were 

 abundant, polychrome pieces seeming to predominate over plain or 

 cooking ware fragments, and a number of splendid and only slightly 

 broken vessels lay about, indicating that they had been carelessly 

 excavated and then abandoned in favor of harder and more resistant 

 complete vessels. Numerous three-legged metate fragments of various 

 sizes, roller pestles, rectangular mullers, and two large polished celts 

 were noted. There were no human bones in sight, but our guide said 

 that small fragments were occasionally encountered in association with 

 complete vessels. Among the great number of rough, volcanic rocks 



