Il8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 97 



height of 5 meters. The mound to the west is smaller and steeper, 

 being about 4 meters long and perhaps 3 meters high. Local men from 

 Siguatepeque have excavated a small hole in the terrace south of 

 the big mound and a large trench, 5 meters wide and nearly 6 meters 

 deep, on the west side of the same mound. The earth wall of this 

 trench shows successive curving layers of black charcoal, suggesting 

 that the mound had been built up at different times and the remains 

 of fires on the top had been scattered down the sides. The small pit 

 on the terrace showed nothing. We were unable to find any potsherds, 

 either in the cut or on the surface. According to local report the origi- 

 nal diggers encountered nothing but a very little broken pottery. This 

 is a striking mound group and, as already mentioned, seems similar 

 in some ways to the " cut stone mound " which is buried in the dense 

 bush near La Ceiba (site 3, map, fig. 20). 



This concludes the list of sites visited by us around the north end 

 of Lake Yojoa. We have since heard that local pot hunters have 

 opened up a new series of ancient cemeteries between La Ceiba and 

 Agua Azul. Other sites are reported in the mountains to the north 

 (see map, fig. 20), at Sauce, and elsewhere around the lake, but we 

 lacked time to visit these. 



SUMMARY AND TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS 



The present reconnaisance of the Ulua-Yojoa region opens promis- 

 ing vistas. It reveals incomplete but considerable sequences of local 

 development, and it demonstrates that the interplay of northern and 

 southern cultural forces, so strongly suggested by linguistic, eth- 

 nographic, and historic sources, is very definitely reflected in the arche- 

 ological record. 



Since ceramic remains constitute the most abundant and helpful 

 guides in attaining any understanding of the development of the pre- 

 historic cultures of northwestern Honduras, we may preface our brief 

 summary by a table showing the sequence and groupings of Ulua- 

 Yojoa ceramic types as known at present (table i). Of these the 

 Naco Polychrome is definitely historic and represents, apparently, the 

 late Nahuatl occupation of the region. Spinden, Tozzer, Mason, and 

 Vaillant, who have examined this material, state that it appears to be 

 related to certain late prehistoric wares of Mexico. Naco Polychrome 

 pottery will probably be found at other sites occupied or influenced 

 by these intrusive Nahuatl peoples. It may occur at Tenampua (com- 

 pare Popenoe, 1936, p. 572 and fig. 2), In the same way that the 

 occurrence of Spanish crockery in association with Naco Polychrome 

 sherds connects the site with the historic period, so the occurrence of 



