SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I929 I59 



public. This work was made possible through the generosity of 

 Dr. W. L. Abbott, whose interest in Antillean archeology is of long 

 standing. The work undertaken during the current year is in con- 

 tinuation of archeological and historical investigations conducted by 

 the National Museum in the province of Samana in 1928. 



From January to May, 1929, excavations were continued at ab- 

 original village sites in Monte Cristi Province. Three sites were 

 explored in the foothills southeast of the town of Monte Cristi. 

 Their location is perhaps lietter described as being midway between 

 the fishing village of Petit Salinas on the Atlantic Coast east of Monte 

 Cristi and the pueblo of El Duro on the Monte Cristi-Santiago 

 highway. 



The country southeast of Monte Cristi is poorly watered. A few 

 houses of goatherds and of beekeepers dot the 40-kilometer- wide area 

 otherwise entirely unoccupied. Absence of any continuous source of 

 fresh water precludes the extensive settlement of this drought-stricken 

 region. The discovery therefore of extensive aboriginal, presumably 

 prehistoric village sites within this area is all the more remarkable. 



The first site explored by the Smithsonian expedition, designated 

 Kilometer 2 by the writer, is approximately 10 kilometers inland 

 from the Atlantic coast, due south of the pueblo of Petit Salinas and 

 30 kilometers north of the Yaque River, the sole source of fresh 

 water in the lower valley. For a brief period following the rainy 

 season, in December and January, springs from water stored in the 

 subsoil of the foothills afforded a source of water supply. During the 

 remainder of the year a series of artificial reservoirs with earthen dams 

 provided water for the aboriginal occupants of the village. Ruins of 

 these reservoirs although overgrown with thorn thickets, are readily 

 discernible on the lower ground southeast of the village. The aborigi- 

 nal practice of impounding water in reservoirs during the rainy 

 season is continued by the few Dominicans who live in this semiarid 

 region. Kilometer 2 site includes six parallel rows of refuse heaps and 

 kitchenmiddens extending 350 feet north and south. Ashes from the 

 different aboriginal hearth fires form layers extending practically the 

 entire length of each row. Each midden is separated from the next ad- 

 joining midden by the distance of 5 to 10 paces. It would appear that 

 these conditions should have been reversed — that there should be an 

 uninterrupted sequence of midden deposits with clearly marked 

 hearths. This condition, no doubt, is due to weathering and to the 

 wearing away of the upper portions of the cultural deposits by occa- 

 sional floods and the periodic downpours during the rainy season. 

 Cultural deposits of ashes and of kitchen refuse on the average never 



