Ladd] PARITA AND SANTA MARIA ARCHEOLOGY, PANAMA 15 



VERAGUAS 



The archeology of Veraguas has been fully treated in Lothrop's 

 1950 volume, and little has been accomplished since then to alter the 

 picture. 



No sequence has yet been determined for the area, although much 

 of what is known from the numerous grave collections appears, on 

 the basis of its association with either Late Cocl4 or Azuero design 

 style vessels, to be late. Lothrop (1950, p. 79) and Mahler (1961), 

 however, report the presence of Early Cocl6 Phase vessels in Veraguas 

 tombs, at least one of which also contained a typical Veraguas plain 

 ware jar with looped ribbon legs. Sites excavated up to 1946 are 

 divided by Lothrop into two types: (a) refuse beds containing burials 

 and (b) deep shaft tomb burials. The former are known only from 

 the Montijo Gulf area including the western shore of the Azuero 

 Peninsula (Lothrop, 1950, p. 16; Dade, 1959) and contain urn burials 

 with pottery vessel covers and associated funerary offerings, some of 

 which were Code style ceramics. The graves of these refuse beds are 

 pits, 2-3 meters deep with earthen floors. The deep shaft graves 

 have been found in practically all other areas of southern or lowland 

 Veraguas. These shaft graves have been likened to those of Colombia, 

 but not other areas of Panama, although conical pits similar in shape 

 to those of Lothrop's type "d" graves, but without the deep upper shaft 

 or stone slab, were found at He-1. 



The ceramics of Veraguas as characterized by Lothrop are of a 

 single dull red to dark brown ware which is often covered with a 

 partly transparent orange wash. Shapes include collarless globular 

 jars with either strap or loop handles placed vertically or horizontally 

 on the shoulder, jars with angled shoulders, tripod bowls with conical 

 legs and tripod jars, vessels with looped ribbons of clay for legs (a 

 characteristic only of Veraguas), three-lobed vessels, tetrapod vessels, 

 half jars, double rim bowls, and others. Other pottery forms include 

 hollow pottery rings, effigy whistles, and "drums." 



Although in 1946, when Lothrop completed his volume on southern 

 Veraguas, it appeared that most if not all of the 200 or more poly- 

 chrome vessels found in Veraguas graves (Lothrop, 1950, p. 76) were 

 traded from the province of Code or the Azuero Peninsula, it be- 

 comes increasingly probable, as suggested by Dade and others (Dade, 

 personal communication to Lothrop) that many of the vessels, in the 

 Azuero design style at least, were actually manufactured in Veraguas, 

 Additional finds published by Mahler (1961) and Wassen (I960) as 

 well as discoveries by Dade and Mitchell of Panama (Mitchell, 

 personal communication) further reinforce the conclusion that the 

 manufacture of Azuero design style vessels had a distribution which 

 included at least the eastern portions of southern Veraguas, 



