18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull, 193 



to date are more to the northwestern portion of Colombia with its 

 incised and modeled wares than to western Panama. 



CANAL ZONE 



The Canal Zone may be viewed as a transitional area between 

 Darien with its emphasis on unpainted, modeled, and incised pottery, 

 and the Cocle-Parita-Azuero area to the west with the highly de- 

 veloped polychrome tradition. Thus polychromes of the Code style 

 and other vessels with afiinities to the Santa Maria Phase have been 

 found at Venado Beach, while at a cemetery site near the Chame 

 River to the west, modeled and incised urns have been recovered (Bull, 

 1959) which appear to be more in the Darien tradition. Similar 

 modeled and incised ware has been described from Far Fan Beach 

 (Marshall, 1949). 



With regard to chronology, this area may have provided some of 

 the earliest material in Panama in view of the few projectUe point 

 fragments demonstrating fluting which have been found on islands in 

 Madden Lake, as well as fragments of other points from the region 

 which show an exceedingly fine chipping technique not characteristic 

 of other regions of Panama (Mitchell, 1959, 1960; Sander, 1959). 

 Beyond these faint indications of a possible Paleo-Indian occupation 

 there is a long gap to the early polychrome pottery recovered at 

 Venado Beach and Panam^ Viejo (Biese, 1964). At both these sites 

 open bowls with white ovate spaces in black rectangles, which are 

 duplicated on sherds from Santa Maria Phase levels at the Girdn 

 site, were recovered. At Venado Beach, Early Code style vessels 

 were also recovered as well as examples of what I have called Smoked 

 ware type, Venado Beach Incised variety, a variety also found at 

 He-1 and He-2 and apparently contemporary with Early Code. 

 Carbon-14 dates from "typical urns" containing infant burials are 

 reported by Lothrop as 1,750 years ago (ca. A.D. 210) and 1,000 

 years ago (ca. A.D. 960) (Lothrop, 1960). The answer as to which 

 of these dates is correct, or whether both are, indicating a long 

 timespan for the Gir6n type Banded Lip variety, awaits further 

 investigation. 



cocl:^, parita, azuero 



It is in this region of Panama that the greatest degree of time 

 control over the archeology has become apparent. First, Lothrop's 

 grave sequence at Sitio Conte suggested a two period breakdown for 

 the polychrome styles there. Then Willey and Stoddard's work on 

 the material from the Gir6n site suggested an earUer Santa Maria 

 Phase characterized by pottery with black on red or buff geometric 

 designs. The MonagriUo site next provided the earliest pottery for 



