20 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 193 



and pebble grinder complex, recovered from a shell midden located 

 near the old shoreline. With these were found pebble manos, shallow 

 basin boulder metates, flakes and cores, and two shell ornaments, but 

 no pottery to speak of (five sherds only, all but one from the surface) 

 and very little worked bone. Both flexed and secondary burials were 

 found, with the latter the more frequent. Shell and bone remains 

 indicated a dependence on oysters, crabs, and small bivalves in the 

 lower layer changing to oysters alone in the upper layers. The 

 mammal ratio remained fairly constant, with deer the most popular 

 followed by small mammals, turtles, birds, and fish in that order. 



The next phase, Monagrillo, also is found in shell heaps along the 

 old shoreline (at least four sites bearing Monagrillo pottery have 

 been excavated) and suggests very much the same Idnd of life as that 

 for Cerro Mangote but with the addition of pottery. At the Mona- 

 grillo site, a pebble grinder and chopper stone complex identical to 

 that at Cerro Mangote was recovered with the addition of a stone 

 bowl fragment. The pottery complex is composed primarily of plain 

 thick ware bowls and beakers (88-96 percent of all pottery per 

 stratum) and secondarily of a buff ware painted with red geometric 

 designs. In addition, there were 200 to 300 sherds of thin yellow 

 ware and 70 sherds of incised ware with both broad and fine lines and 

 predominantly curvilinear motifs. Oyster and Tivela shells com- 

 prised the bulk of the midden, and the diet suggested by the bone 

 remains included deer, turtle, fish, and fresh water crab. 



The Sarigua Phase, which apparently follows close on the heels of 

 the Monagrillo Phase (scanty evidence at the Monagrillo site sug- 

 gested it was either contemporaneous with or immediately postdated 

 the Monagrillo occupation), also is represented by shell midden sites 

 on the flats of an old lagoon. This phase is based entirely on the 

 presence of a very thin monochrome pottery with plastic decoration, 

 i.e., appHque, punctation, and striation, and appeared to Willey and 

 McGimsey to be different from any other pottery in Panama except 

 possibly that of the Cocalito site in Darien. 



There follows a presumed gap in the sequence closed by the Santa 

 Maria Phase characterized by inland sites and pottery with geometric 

 designs in black on a red, buff, or occasionally white, ground. Largely 

 because of the shift in site location and the lack of extensive shell 

 deposit, agriculture is postulated as the primary subsistence base. 

 Stonework includes manos and celts with polished cutting edges but 

 chipped polls, a type characteristic of the polychrome graves at Sitio 

 Conte and He-4. Santa Maria Phase ceramics, broken down in this 

 report into the Giron, Escota, and Red Line types, have been found 

 at Sitio Conte (Ladd, 1957), and the Gir6n type characterized by open 

 bowl forms with a predilection for concentric banding of the rim in- 



