24 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 193 



EL HATILLO (HE^) SITE 



SITE DESCRIPTION 



The site known as El Hatillo (fig. 1), designated He-4 as the fourth 

 site surveyed and excavated in 1948 by Drs. Matthew StirHng and 

 G. R. Willey, lies on land owned by Sr. Juan Calderon about a quarter 

 of a mile from the Parita River, Herrera Province, roughly 3 or 4 

 miles south of the town of Parita. The site is located on a number 

 of what appear to be flat-topped mounds on a level elevation about 

 300 yards west of a hill named Cerro de la Mina (or Cerro de las 

 Minas). The mounds were covered with pottery sherds, and there 

 is record of at least one of them (designated here as Mound III) 

 having undergone partial excavation prior to the 1948 season. Prob- 

 ably before the 1948 season, and certainly since, the site has been 

 probed by huaqueros and members of the Archaeological Society of 

 Panama. The Dade collection specimens, at the Museum of the 

 American Indian, listed from the Finca Calderon undoubtedly come 

 from this site as well as many of those listed from Parita. Mr. 

 Philip L. Dade of the Society recently excavated a number of graves 

 at the site (personal communication from Dr. S. K. Lothrop), and 

 Dr. Russell H. Mitchell of the Society has purchased a fairly large 

 collection also from the same site (Mitchell, personal communication) . 



Drs. Stirling and Willey put down trenches in seven of the mounds 

 and three additional test pits in the flat. A discussion of these 

 excavations follows. 



MOUND i; TRENCH 1 



The mound is rouglily circular, about 20 meters in diameter, and 

 was excavated to a maximum depth of 6.7 meters at the south end of 

 Trench 1, a 3 X 10 meter trench laid out on a north-south axis. The 

 northern end of the mound was faced with boulders at the mound 

 base, a facing about 50 cm. thick extending up the mound side about 

 1.0 meter and, in part, made up of irregularly shaped, relatively shal- 

 low mortar stones. Other special features of the mound include four 

 areas of distinct fill, and three ash layers located as follows: a trace 

 of one mixed with pink (burned?) clay at a depth of 1.0 meter, another 

 at about 1.5 meters in the south profile, and a third at 2.2 meters. 

 A "floor" of waterworn stones about the size of tennis balls was 

 noted at a depth of roughly 2.0 meters. Fragments of "burned floor" 

 were found at a depth of 1.2 meters. Two deep intrusions. Find 346, 

 a burial, and Find 384, a cache of pottery and stone, were encountered 

 in the southeast corner of the trench at depths of 3.5 meters and 6.7 

 meters respectively. Additional smaller finds of one or two vessels 

 were scattered through the trench. 



