Ladd] PARITA AND SANTA MARIA ARCHEOLOGY, PANAMA 29 



complete vessels from this mound appear quite "new" and show no 

 signs of wear. The great majority of the incomplete polychrome 

 vessels from Mound III were varieties of the Parita type or the Cala- 

 baza type. The El Hatillo variety was fairly heavily represented. 

 No complete vessels of the Macaracas type were encountered, although 

 there were numerous Macaracas type, Higo variety, and Code group 

 sherds. The mound evidently was ceremonial in nature and appar- 

 ently was erected during the space of time represented by the Parita 

 type ceramics (i.e., probably a short period late in the sequence), but 

 the nature of the ceremony is not apparent. It is possible that a major 

 burial remained undetected in the mound or under it. 



The mound was excavated by two main trenches which were ex- 

 tended until a considerable portion of the mound was excavated. 

 Trench 3, an 11X3 meters cut, was first laid out on a north-south 

 axis somewhat east of the center of the mound. Three additions 

 were made to this trench: Trench 3-A, a 3X3 meters cut, on the 

 north end of Trench 3; Trench 3-B, a 5X3 meters eastward addi- 

 tion to Trench 3; and Trench 3-C, a westward addition to Trench 3 

 near its northern end. The basal red clay of the plateau was en- 

 countered at a depth of 2.8 meters in the south end of Trench 3. 



Trench 4, located 3 meters west of Trench 3 and extended parallel 

 to it, was 6.5 meters long by 4.0 meters wide. It later was extended 

 an additional 3 meters to the north by Trench 4-A and to the east to 

 join Trench 3 by the addition of Trench 4-B. 



In view of the completely unstratified nature of the mound, cultural 

 material was, for the most part, not bagged by level and is treated in 

 this study as material selected at random from the total mound. 



MOUND IV; TRENCH 5 



This mound, a relatively small one about 80 cm. high, is located on 

 the edge of the plateau with its northern end extending down the 

 plateau slope and its southern end on a small rise in the plateau. 

 The mound is covered with the usual thin layer of humus about 20 

 cm. thick under which a layer of organic stained clay with refuse 

 blends into a transition layer of clay and gray midden over the clayUke 

 rock of the mound base and plateau. Comments from the field notes 

 state that the material looked very much like a Hving accumulation 

 of rubbish. 



Material from the mound, present at Peabody Museum, consisted 

 of 218 sherds from the top level of 0-50 cm., and it is possible that 

 these are selected sherds since only 24 of them are of monochrome 

 (red-buff) ware. No burials, complete vessels, or significant features 

 of any sort were recovered in the mound. 



