Ladd] PARITA AND SANTA MARIA ARCHEOLOGY, PANAMA 161 



yielded nothing of apparent stratigraphic significance. The top 80 

 cms. consisted of sterile red-brown river clay. Although the remain- 

 ing 140 cms. contained sherds, these were badly eroded and probably 

 deposited by the river, rather than as midden refuse. In any case, 

 the total number of distinguishable typed painted sherds for the pit 

 was only 62, far too few to allow any sort of significant comparison 

 by level. Five plastic decorated sherds were recovered. 



Pit 3, on the other hand, yielded some support for the general 

 findings of Pit 1 . This excavation, a 1 -meter square test in the midden 

 heap at the edge of the hill, was dug to a depth of 1.60 meters. The 

 refuse composition has been described as much like that of Pit 1 with 

 numerous shells and sherds down to 1.10 meters, fewer from 1.10-1.35 

 meters and nonexistent from 1.35-1.60 meters (sterile red-brown clay). 

 The support for the stratigraphic evidence of Pit 1 lies in the fact that 

 Azuero group or Code polychrome sherds were not found, but Red 

 Daubed and both types of the Aristide group were. Apparently this 

 pit corresponds to the middle and lower levels of Pit 1. 



Reviewing the pit by type and variety, 87 sherds of the Escot^ type 

 were recorded (as against 69 for the Girdn) with the following break- 

 down by variety: Black Crosshatch, 34 sherds; Black-on-buff, 30 

 sherds; Black-on-red, 23 sherds; and Black Chevron, no sherds. The 

 Gir6n type is represented by 46 sherds of the Banded Lip variety and 

 23 of the Interior Banded variety. As may be seen from chart 11, 

 there does not appear to be a meaningful pattern of frequency dis- 

 tribution. The Red Daubed variety was represented by 51 sherds 

 randomly distributed. 



Shells from Pit 1 (see Appendix 5, p. 268) were mainly oyster or 

 clam. Although a formal count was not made, it was the excavators' 

 impression that oysters were foimd in numerically greater proportions 

 above the depth of 1 meter in Pit 1 ; i.e., in the upper two strata. The 

 presence of mano and/or metate fragments indicates a shared depend- 

 ence on corn as well as shellfish. 



CERAMIC REMAINS 



In preparing WHley and Stoddard's 1953 typological and statistical 

 analysis for publication in the 1960's, two difficulties were encountered. 

 First, the use of the name "Santa Maria," already fixed as a Phase 

 title in the Panamanian archeological sequence for a pottery type, 

 tends to confuse the temporally lunited Phase with the particular 

 class of pottery which may extend beyond the Phase limits. Sec- 

 ondly, on reexamination of the sample type collections in the light of 

 similar pottery recovered at He-1 and He-2, it was apparent that, 

 instead of including aU Santa Maria Polychrome under one classifica- 

 tion, a more appropriate method would be to break it down into two 



