Ladd] PARITA AND SANTA MARIA ARCHEOLOGY, PANAMA 227 



represented by Momil or even Valdivia, and appears closer to that 

 represented by the complexes at Barlovento and possibly Isla de los 

 Indios. 



The Valdivia assemblages (Estrada, 1956, 1958; Evans, Meggers 

 and Estrada, 1959), located in shell middens on the south coast of 

 Ecuador, have been dated by carbon-14 methods at between roughly 

 2500-2000 B.C. and thus are contemporaneous, at least in part, with 

 Monagrillo. Agriculture, if practiced at all, was a minor activity 

 and worked bone and shell are rare. Also like Monagrillo, rough 

 chipping characterizes the stone industry. But the total impression, 

 including ceramics and viewing the four subperiods (Valdivia A, B, C, 

 and D) together, is one of considerable elaboration.^^ For example, 

 pottery shapes include collared jars, insloping and outsloping bowls, 

 thickened and modeled rims, and tetrapod supports. Surfaces are 

 occasionally treated with a polished red slip and, although painted 

 designs are lacking, a variety of plastic decoration fills the gap. This 

 variety includes incision (both with and without rubbed-in pigment), 

 punctation in zones bordered by incision, finger indentation, rocker 

 stamping, excision, striation or brushing, and the use of applique fillets. 

 Designs, often nested rectangles, are unlike the curvilinear motifs 

 which dominate Monagrillo Incised, and the termination of a line by 

 a dot was certainly rare if present at all. Although worked bone and 

 shell objects are uncommon, bone labrets or earplugs, awls, and 

 drilled shell are present. Finally, pottery female figurines are com- 

 mon in the last three of the four subperiods and so characteristic of 

 the complex or phase as a whole that they may be considered diag- 

 nostic. In short, although both Valdivia and Monagrillo represent 

 coastal peoples at roughly the same cultural stage and time in history, 

 Valdivia includes so many related traits not shared by MonagrUlo 

 while excluding some of the more characteristic elements of the latter, 

 that any marked period of contact or shared influence between the 

 two must be repudiated. 



Further to the north much the same conclusion is called for with 

 regard to Momil I of the Simi River sequence in Colombia (Reichel- 

 Dolmatoff, G. and A., 1956, and Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1957). The 

 sites lie in a lowland riverine region favorable to a subsistence pattern 

 combining hunting and agriculture, and the frequency of pottery 

 griddles along with mammal bones in the refuse miplies that such a 

 pattern existed. Unlike Monagrillo, the evidence here suggests con- 

 siderable reliance on manioc agriculture. Vessel shapes are far more 

 varied and specialized than those of Monagrillo ; for example, Momil 1 

 forms include dishes, ollas, composite silhouette bowls, pottery stands. 



i« This point is also made in the detailed comparison presented in Evans, Meggers, and Estrada, 1969, 

 pp. 80-87. 



