Anthrop.^Pap. PREHISTORY OF PANAMA VIE JO BIESE 13 



recovered is presently in the possession of Mr. Smith at Albrook Field, 

 Canal Zone, and has not been published. Since its discovery, the 

 site has unfortunately been subjected to the daily raids of children 

 and an occasional local citizen. While these raids have been confined 

 to the immediate subsurface reachable with a machete, at least 5 

 burials have been demolished in my presence by upward of 15 children 

 at a time. As a result, undoubtedly many whole vessels of the utility 

 class have been lost for future study. In addition to the material 

 presented here, I have located eight vessels which were purchased 

 from local scavengers, in collections among Panama residents and 

 Canal Zone personnel. As these vessels were all of the simplest kind 

 represented by other material in the collection, they were not included 

 in this report. 



METHOD OF PRESENT INVESTIGATION 



Soil disturbance and lack of time while the site was being prepared 

 for expansion of the cemetery precluded extensive trenching. The 

 method, then, consisted of the following program: 



Burials. — Excavation of undisturbed burials exposed on the surface or found 

 by probing the immediate subsurface. Testing pits which yielded burials are 

 recorded as such rather than as pits. Dense accumulations of urn fragments 

 and skeletal material uninvestigated because of their derangement are indicated on 

 the map. 



Shell lenses. — Two lenses indicated on the map were cleared completely to the 

 sterile coquina, yielding three burials discussed below. 



Surface collections. — All artifacts with the exception of plain red ware sherds 

 and burial urn fragments were collected for later analysis as described under the 

 section on ceramics. 



Test pits. — Five pits measuring 1 meter square and 1 meter deep were 

 placed about the periphery in an attempt to determine the limits of the cemetery 

 and heavy artifact concentrations. 



Purchases. — All of the whole vessels mentioned were purchased from children 

 at the site; thus only an approximate location is known, i.e., sector of the burial 

 area. In addition, several more elaborate vessels are shown from other collections. 



Pertinent material has been included from the large collection of 

 the Museo Nacional de Panama. These artifacts are present without 

 context and either were purchased or brought to the museum during 

 the active seasons. 



Sporadic finds have led to the reasonable assumption that the site 

 proper actually extends considerably farther to the north and west, 

 but these adjacent areas presently are closed to investigations. There 

 is evidence of probable discontinuous occupation as far as the present 

 day Vina del Mar and San Francisco de Calete suburbs, where similar 

 utility vessels have been discovered during excavations for house 

 foundations. Map 2 shows only the extent of the present in- 

 vestigation. 



