'^'^No!'^72r^^' ARCHEOLOGY, ALMIRANTE BAY, PANAMA — STIRLING 263 



by gold seekers and slavers with the result that native culture was 

 pretty well broken down. There is little in the records of these more 

 or less transient visits that is of help to the archeologist. 



Modern accounts of the Guaymi are unsatisfactory, even for areas 

 considerably removed from the Northwest Panama Coast. 



During the last quarter of the 19th century A. L. Pinart made 

 some observations on the Guaymi of the Chiriqui Lagoon region, 

 and more recently they have been studied by Ephraim Alphonse. 



Practically all of the available early source material has been 

 collected and published by Lothrop (1950) in his excellent Veraguas 

 report. 



CEKAMIC STUDIES 



A considerable amount of time was spent in examining the temper 

 of the various wares from the several sites herein described. The 

 only instruments used in this connection were small hand lenses. 

 Samples of the wares were shown to several professional archeologists. 

 Their conclusions as to the nature of the tempering material differed 

 so widely among themselves and with our own tentative determina- 

 tions that we decided to follow the advice of Miss Anna O. Shepherd 

 of the Ceramic Technological Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, D.C., and describe them in general terms rather than 

 to guess at specific descriptions, a practice likely to lead to false 

 assumptions. 



All clays are originally derived from decomposition of igneous 

 rocks and contain a certain amount of grit and fragments of un- 

 altered rock. With the naked eye or a hand lens it is impossible to 

 teU in most instances whether the grit is natural or hand ground. 

 In general, the temper of the pottery from Almirante Bay is rounded 

 sand mixed with angular particles. 



Similar difficulties were experienced in studying the nature of 

 slips. It was not always possible to distinguish between self slips, 

 applied slips, and effects obtained by polishing. Here again we have 

 tried to be not too categorical in our designations. 



Hardness was determined by scratch tests in accordance with the 

 Mohs scale. 



Of the pottery excavated in the three Almirante Bay sites, the 

 significant pieces are illustrated and complete data are given with the 

 descriptions of each plate. 



Since the excavations were small, we felt that it would be pre- 

 mature to give names to the pottery types encountered. 



Colors have been identified in the MunseU color system. As 

 every ceramist knows, the colors of primitive pottery vary considerably 

 because of uneven firing conditions, as well as other factors. The 



