120 BUKEAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



It thus appears that the utilization of suitable pebbles, occasionally 

 in the same way as at more northern points on the coast, and also 

 of anvil-stones, can not be regarded as characteristic of any very 

 ancient culture. They must have been made and used by the Indians 

 occupying some parts of the Argentine coast up to and probably even 

 in historic times. 



A word remains to be said as to pottery. Potsherds are very rare 

 along the coast from Mar del Plata to Bahia Blanca; nevertheless, 

 a few specimens were found by the writer, these on the same black 

 playas, among the sand dunes, with "white" and "black" chips, 

 flakes, and implements. The fragments are all of rather thin cooking 

 vessels, without glaze or ornament. Some potsherds of very much 

 the same nature were found with worked "white" and "black" 

 stones on the shore of the Laguna de los Padres, west of Mar del 

 Plata. At San Bias and in the eastern part of the valley of the Rio 

 Negro, pottery is more common, although comparatively rare; this 

 was occasionally well decorated by incised and impressed figures. No 

 potter}^ was found at the San Xavier settlement, which existed until 

 historic times, nor at that south of Viedma. 



Besides the many stone specimens and the pieces of earthenware 

 collected on the journey, three objects were found which deserve 

 special mention. One, near the Laguna Malacara, was the piece of a 

 shaft of the long bone of some animal, fashioned artificially on one 

 side to a point, and having served very likely as a flaker; the second 

 was a small turquoise bead, with central perforation, picked up by 

 the writer with some of the "white" and "black" worked stones, on 

 a playa southeast of Miramar; while the third is a large neatly fin- 

 ished arrow point, made of a flake of one of the black pebbles, found 

 by the writer on one of the playas between Punta Mogote and Arroyo 

 Corrientes, south of Mar del Plata. 



The stone specimens, specially the "black ones," were found in 

 numerous instances to present faint-to-marked signs of weathering. 

 This feature was particularly noticeable in one limited region close 

 to the seashore near the Arroyo del Moro, northeast of Necochea, This 

 weathering is due in the main to sand blast and is a phenomenon of 

 but secondary importance. Everything in these regions that is 

 exposed to the wind, including recent bones of animals, fragments of 

 glass bottles, pieces of driftwood, tosca, etc., shows before the lapse 

 of many years the effects of weathering in greater or less degree. A 

 fragment of a stout wine bottle, collected by the writer among the 

 dunes, had the exposed surface ground to complete dullness, while 

 that buried in the sand preserves all its old luster. 



No evidence was found that the natives ever actually dwelt, except 

 temporarily, in the territory of the sand dunes. The}^ have had 

 settlements in not very distant localities, traces of such being appar- 



