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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[bdll. 64 



Fig. 37.— Flint spearheads. 



sides, smaller summits, and base lines easily distinguishable. The 

 reason for this difference is to be sought in the material from which 

 the mounds were constructed, which in the south is clay, with a 

 small admixture of river bowlders, both of which are easily washed 

 doviTi by the torrential tropical rains of the district. Year by year 

 ,^ the mound becoines flatter and less well 



defined, till at length most of these 

 mounds will be hardly distinguishable 

 from the surrounding earth. In the 

 north, on the contrary, the mounds are 

 built of large blocks of limestone, with 

 only a small admixture of earth and lime- 

 stone dust. In many cases the blocks 

 are mortared together, and in nearly all 

 cases layers of cement are alternated 

 with layers of stone. The whole forms a 

 practically sohd block of masonry, capa- 

 ble of withstanding for aU time the less 

 heavy rainfall of this part of British Honduras and Yucatan. About 

 the center of a triangular space, bounded at each angle by a smaU 

 mound, situated close to the mound last described, was found -a 

 piece of water-worn rock measuring 4 feet 10 inches in length, which 

 had evidently been carried up from the river bed a quarter of a mile 

 away. Three or four inches of it appeared above the soil. Beneath 

 the rock extended a layer of water-worn river stones to a depth of 

 2 feet. Among these were found numerous fragments of pottery 

 and patches of charcoal. On the 

 western side of the rock, close to 

 its edge, and buried 10 inches be- 

 neath the surface, were found tliree 

 rather well-chipped fUnt spearheads, 

 the largest of which was 25 cm. in 

 length (fig. 37, a, h, c) ; these were 

 placed erect in the earth, points, up- 

 ward, and close to them lay the small, 

 eccentrically shaped object seen in 

 figure 38, h, very well chipped from 

 dark-blue flint, measuring 7J cm. in 

 length. A few feet to the north of 

 these objects, buried at about the 

 same depth and quite close to the rock, were found the serrated fhnt 

 spearhead shown in figure 38, c, 27 cm. in length, together with the 

 eccentrically shaped object seen in figure 38, a, 28 cm. in length; both 

 of these were placed perpendicularly, the spearhead point upward. 



About H miles from the village of Benque Viejo, in the Western 

 District, is the only considerable aboriginal building in British Hon- 



FiG. 38.— Flint objects. 



