82 THE AKORTGINES OF PORTO RICO [eth. ann. 25 



disappeai-ed, and the remainder have lieen partially destroyed, so that 

 it can not be determined whether the walls once completely surrounded 

 the inclosure or whether jjassageways were left in the corners or other 

 places. Doctor Stahl mentions one of these sites near the source of 

 the Bayamon river, on the border of Aouas Buenas and Bayamon. 

 Another was found on the banks of the Manati river, in the high 

 mountains of Corosal. 



The hall courts examined by the present author were situated for 

 the most part on terraces or on land fringing rivers, elevated high 

 enough to be above freshets, and yet lying in river valleys that could 

 be cultivated. The center of the inclosure is ordinarily lower than 

 the surrounding plain. In most instances the alignment of the stones 

 has been disturbed, and none of these structures which has been 

 examined has an unbroken surrounding wall. As a rule, only a few 

 of the stones which once composed them now stand upright. Many 

 of these structures are now found in the mountains l)ut there is good 

 evidence that in prehistoric times they were most numerous on the 

 coastal plains. The latter regions arc now given up mostly to sugar 

 cultivation and have been planted with cane for so many years that all 

 traces of aboriginal structures in them have been completely oblit- 

 erated. Along the banks of the Rio Grande de Arecibo and its tri1)u- 

 taries there are still found many remnants of ball courts, <'specially in 

 the high mountains in the middle of the island. At present the best 

 preserved are found near the towns Utuado and Adjuntas. There is a 

 good specimen about .50 steps from the main road between Utuado 

 and Adjuntas, just north of the latter town. 



During his archeological studies in Utuado in 1903 over 20 hateys 

 were brought to the author's attention, the most important and best- 

 preserved being somewhat distant from that town. The following 

 may be mentioned as the best known: (1) Cayuco, (2) Arenas, (3) Salto 

 Arriba, (4) Vivi Abajo, (5) Jayuya, (0) Mameyes, (7) Paso del Palma, 

 (8) Alonso, (9) Alfonso, (10) several in the l)arrios of Utuado. 



Just outside the boundary wall of every one of the inclosures studied 

 by the author there weri^ found one or more low mounds which bear 

 superficial evidences of having been made by human hands. Excava- 

 tions in one of these mounds near Utuado were made b}' the writer in 

 1903, and a brief reference to the result of his work appears in the 

 following quotation from his account of Porto Rican pictography : " 



In my studies of one of these inclosures at Utuado I found that the main road 

 from that town to Adjuntas had cut through the edge of one of the mounds, '' reveal- 

 ing, a few feet below the surface, a layer of soil containing fragments of jiottery, a 

 few broken celts, and the long bones of an adult. This discovery induced me to 

 extend a trench diametrically through the mound, parallel with the sides of the 



<i Amcrii'im Anthmpologist, n. 9., v., no. 3, 457. 1903. 



'>The author identilies tnese mounds with the mneys mentioned by Antonio Bachiller y Morales 

 in his well-l;nown work, Cuba Primitiva. 



