80 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 177 
Maruiwa Hill—A site on red, lateritic hill about 6 miles below Mt. 
Everard on the Barima River produced incised and modeled pottery 
and stone artifacts. A site in this vicinity was similarly described 
to us in 1953, at which time the name was given as Drum Hill (Verrill, 
1918 a, p. 17; Osgood, 1946, Site No. 15, p. 61). 
Two other sites, said to have produced only plain sherds, probably 
also belong to the Mabaruma Phase, since certain of the shallow sites 
lack the elaborate types of decorated material. These are Simri Hill, 
the location of which is not given, and Hotahana Hill on the Kaituma 
River (Verrill, 1918 a, p. 17). 
The rest of the published and manuscript data on the archeology 
of the Northwest District helps to confirm the definition of the arche- 
ological cultures but cannot be used for deriving it. 'The major con- 
tributor is Walter E. Roth, who describes Mabaruma Phase pottery 
in his publication on the arts and crafts of the British Guiana Indians 
(1924, pp. 184-5, pls. 238-26, 31-32, figs. 32-35) and in a manuscript 
filed in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Wash- 
ington, D.C. (1930). The published work is based on specimens in the 
British Guiana Museum, the majority of which were brought in from 
time to time by the public without exact information on association 
or provenience. The manuscript is the result of fieldwork done in 
the early part of 1930 with “the sympathetic and generous assistance 
of the Smithsonian Institution” (W. E. Roth, MS., p. 4). Roth’s 
method of investigation consisted of sinking pits 2 to 3 feet in depth 
and diameter into sites, sifting the dirt, and placing the sherds in 
labeled bags. Afterward the sherds were cleaned, and considerable 
time and effort was spent in trying to piece them together. After 
decorated fragments were separated from the plain sherds, the final 
step was: “when satisfied that they were not wanted to complete an 
article to discard the latter” (op. cit., p. 5). Out of almost 10,000 
sherds, Roth was able to reconstruct only four vessels, positive proof 
that he was working in habitation refuse. Unfortunately, when the 
manuscript was written and the illustrations prepared, provenience 
data was omitted for the majority of the sherds. Consequently, al- 
though this was a significant contribution to archeology at the time 
the work was done, it is difficult to use for comparative purposes today. 
ANALYSIS OF MATERIAL 
The artifacts from Mabaruma Phase sites include only stone objects 
and pottery. These will be described according to types, rather than 
as individual objects, but exact provenience of each artifact is given 
in tables 2 and 3 in the Appendix. In these tables the stone artifacts 
are listed according to the rock material out of which they are made, 
as well as by type. 
