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teen ARCHEOLOGY IN BRITISH, GUIANA 299 
slope of this mountain that was said to contain a pottery jar. We 
were unable to visit the shelter, but the description fits the Rupununi 
Phase burial pattern. 
More detailed information on Tirka comes from W. C. Farabee, 
who investigated archeological leads while he was collecting ethno- 
graphic material in the area in 1918. He describes a site of the kind 
reported to us: 
. .. John said he had seen a skull under a very large rock on the top of Tirka 
Mt. pass and we followed him for hours up a ravine and up the mountain... 
and just at sundown reached the place and from the top of a rock John pointed 
in the direction of an overhanging rock and said there itis. ... 
We found not only a skull but an urn burial of a man with the skull of a 
woman inside, and the rest of the skeleton on outside of pot. The pot had been 
placed in the loose blown earth under the rock where no rain could reach it 
and rocks piled about it and over it. One stone was off on upper side next. the 
woman burial.... 
_ In the pot was the man’s trinket basket and in it his knife and razor both 
almost rusted away; some beads and a paint stamp. ‘The basket was just 
below his head. .. . Apparently nothing belonging to the woman was in the pot. 
The skeleton of the woman was apparently in a bundle in the carrying 
basket. The bones as found could not have been in natural position when 
buried. However, the burial may have been disturbed by animals as it was 
not well covered with rocks. With the woman was a great many beads... 
several kinds—her spindle whorl, and hoe were buried with her and a gourd. 
From the position of the beads they could not have been around the neck or 
around the shoulders but must have been put in a bunch or in a sack of some 
kind. The woman was buried against the pot on the upper, or northern side 
and had originally been covered with earth and stones on top. When I found 
the two skulls in the pot I at once looked about for evidence of another burial 
but didn’t discover it until I was digging out the pot.... 
After taking out the pot I looked about the other rocks and a pile of rocks 
under the large overhanging rock near and in the photo. Upon removing the 
rocks a skull with nothing else about it was found—Skull No. 3. No other 
bones near. I had no time to explore the region. 
Urn No. 2 I dug up the next day after carrying the big pot down. ... The 
2nd pot was inverted, but nothing found in or about it. An infant may have 
been buried in it—bones entirely disappeared. Both pots were sent home from 
Yupikari. [Farabee, MS., Field Notebook 22.] 
Both of these vessels are in the collections of the University 
Museum, Philadelphia. The largest is a variation of Kanuku (?) 
Plain Form 3, with a rounded instead of angular shoulder. Height 
is 56 cm., rim diameter 54.5 cm. The smaller vessel is Rupununi 
Plain Form 3 a, with a squat body so that the juncture of body and 
neck is about half way between rim and base (pl. 65, a). Height 
is 29 cm., rim diameter 45.5 to 47.0 cm. 
ANNAI AREA 
Subsequent to our excavation of the buried jar at R-14, we were 
told of similar vessels found accidentally in the vicinity. One was 
513186—60——21 
