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a ARCHEOLOGY IN BRITISH GUIANA 327 
tions, cemeteries, and places of possible ceremonial significance. 
Taken together, they give a more complete description of the cultural 
complex than can be provided for any of the other archeological 
phases in British Guiana. Among the diagnostic features are fre- 
quent moving of the village, secondary urn burial in rock shelters (or 
when these are absent, in the ground), pottery that is crude in form 
~and Jacking decoration, and the use of stone tools, especially stone 
hoes and stubby axes with lateral notches. 
In all of its features, the Rupununi Phase is distinct from all of the 
other archeological phases recognized in British Guiana. The ab- 
sence of any affiliations with complexes along the coast or on the 
upper Essequibo River minimizes the possibility of its derivation 
from the north, south, or east. Although the archeology of the 
Mazaruni region that borders the Rupununi on the north is little 
known, indications are that secondary urn burial there was never an 
important method of disposal of the dead (Butt, 1958). However, 
rock shelters with large burial urns of Rupununi Phase forms have 
been reported by Homet (1953) from the northern part of the Terri- 
tory of Rio Branco, in adjacent Brazil. Several were covered with 
an inverted jar or bowl, a frequent Rupununi Phase custom, and at 
least one contained glass beads (op. cit., p. 10 and pls. 7, 8). Hold- 
ridge (1933, pp. 70-72) describes a visit to two caves containing 
large undecorated burial urns in the Serra Maruahy (Marari?) 
north of the Rio Uraricoera, also in the Territory of Rio Branco. 
This extension of the distribution of the Rupununi Phase to the 
east coincides with historical evidence that the Wapisiana and Macusi 
inhabited the Brazilian savanna. A map by Nicholas Horstman pub- 
lished in 1748 shows the Macusi occupying the area north of the 
Takutu River and the Kanuku Mountains and the Wapisiana on the 
Brazilian savannas south of the Takutu and Uraracuera Rivers (Fara- 
bee, 1918, p. 13). A slightly later map, dated 1771-75, by Juan de la 
Cruz Cano y Olmedilla (Cartografia Historica de Venezuela, 1946, 
p. 19) shows the Macusi in the southern Rupununi and the “Mari- 
pisanas” in Brazil. Luis de Surville’s map of 1778 places the Macusi 
in the northern Rupununi savanna and east of the Essequibo River; 
the Wapisiana are not shown (op. cit., p. 21). Schomburgk found 
the Macusi in the north Rupununi in 1835; by this time the Wapisiana 
were occupying the area between the Essequibo and the Branco, hav- 
ing displaced the Macusi (Farabee, 1918, p. 138). At the time of his 
visit in 1913, Farabee (op. cit., p. 14) found old men living east of the 
Rupununi River who remembered stories their fathers told of mi- 
gration from the west. 
The absence of adequate archeological information makes it impos- 
sible to trace the Rupununi Phase farther backward in time. Its ap- 
