5° 



same simple stone cists and the same shabby offer- 

 ings. No one beUeved, apparently, that you could 

 "take it with you." In the most fashionable burial 

 areas, the pottery offerings were often either broken 

 or worn out before deposition. With these strictures, 

 the frequency of shell offerings at the two sites does 

 not seem too disparate, nor do those at other sites 

 in the Maya lowlands. In Uaxactun, five Early and 

 Late Classic burials had offerings of raw shell (K, 

 p. 6i). At Piedras Negras, one Late Classic tomb 

 (the most elaborately equipped at the site) contained 

 three Spondylus princeps valves and one Psoronaias 

 quadrat us (C, p. 55). Over the area as a whole, in 

 summary, burials occasionally, but at some sites very 

 rarely, contained offerings of unworked molluscs. 

 A considerably higher proportion contained pen- 

 dants of perforated but otherwise unaltered shells 

 or jewelry made of this material, which might have 

 served the same symbolic purpose. 



Unworked shell played a prominent role as a 

 component of caches at Dzibilchaltun. Ten caches 

 contained unaltered specimens; 16 contained assort- 

 ments of fragments, some of which showed marks 

 of cutting or grinding, but most of which were 

 simply smashed. We shall have much to say about 

 this material in the volume on artifacts, but shall 

 here note only that we are usually uncertain whether 

 such fragments were considered as raw material 

 suitable for making small jewelry such as mosaic, 

 or whether they were rejects or waste material from 

 such operations. A surprising number of species 

 occurred in caches (numerals indicate unaltered 

 .specimens): 



Tectarius muricatus (4) 

 Vermicularia spirata ( i ) 

 Crepidula jornicata ( 3 ) 

 Strombus costatus (5 + fragments) 

 Ficus communis (3 + fragments) 

 Melongena corona (50) 

 Melongena melongena (12) 

 Biisycon contraiium (3) 

 Busycon spiratum (i) 

 Fasciolaria tulipa (fragments) 

 Pleuroploca gigantea (fragments) 

 Prunum a. virgineum (3) 

 Bulla occidentalis (fragments) 

 Area zebra (i pair) 

 Brachidontes exustus {■}) 

 Isognomon alatus (fragments) 

 Atrina seminuda (fragments) 

 Spondylus americanus (fragments) 

 Anornia simplex (i6) 



MOLLUSCA IN THE MaYA LoWLANDS 



Crassostrea virgitiica (3) 

 Diplodonta semiaspera (i) 

 Phacoides radians ( i ) 

 Chama congregata (3) 

 Trachycardium isocardia (fragments) 

 Trachycardium muricatum (fragments) 

 Dinocardium r. vanhyningi (16) 

 Mercenaria campechiensis (fragments) 

 Chione cancellata (3 + fragments) 

 Anomalocardia cuneimeris (2) 

 Transennella cubaniana (4) 



Several caches contained only a single species of 

 shell, without container or other offerings. A Copo 

 Complex cache contained 16 carefully nested Dino- 

 cardium r. vanhyningi — obviously arranged as single 

 valves, therefore not pairs which might have con- 

 tained animals as food offerings (fig. 4). A single 

 Formative cache from Str. 500 contained 22 perfect 

 Melongenas, evenly divided between the species 

 corona and melongena. Distribution of species in 

 the caches followed even more rigidly the temporal 

 variations discussed on pp. 45—48, above. For ex- 

 ample, all but one of the 62 cached Melongenas 

 were found in Formative context; all of the 18 

 Dinocardiums were associated with the Copo Com- 

 plex. A number of other forms of marine life 

 appeared in the caches. Thirty barnacles were found 

 in one cache, possibly brought in on large conchs. 

 Three caches contained colonies of bryozoans; one, 

 nine of such. One contained a chunk of marine coral. 

 Various inclusions of fish remains, particularly 

 spines of the stingray and the spiny scales of the 

 boxfish, will be discussed in detail elsewhere in our 

 reports. No substela caches were found at Dzibil- 

 chaltun; all that were found fall in the class of 

 "structure caches" as used by other writers. 



At Mayapan, in his summary of 27 residential 

 caches. Smith (1962, pp. 256—63) lists only one un- 

 identified shell and no marine material. Proskouria- 

 koff notes, to the contrary, that "small conchlike 

 shells, apparently unworked, have been found in 

 many cists and caches containing other artifacts." 

 She mentions specifically only a Cymatium femorale. 

 Six pieces of coral, of at least three species, were 

 found "in tombs or in association with objects of 

 ceremonial nature" (P, p. 387). 



At Copan, all of the 14 caches found had been 

 placed under stelae. Six were listed as containing 

 marine shells, of which only Spondylus princeps 

 and Anadara grandis are identified, both Pacific 

 species. One Copan cache contained coral fragments 



