APPENDIX 



Archaeological Occurrences of Other 

 Marine Invertebrates 



At Dzibilchaltun and elsewhere, a number of 

 other forms of marine life have been found in some 

 abundance. These are listed below, with comments. 

 Abbreviations of references are those used in the 

 checklist. 



CORAL 



DZIBILCHALTUN: Corals were kindly identified 

 by Dr. Donald F. Squires, of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, who also determined which of our specimens 

 were "modern" and which were fossil. Limestone 

 at the site is frequently very rich in fossil corals. 

 Fossil specimens encountered were normally entirely 

 removed from their matrix. They were probably 

 obtained in the course of breaking up the enormous 

 amount of stone used as architectural fill. The fol- 

 lowing species were found: 

 Colpophyllia sp.: i, modern, in Cenote Xlacah. 

 Montastrea sp.: 4, fossil, three in Formative fill, one 



in Late Early period fill. 

 Pontes, probably P. astreoides: i, modern, in Late 



Early period fill. 

 Solenastrea hyades: 4 fossil, three in Formative, one 

 in Copo Complex fill; 15, modern, nine in Forma- 

 tive, three in Late Early period and one Copo 

 Complex fill; two on surface. 

 Solenastrea bournoni: 2, one fossil in Formative, one 



modern in Copo Complex fill. 

 Solenastrea sp.: 2, fossil, one in Formative, one in 

 Late Early period fill; 4, modern, two in Forma- 

 tive, one in Late Early period fill, one in Pure 

 Florescent cache. 



MAYAPAN: 6 pieces "in tombs or in association 

 with objects of a ceremonial nature," Decadent 

 period (P, p. 387, fig. 44,,^). 



SAN JOSE: "Coral or Bryozoa. Several fragments 

 . . ." in S.J. II or possibly III cache (T, p. 181). 



HATZCAP CEEL: 2 pieces in two Classic caches 

 (Thompson, 1931, pp. 273-74, pl- XXXI, 16). 



CARACOL: i piece, in cache (Satterthwaite, quoted 

 by Coe, 1959, p. 60). 



COP AN: 2 lumps in Full Classic stela cache (Long- 

 year, 1952, p. 51)- 



TIKAL: Moholy-Nagy (M-MS) lists over 200 frag- 

 ments of coral not yet identified by species or ar- 

 ranged by age or context. However, it is clear from 

 her earlier paper that the context was largely cere- 

 monial. 



UAXACTUN: 16 specimens, one in Tzakol cache, 

 eleven in two Tepeu caches, four in Tepeu fill (K, 

 p. 66; RR, p. 159, pl. 68,^). 



PIEDRAS NEGRAS: 3 fragments, two in two Clas- 

 sic caches, one of unknown exact provenience (C, 



p. 60, fig. 52,£/). 



Comment: Dr. Squires writes of the Dzibilchaltun 

 material: 



"Several things struck me as I completed the 

 listings: (i) many of the older, possibly fossilized 

 coralla I had called Montastrea, rather than Solen- 

 astrea, which is the common coral in this collection. 

 The difference between these two corals is slight, 

 but important as I shall explain. In Montastrea the 

 peritheca between the calices is solid, while in Solen- 

 astrea it is vesicular. This is a difference which is 

 easily obscured in the process of recrystallization 

 occurring as a part of fossilization. Hence, I am 

 moved to question all of the occurrences of Mon- 

 tastrea without the time-consuming operation of 

 preparation of thin-sections." 



"(2) All of the corals noted here with the excep- 

 tion of Porites astreoides have been found floating 

 in the Gulf of Mexico, and even that species is poten- 

 tially capable of floating. I enclose a separate of a 

 paper on this subject by Dr. Louis Kornicker and 

 me [Kornicker and Squires, 1962]. This is a remark- 

 able thing, as is the consistent selection of Solenastrea 

 from a potentially larger selection. 



"All of the corals occur in the West Indies. Solen- 

 astrea is tolerably common on reefs there. But other 

 species of corals are more common. 



"There are known occurrences of windrows of 

 corals which Kornicker and I believe are accumula- 



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