HARTMAN: ARCHEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF COSTA RICA 4] 
outline the form of some animal, and are then provided with a large, protruding 
head at the front, but not a single specimen of this class of metates shows any trace 
of the tail which always figures so prominently in the animal-shaped stools of the 
highlands. Others are provided with two loops at the front end. ‘The legs, which 
are artistic and seldom plain, are most remarkable because of their oblong or circular 
perforations and the fact that they represent monkeys generally in a crouching posi- 
tion. The animal forms, besides that of man, embodied in, or sculptured on, metates 
of this group, are the monkey, the jaguar, birds of several distinct forms, and the 
alligator. In the first group, besides man, we find representations of the monkey, 
the ant-bear (one specimen), birds, and alligators, but the jaguar is conspicuously 
absent. ‘This kind of metates is known, too, from other localities on the peninsula, 
and is said to be especially numerous at Sardinal. It may not belong to the Las 
Guacas culture proper, but is possibly of alien origin. However, this is one of the 
questions which can only be settled by future investigations. 
Neither of the forms of metates found at Las Guacas is, as far as our knowledge 
goes at present, encountered on the highlands, or on the Atlantic coast, although of 
course stray pieces may have found their way to some localities. Dr. Carl Sapper 
in his paper ‘‘ Huacas der Halb-Insel Nicoya,” referred to above, makes the follow- 
ing statement: “The metates of the burial-ground of Las Huacas resemble the 
type of northern Central America in the respect that both forms are provided with 
three legs, while the metates of the highlands of Costa Rica and those of the province 
of Chiriqui have four legs.”” When Sapper speaks of the metates on the highlands 
of Costa Rica having four legs, he undoubtedly refers to the small, artistically 
executed metate-shaped implements, which forms in the publications of W. H. 
Holmes and others have been generally designated as “stools,” and are supposed to 
have had only ceremonial uses. The common household metates or grinding stones 
of the highlands, besides the flat natural boulders, are mostly small, crude, flat, and 
provided with three small knobs as legs. On Pl. 15, Fig. 4, in my “ Archeeological 
Researches in Costa Rica,” there is shown a typical specimen of the metate of the 
highlands, excavated by me at Williamsburg on the Atlantic coast, where the 
same form also prevails. Pl. 78, Fig. 9, in the same work illustrates a typical 
specimen of the grinding-stone used with the metate of the highlands. It is rec- 
tangular, flat, and of small size. No attention, however, was paid by collectors to 
these simple objects in former times, undoubtedly on account of their entire lack 
of decorative features. 
Besides these metates there occurs at certain localities on the highlands, prin- 
cipally near San José, another type of metates having the shape of a low three- 
