52 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 146 
more advanced, having the first two-color painted sherds reported in 
the entire area, structures, elaborate burials, and carved metates. If 
the Barriles Culture is as early as its pottery suggests, the thesis of 
the precocity of Panamanian cultures will be further supported. 
And more so, if the early Venado Beach date is confirmed. 
Similarly in Period V, Early Code and El Hatillo seem to represent 
more diversified and complex cultures than those related to the 
northwestern Costa Rican Early Polychrome. During Period VI, pres- 
ent evidence does not indicate that any of the phases in the area were 
more developed than the others; but further work may change this 
picture. 
From data gathered in the 16th and 17th centuries by Spanish 
chroniclers, northwestern Costa Rica and southwestern Nicaragua 
were included in Mesoamerica. One would therefore expect a much 
higher culture in these regions than in the southern part of the area. 
Actually, however, archeology does not as yet reveal such a superiority 
in spite of many Mesoamerican influences in southwestern Nicaragua 
and northwestern Costa Rica. 
Most of the questions on the nature and importance of relations 
between the various regions within lower Central America cannot as 
yet be answered. Too few sites are known, and many of these are 
poorly known. Our ignorance of the prehistoric natural environment 
is also a handicap. Darien, for instance, is now a considerable natural 
barrier between Central and South America. We think it is premature 
to assume that the tropical forest landscape as it exists today was 
the same in prehistoric times, and therefore to infer a virtual lack of 
land connections through the Isthmus in earlier times. On the con- 
trary, within the limits of our present knowledge, the close cultural 
relationships between Veraguas-Chiriqui-Diquis and inland central 
Costa Rica, observable at least as early as a.d. 500, seem indicative 
of numerous overland contacts. If sea contacts were common, one 
would expect to find more evidence for them than we now have — for 
example, between southwestern and northwestern Costa Rica. 
In a tentative evaluation of this sort, these cultures should be con- 
sidered in themselves and not solely in comparison with centers of 
higher culture. It would seem unjust to approach this area, as is so 
often done, with a negative attitude, looking for what was lacking 
and not for what was present. For this reason, we have emphasized 
perhaps prematurely such positive concepts as social stratification, 
division of labor, ceremonialism in religion, and others. From the 
few archeological facts available, a relatively high level of social di- 
versification and complexity is indicated for the cultures of lower 
Central America in late pre-European times. 
