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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 146 
for the cultivation of potatoes, a crop well suited to the support of an 
expanding population. 
The Tocuyano Phase and those that follow it in the region during 
the succeeding period appear to represent a southern extension of the 
First Painted Horizon of Colombia. The Tocuyano ceramic style in 
particular is widely diffused over western and coastal Venezuela. A 
carbon-14 date of 1930 =!= 70 years (Cruxent and Rouse, 1958, p. 15) 
for the Cerro Machado site gives it an antiquity in the La Guaira area 
equivalent to that in the valley of Quibor. Unfortunately, too little is 
known of the few sites so far reported as representing the Tocuyano 
Phase to speak with any assurance of its general cultural characteris- 
tics. 
Ceramic Period 11. — Between a.d. 350 and 1150, a number of re- 
gional ceramic complexes characterized by painted decoration con- 
tinue to be representative of western Venezuela. The vicinity of 
Betijoque, State of Trujillo, is occupied by the Betijoque Phase, pos- 
sessing a decorative style based on white-on-red painting, with lesser 
amounts of black or red painting on unslipped surfaces. Additional 
forms of decoration include undulating applique fillets and chainlike 
applique on the vessel body, nubbins with transverse incisions, bio- 
morphic adornos, and faces modeled on the vessel wall. Other typical 
artifacts include painted figurines with flat head and coffee-bean eyes, 
and pectorals and pendants of slate. 
La Pitia Phase is approximately contemporary with the Betijoque 
Phase on the northwest coast of Lake Maracaibo. The sites are a 
series of shell middens containing pottery decorated in the following 
varieties of painting: Red-on- white, red-on-black, red-and-black-on- 
white, and black-and-red-on-plain. Among the most typical motifs is 
the so-called ''combing," also characteristic of the pottery of the 
Loma-Horno Period of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia 
(Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1951). The existence of primary and secondary 
earth burials and of secondary urn burials, as well as grave offerings 
such as marine shells, suggests the possibility of differential treat- 
ment of the dead and of beliefs in an afterlife. 
La Pitia Phase apparently has strong affiliations with northwestern 
Colombia. Like related complexes of the Rio Cesar and Rio Ranche- 
ria, it was probably originally associated with a primary dependence 
on agriculture. However, in common with nearly all the other pottery- 
making groups to move onto the Venezuelan coast, this appears to 
have been rapidly replaced by a mixed economy in which seafood ri- 
valed plant food in importance. The presence of manos and grinding 
