STANDARD FORM NO. 64 
Office Memorandum 
• UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 
TO 
: Dr. A. Wetmore 
DATE: June 7, 1949 
from j M. W. Stirling 
subject: Smithsonian Institution-National Geographic Society 
Expedition to Panama, January-April, 1949• 
As a result of the helicopter flight we were able in 
one morning to visit and check the reported mounds along 
the Rio Tigre and in the vicinity of Chepo, and to prove 
their natural origin. This trip accomplished so quickly 
and comfortably would otherwise have required a week of 
difficult travel. With the weapons carrier we were able 
to cover more territory and reach localities that would 
otherwise have been inaccessible to us had we not been so 
provided. 
At Utive, the first site worked, we found a new arche¬ 
ological culture featured by unpainted pottery decorated 
with elaborate animalistic designs in low relief. At 
Barril.es in Chiriqui where our principal work was done 
we found another new culture which is apparently the 
southern-most thrust from some unknown center in southern 
Costa Rica. This proved to be earlier than the culture 
of "Chiriqui” and in part, at least, ancestral to it. 
The Barriles material promises to furnish an important 
link between the high cultures of Central America and 
those now known in Panama. 
On completing the Barriles work we excavated several 
sites of the classic Chiriqui type. Most of these were 
cemeteries in which there were slab-covered and slab-lined 
graves containing pottery some of which is the most 
beautifully formed in the New World. Since this was the 
first scientific excavation of Chiriqui sites, a great 
deal of new data was obtained as to grave types and asso- . 
ciation of wares. 
Our final excavations were conducted in the Province 
of Veraguas, the third of the great^archeological zones 
of Panama, the other two being Code and Chiriqui. In 
Veraguas we excavated some 40 deep tombs and some 300 
pottery vessels. In addition, we obtained a large collec¬ 
tion of stone artifacts and others of gold and semi¬ 
precious stones. 
The excavations this year constituted the first sci¬ 
entific work conducted in the fieldin any of the areas 
mentioned and when studies of material are completed, it 
