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Cultural Stratigraphy in Panama: A Preliminary Report on the Girón Site*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Gordon R. Willey  and
Theodore L. Stoddard
Gordon R. Willey
Affiliation:
Peabody Museum, Harvard University
Theodore L. Stoddard
Affiliation:
Peabody Museum, Harvard University
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Extract

The archaeology of Panama, like that of most of lower Central America and the north Andes, has but recently emerged from a purely descriptive stage. The formulation of cultural-geographical divisions in ceramic and sculptural styles — “Cultures” as these are sometimes called — has been the most important attempt at synthesis. Lothrop (1948) envisaged four such “culture areas”: (1) Darien (Panama below the Canal Zone); (2) Coclé (the Pacific watershed in Coclé, Herrera, and Las Tablas Provinces); (3) Veraguas (Pacific highland Panama in the Province of the same name); and (4) Chiriqui (the upland country of Chiriqui Province and adjacent Costa Rica). To these Stirling and Rands (personal communication) have recently added what is probably a fifth, the Atlantic coastal strip above the Canal Zone. The internal coherence or unity of these “culture areas” is of a most general sort.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , April 1954 , pp. 332 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1954

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Footnotes

*

The field explorations described in this paper are a part of a larger program of archaeological research in Panama. These investigations were begun in 1948 by M. W. Stirling and G. R. Willey for the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society. They were continued in 1952 by Willey, assisted by C. R. McGimsey and J. N. East, on behalf of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. Three preliminary articles (Stirling, 1949; Willey, 1951; Willey and McGimsey, 1952) and a monograph (Willey and McGimsey, n.d.) treat of the 1948 season and of the additional 1952 excavations in certain early shell mound sites of the Parita Bay littoral. The present report gives preliminary results on the sites and cultures of the later prehistoric periods of the same region. A second monograph (Willey, n.d.) now in preparation, will describe and analyze these later sites and materials in detail.

The generous help of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for the work of the 1952 season is most gratefully acknowledged. The senior author also wishes to express his appreciation to Director Alejandro Mendez, of the National Museum of Panama, fot his aid and guidance during the 1948 and 1952 field seasons.

References

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