Archaeology Magazine - December 1954 - 29

2, 3). These burials were similar to those at Playa
Grande in the matter of ceramics (Figure 5), form of
burial, burial in small lots rather than large cemeteries,
basketry and textiles. A number of stone-lined storage
pits were also excavated, providing a large quantity of
corn suitable for Radiocarbon 14 testing. It was found
that the poorer dwellings at Cerro Culebra had the
same "wattle and daub" construction as those at Playa
Grande. Two examples of urn burial were encountered
among the child graves: one is an undecorated, fireblackened cooking olla; the other is a fine example of
a large decorated mammiform jar. The neck of the jar
had been struck off to accommodatethe wrapped body
of the infant.
,
Cut Three proved to be more complicated and interesting, since it involved the clearing of the major portion of an important dwelling of the Playa Grande cul. ture. At the same time another house of an earlier type
from the same culture was disclosed and investigated;
of the accompanying grave plots, the later one was
thoroughly excavatedand the earlier "spot checked." It
was interesting to observe the difference between the
poorer class dwellings, both at Playa Grande and at
Marquez, and the comparatively elegant house in Cut
Three. The basic construction material was tapia, which
was used for all weight-bearing walls. Most partition
walls were of small to medium sized adobe bricks, both
hand- and mold-made, although a few were of uncut
stonè with clay binder. Noteworthy among these walls
^ras a small semicircularenclosure off one of the main
rooms, adjacent to a hearth, which looked as if it had
been a pen for guinea pigs, still one of the staple items
of the Andean Indian diet. Also near the hearth were
several well made circular storage pits; one contained
a quantity of well preserved "anchovetas," a local sardine-like fish, while another was well stocked with corn
and peanuts.
The method of house construction was to make the
tapia outer walls about breast high, and then to sink
circular holes in their tops at regular intervals. Into
these were set beams of the willow wood indigenous to
these river valleys, which were firmly anchored in place
with wet clay. The beams had forked upper ends which
supported the lateral roof members (heavy canes) . The
roof covering, of closely laid light cane, was placed
longitudinally on top of these. In this climate, where
rain is virtually unknown, this was all the protection
necessary against the elements; the space between the
roof and the tapia walls provided ample ventilation during the hot summer months. The roof was crowned by
an ornamental cornice painted in alternating stripes of
clear yellow and light gray. There was a "loggia" of

low tapia walls, again crowned by the same roof construction, facing an adobe-walled patio in which were
an open-air hearth, a garbage dump, and the family
burial plot!
Cutting through the well packed and finished cUy
floor of this dwelling, we encountered the outer walls
of an earlier house. The chief difference in architectural
style was that all main walls of this earlier construction were made of adobe bricks (Figure 4), not tapia,
and the enclosure for guinea pigs had a well made fence
of woven canes. The adobe bricks were similar in size
and style to those of the partition walls of the later
dwelling, consisting of an almost equal mixture of handand mold-made bricks. It is difficult to differentiate between these early Central Coast adobes, as the molds
used must have been of some rather resilient substance
such as leather which allowed hand impressions to show
through, although not nearly so clearly as in the handmade type. The shape of both kinds of brick is the same,
roughly that of an old-fashioned loaf of bread, having
flat sides and bottom and a rounded top.
Only a small portion of the underlying house was
excavated, since when its adjacent burials were checked,
there was no question of its period and further digging
would have severely damaged the structure above. It
did, however, provide additional evidence of the burial
pattern for the entire culture, small family plots immediately outside dwelling sites. The grave orientation
is almost invariably north-south with the head to the
south. Extended burial is general, and face-down burial
with a wooden and cane litter on top, first noted at
Playa Grande, is also common at Marquez. In all,
twenty-three tombs were excavated at Cut Three, nineteen in the patio of the upper house and four in the
front courtyard of the lower. A strange thing came to
light in the excavation of the upper dwelling. In three
instances, while clearing doorways we found the
wrapped body of an infant or very young child, complete with miniature litter, not in a grave, but merely
placed on the floor of the doorway. I shall not attempt
to speculate on the significanceof this startling and unsanitary custom.
Cut Four was made in another small cemetery plot
about a hundred meters from the edge of the patio at
Cut Three. Whereas the tombs at Cut Three contained
the usual amount of ceramics (Figure 6) and other
artifacts of the Playa Grande culture, those of Cut
Four almost uniformly yielded only the sparsest cultural and diagnostic objects. In fact, had it not been for
the now typical form of extended litter burial, identification of these poor graves would have been difficult. The
plot contained seventeen graves, which produced ex221

Archaeology Magazine - December 1954

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - December 1954