. Bulletin. Ethnology. Vol. 4] ARCHEOLOGY OF PANAMA—LOTHROP 161 CHIRIQUI The Province of Chiriqui has given its name to an ancient culture that flourished in western Panama and the southern half of Costa Rica. Boun- daries cannot be defined with precision, but in general the present polit- ical division between the Provinces of Veraguas and Chiriqui corresponds to the southeastern archeological frontier. To the north this culture ex- tends through the central Cordillera of Costa Rica as far as El General. Archeological remains from Chiriqui exist in great abundance owing to the fact that gold
. Bulletin. Ethnology. Vol. 4] ARCHEOLOGY OF PANAMA—LOTHROP 161 CHIRIQUI The Province of Chiriqui has given its name to an ancient culture that flourished in western Panama and the southern half of Costa Rica. Boun- daries cannot be defined with precision, but in general the present polit- ical division between the Provinces of Veraguas and Chiriqui corresponds to the southeastern archeological frontier. To the north this culture ex- tends through the central Cordillera of Costa Rica as far as El General. Archeological remains from Chiriqui exist in great abundance owing to the fact that gold was discovered in the ancient graves nearly a century ago. During the period of greatest exploitation in the 1860's, it is reported that gold ornaments to the value of £ 10,000 annually were melted down by the Bank of England. No technical archeologist has made detailed studies of the remains of Chiriqui in situ. Hence our knowledge of this culture is based on popular articles published many years ago and on the detailed and well-illustrated studies of museum collections published by Holmes (1888) and MacCurdy (1911). A paper by Osgood (1935) reclassifies the ceramic remains on a more modern basis and, so far as is possible, correlates them with vari- ous types of graves. No evidence of Chiriqui culture exists above ground, except a few pic- tographs, vaguely South American in style (fig. 41), and stone columns which mark the sites of Figure 41.—Pictograph, Chiriqui country. The piedra pintal at Caldera. (After Holmes, 1888.) Burial customs.—The popular literature of the 19th century, reviewed by MacCurdy, indicates that two principal types of tombs are found in Chiriqui: rounded or rectangular in outline, both with rough stone walls (fig. 42). There was no distinct floor, and the tombs were covered either by a layer of river boulders or by flat slabs. Several variant forms may be defined which, at present, are not of archeological significance. Skeletal remains
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