Cueva de los Ladrones
- Folder Type:
- Archaeology Site
- Primary Title:
- Cueva de los Ladrones
- Alternate Title: Abbreviation
- CL
- Summary Description:
- Cueva de los Ladrones is a 30x15m rockshelter located at 300 m above sea level on the south-western slopes of Cerro Guacamayo, a prominent hill in the plains of Cocle province that rises to about 600 m. The site is about 20 km west of the town of Penonome. Its name relates to folk memories of its being used as a hide-out during the period when the residents of Nata were trading illicitly with the English who in the mid-17th. century CE managed a trading fort at the mouth of the Cocle del Norte river on the Caribbean coast. Some musket balls and fragments of Spanish mayolica in the shelter provide support for this story. Cueva de los Ladrones was located in an aerial survey by Junius B. Bird and Richard G. Cooke in 1974 during a survey for rockshelters with potential for early human occupation. The site was located by Junius Bird and Richard Cooke in February, 1974. At that time, Junius Bird was searching for Paleoindian sites in Panama. After two unsuccessful seasons looking for buried deposits in calcareous formations around Lago Alajuela (or Madden), their search was transferred to the Central Provinces. Arturo Andrion -- resident of the township of El Potrero, in Cocle province -- alerted the archaeologists to the existence of a habitable shelter on the southern side of Cerro Guacamayo. (Andrion had been guide for Neville Harte, an employee of the Panama Canal Company, who located a Precolumbian cemetery on the summit of the hill emptying several graves of their contents). After visiting the shelter with Andrion and his wife, Bievnenida, Bird and Cooke hired a light plane to survey the entire hill, but found no additional promising shelters. Therefore they decided to open excavations at the shelter with a view to finding early occupations. Since it was 1-2 hrs by foot from El Potrero, horses were hired to transport materials and supplies -- including a portable "dump" sifter that had been used by Bird in Chile and Peru. Two workmen who had worked with Bird at Lake Alajuela (Elmer Diaz and Candido Palacios) were hired. Excavations began on February 22nd., 1974, and terminated on May 18th. The archaeologists and their crew lived inside the shelter during the project. A letrine and kitchen area were established below the shelter in a flatter area, which was cleared. A two-stroke pump was transported in along with PVC piping in order to provide water for a portable shower, for the kitchen and for washing artifacts. Camp management was entrusted to Peggy Bird. The site did not prove to contain Paleoindian cultural materials. However, the lowest sections lacked pottery, and hence are 'Preceramic'. A simple pottery lies above them. Cooke immediately recognized that it was similar to the 'Monagrillo' pottery complex formerly reported by Gordon Willey and C.R. McGimsey III at sites along the Herrera shore of Parita Bay and also by Tony Ranere and Richard McCarthy in 1973 at a smaller overhang (the Aguadulce Shelter), which also proved to have Preceramic deposits. Although Bird was disappointed not to have located Paleoindian deposits, the importance of only the second stratified site found in Panama showing early pottery lying atop Preceramic layers, in addition to the very large samples of stone tools and flakes, induced Junius Bird to generously stay at the site and to apply his amazing field engineering skills to constructing a platform for the dump sifter and table, and pulleys for lifting buckets with sediments from the lowest levels. Bird and Cooke presented a paper on their 1974 finds at the 'V Simposio Nacional de Antropologia, Arqueologia y Etnologia' in Panama City (2-6 December, 1974). This was published in the acts of this congress (1976, pp. 283-304). At this time, they described the site as a "hunting station" since several mammal bones including deer, peccary, armadillo and agouti were found. The presence of several species of inshore marine molluscs, however, signalled that coastal resources were brought in by making trips to this biome or through exchange. At the beginning of the NSF-funded "Proyecto Santa Maria" (1981-82) Cooke and Tony Ranere returned to Ladrones in order to take two column samples from the 1974 walls. The sediments were prepared with graded sieves and led to the recovery of faunal remains, including freshwater and marine coastal fish in the 'Monagrillo' ceramic levels. Soil samples were given to Dolores Piperno for microbotanical analysis. She discovered maize pollen in the Early Ceramic (Monagrillo) and Preceramic levels. These results were published in two papers: 1) Piperno, R., K.H. Clary, 1984, Early plant use and cultivation in the Santa María Basin, Panama: data from phytoliths and pollen. In F.W. Lange, editor, Recent Developments in Isthmian Archaeology, British Archaeological Reports, Oxford (International Series 212), pp. 85-121; and 2) Piperno, Dolores, K.H. Clary, R.G. Cooke, A. J. Ranere, D. Weiland, 1985, Preceramic maize in central Panama. American Anthropologist 87: 871-78. Data on fishing at the site can be found in: 1) Cooke, R.G., Jiménez, M., 2008, Pre-Columbian use of freshwater fish in the Santa Maria biogeographical province, Panama. Quaternary International 185: 46-58, 2) Cooke, R.G., 2001, La pesca en estuarios panameños: una visión histórica y cultural desde la Bahía de Parita. En, Heckadon-Moreno, S., editor, Panamá: Puente Biológico, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panamá, pp. 45-53. The most recent evaluation of the exploitation of the terrestrial fauna is available in: Cooke, R.G., M. Jiménez, A.J. Ranere 2007 Influencias humanas sobre la vegetación y fauna de vertebrados de Panamá: Actualización de datos arqueozoológicos y su relación con el paisaje antrópico durante la época precolombina. In: E. Leigh, E.A. Herre, J.B.C. Jackson, J.B.C., F. Santos-Granero, F. (eds.), Evolución en los Trópicos, pp. 562 – 593. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama. Cooke published a summary of the cultural record of all the 'Monagrillo" sites then extant in: 1995, Monagrillo, Panama's first pottery (3800-1200 cal bc): summary of research (1948-1993), with new interpretations of chronology, subsistence and cultural geography. In J. Barnett y J. Hoopes, editores, The Emergence of Pottery: Technology and Innovation in Ancient Societies, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C., pp. 169-184. More recently, Fumie Iizuka conducted an instrumental and qualitative analysis of the pottery from this and other Early Ceramic sites (Iizuka, F., Cooke, R.G., Vandiver, P., Frame, L. 2014. Inferring provenance, manufacturing technique, and firing temperatures of Monagrillo Ware (ca. 4,800-3,200 B.P.), Panama’s first pottery. In M. Martinon-Torres, Craft and science: international perspectives on archaeological ceramics. University College London, London. Excavation procedures Cueva de los Ladrones is a rock-shelter underneath an overhang with a rounded edge. The maximum height of the shelter is 9.3 m. The rock is Tertiary igneous. During rains, falling water delineates well the dry and humid sections forming a visible 'drip line'. Sediments either side of the drip line differ greatly in dryness, layering and depth. The inhabitants were keeping the floor fairly clean and pushing debris down the talus slope. In 1974, the dry floor covered about 200 m. Neither bone nor marine shell survived in the sediments outside the drip line. On arrival at the site the potential living area for the shelter occupants was cleared of vegetation. A 25 m base line, oriented 41o 30' west of north, was used to make a floor plan and organize the excavation. The initial set-up consisted of four 'areas' placed along the central line, perpendicular to the shelter wall, from SW to NE: Area 1 (2x1.5 m), Area 2 (2x1.5 m), Area 3 (1.5x1.5 m) and Area 4 (1.5x1.5 m), and north-west along the base line: Area 5 (15.75-17.5), Area 6 (17.5-19.0 m), Area 7 (19-21 m) and Area 8 )21-23 m). The drip-line coincided with the boundary between areas 1 and 2 causing differences in stratification.
- Identifier: Site ID
- LP-1
- Related Item Type: Publication
- 'V Simposio Nacional de Antropologia, Arqueologia y Etnologia' , acts of this congress (1976, pp. 283-304) Note: Bird and Cooke presented a paper on their 1974 finds at the 'V Simposio Nacional de Antropologia, Arqueologia y Etnologia' in Panama City (2-6 December, 1974). This was published in the acts of this congress (1976, pp. 283-304).
- Time Period: Excavation Time Period
- Excavation Date: 1974
- Place: Site Location
- Country: Panama Province: Cocle Town: Penonome Site: Cueva de los Ladrones
- Method Type: Excavation Method
- Method Description: Initial set-up consisted of four 'areas' placed along the central line, perpendicular to the shelter wall Notes: Cueva de los Ladrones is a rock-shelter underneath an overhang with a rounded edge. The maximum height of the shelter is 9.3 m. The rock is Tertiary igneous. During rains, falling water delineates well the dry and humid sections forming a visible 'drip line'. Sediments either side of the drip line differ greatly in dryness, layering and depth. The inhabitants were keeping the floor fairly clean and pushing debris down the talus slope. In 1974, the dry floor covered about 200 m. Neither bone nor marine shell survived in the sediments outside the drip line. On arrival at the site the potential living area for the shelter occupants was cleared of vegetation. A 25 m base line, oriented 41o 30' west of north, was used to make a floor plan and organize the excavation. The initial set-up consisted of four 'areas' placed along the central line, perpendicular to the shelter wall, from SW to NE: Area 1 (2x1.5 m), Area 2 (2x1.5 m), Area 3 (1.5x1.5 m) and Area 4 (1.5x1.5 m), and north-west along the base line: Area 5 (15.75-17.5), Area 6 (17.5-19.0 m), Area 7 (19-21 m) and Area 8 )21-23 m). The drip-line coincided with the boundary between areas 1 and 2 causing differences in stratification.
| PID | Type | Title | Metadata | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| si_1034 | Monagrillo complex pottery |
| Download | |
| si_325560 |  | NOTES Richard Cooke, Junius Bird and Peggy Bird 1974 |
| Download |
| si_429711 | | Cueva de los ladrones Report |
| Download |
| si_429712 | | Cueva de los Ladrones, CATALOGUE of material excavated |
| Download |