Download File - UNESCO World Heritage

Parque Nacional del Este
(Dominican Republic)
No 1080
1. BASIC DATA
State Party: Dominican Republic
Name of property: Parque Nacional del Este and its buffer
zone
Location: Altagracia Province
Date received: 08 January 2002
Category of property:
In terms of the categories of cultural property set out in
Article 1 of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, this is a
site. In terms of Operational Guidelines para. 39, it is also
be a cultural landscape.
[Note: This property is nominated as a mixed site, under the
natural and the cultural criteria. This evaluation will deal solely
with the cultural values, and the natural values will be covered in
the IUCN evaluation.]
Brief description:
Parque del Este is a National Park embracing a peninsula
and island with a sub-tropical environment. It was a centre
of the Taino culture in pre-Hispanic times, a culture that
came to an abrupt end here in the three decades
immediately after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in
1494. The subsequent isolation and forest cover have
preserved intact a large and significant archaeological
resource, Hispanic as well as indigenous, from the early
16 th century and earlier. The site includes an outstanding
suite of rock art (paintings and petroglyphs), one among
the most extensive in the world and scientifically and
artistically on a par with the most important of comparable
sites in the whole of the Americas.
2. THE PROPERTY
Description
The title of the nomination implies that the buffer zone is
part of the core zone ie part of the actual nominated area.
The following assessment is drafted on the assumption that
the nomination is of the core zone i.e. the peninsula and an
island, and that the buffer zone is its buffer zone as well as
the buffer zone of the Park.
The Parque Nacional del Este lies at the south eastern
corner of Hispaniola, the island of which the eastern twothirds
is occupied by the Dominican Republic in the
eastern Caribbean. The Park is a 41,894 ha protected area
comprising a peninsula and Saona island off its southern
tip. A buffer zone of ca 12,000 ha crosses the inland neck
of the peninsula on the north and, thereafter entirely a
marine zone some 6 nautical miles wide, surrounds the
whole of the rest of the peninsula and the island. Most of
the core zone is covered in semi-humid forest though about
half the island and the southern coastal strip is of scrub, the
latter backed by savanna. There are also significant areas
14
of salty wetlands, including lagoons, and mangroves,
especially on the south of the peninsula.
With major archaeological remains and rock art, the
Parque Nacional del Este is a relict cultural landscape as
well as a National Park for natural reasons. The extensive
archaeological resources are associated with Taino culture,
denoting how the Taino people lived in relation to their
natural environment.
The nomination document itemizes the most important pre-
Hispanic cultural resources, 48 sites in all: 21 caves and
6 springs containing ca 1,600 pictographs, ca
160 petroglyphs, and 12 archaeological deposits, 3 dolinas
with archaeological remains, 1 ritual sinkhole (a deep
natural well containing ceremonial and objects in common
use), 10 ball courts, 6 villages, 7 settlement cemeteries, and
2 shipwrecks (one early 16 th century, the other 18 th ). Six
caves and three springs with ca 100 pictographs and ca
500 petroglyphs and one cemetery are identified in the
buffer zone. Only 5%-10% of the Park area has yet been
investigated. Further inventory and analysis of rock art,
ball court, village/cemetery sites, and other archaeological
deposits in the park and buffer zone should expand the rich
resources of pre-Hispanic culture(s) that known sites
represent.
Particularly significant resources – the José María,
Ramoncito, El Puente, and Panchito caves, La Aleta
sinkhole, and La Aleta ball courts – are all Taino
ceremonial centres. The caves of José María
(1200+ pictographs, 16 petroglyphs, 348 m), Ramoncito
(ca 300 pictographs, 14 petroglyphs, 692 m), El Puente (ca
60 pictographs, 11 petroglyphs, 1218 m), and Panchito (ca
28 petroglyphs, 259 m) on the western side of the Park
provide significant archaeological, anthropological, and
artistic information about the Taino culture.
Anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, vegetal, geometric, and
abstract representations are discernible. Carved and painted
images in caves and along streams were apparently
associated in Tainos culture with natural spirits and deities
believed to inhabit these places. Some of the images may
be groups of symbolic pictorials representing
mythological, spiritual, and ritual aspects of Taino history
and culture, some may be mnemonic devices to aid intergenerational
transmission of cultural traditions, some may
comprise a hieroglyphic system, and others may record
first encounters in European-American contact.
La Aleta sinkhole is a deep freshwater well that has been
identified with the water source, described by Las Casas,
for the village of the Taino chief Cotubanama. Its features
and the nature and placement of objects suggest that the
Taino considered the well a portal to the underworld. The
organic objects, including a wooden duho (stool)
associated with a chief’s political and religious power,
gourd vessels linked with Taino mythology, and basketry,
comprise ‘a unique assemblage from a unique depositional
context’ in Caribbean archaeology. Investigations have
demonstrated the existence of an artefact-rich sediment of
large (80 m+) but unknown extent some 30 m below the
water level. Despite past vandalism, the well offers
excellent opportunities for exploration of the relationship
between Taino culture and the natural environment as well
as the intangible values of archaeological resources of the
Park.
The peninsula core zone is now modestly equipped with
Park recreational and management facilities, with a