Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

88 / Linville
caves contained just one design, one cave, the Cueva de García Robiou, contained
22. It is located in La Habana-Matanzas, which Guarch Delmonte
identi¤ed as the pictograph zone containing the largest number of different
design types (84). By contrast, he determined that with just 22 designs, the
Guara region contained the fewest (Guarch Delmonte 1987:69).
Guarch Delmonte also produced similarity matrices that revealed parallels
between pictograph zones. When these recorded the distribution of individual
motifs, rock art regions were related, in order of decreasing similarity,
as follows: Habana-Matanzas, Cubitas, Caguanes, Isla de la Juventud, and
Guara, such that pictographs in Habana-Matanzas, for example, are most
similar to those in Cubitas, and least similar to those in Guara (Guarch Delmonte
1987:87). When images were considered in terms of their designs, the
similarities between regions again revealed the closest association between
Habana-Matanzas and Cubitas. However, according to these criteria, the relationship
between Habana-Matanzas and Guara was closer than that between
Guara and Cubitas (Guarch Delmonte 1987:88).
CULTURAL CHRONOLOGY AND ATTRIBUTION
In areas all over the world, rock art challenges archaeological thought on a
number of levels, not the least of which are issues of chronology and cultural
attribution (Whitley 2001:14). In Cuba, these issues are further complicated
by insuf¤cient access to radiocarbon dating (Davis 1996) and by changing
approaches to the general prehistoric cultural chronology for the archipelago.
While archaeological interpretation is, by its very nature, provisional and
therefore subject to continuous revisions, the general lack of Cuban–North
American archaeological interchange over the past few decades has been
particularly problematic for Cuban researchers attempting to reconcile prerevolutionary
models (including those developed by North Americans) with
mounting contradictory archaeological data. Table 5.2, which is extracted
from the comprehensive Cuadro de los Grupos Culturales Aborigines table by
Rivero de la Calle (1966:64–65), 15 reveals one such attempt to reconcile these
disparate early models.
Over time, archaeological data, including the time depth provided by
radiocarbon dating and evidence from multicomponent sites, have contributed
to a complex culture sequence for prehistoric groups in Cuba, one that
does not comport well with the dominant, complex area chronology developed
outside the archipelago (Rouse 1992). For example, most Cuban archae-