Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

Early Ceramics in the Caribbean / 111
of the Momil I culture, this last an expression of the Formative Period in
Colombia.
Kozlowski’s interpretations were revised and enlarged later by Cuban archaeologists
(Febles 1991) who focused on the observable differences between
the Canímar and Aguas Verdes sites and on similarities with lithic production
sites in the southeastern United States. Some of these coincidences, with
chronological evidence, caused them to suggest a direct migration from the
Mississippi Valley to Cuba, mainly to the area of Canímar. The theories of
Kozlowski (1975) were used to develop a hypothesis for approaching the phenomenon
of the early pottery in Cuba. The lithic evidence helped develop the
argument that pottery examples at and similar to those of Canímar were the
predecessors of the Mayarí type, in this way establishing a chronological relationship
between the two traditions. At the core of this argument lay the
higher variability in some archaeological assemblages, the particularities of
some lithic components, and other contrasting factors of their settlement patterns
(Tabío 1984).
The sui generis microlith industry isolated by Kozlowski at only two sites
was elevated by archaeologist Dr. Ernesto Tabío (1984) to the concept of
protoagrícola (protoagriculturalist) and later used to de¤ne both a culture and
a transitional stage. In addition to the lithic evidence, the author considered
other archaeological elements, among them the presence of pottery: “In this
transitional phase between the preagricultural and agricultural stages, in addition
to having an assemblage similar to that of the preagriculturalists, some
Cuban aboriginal communities are distinguished by having evidence of ceramic
vessel use, almost always simple and scarce in number, but without the
presence of the ‘burén’ [cassava griddle], indirect evidence of manioc agriculture”
(Tabío 1984:38).
Within the de¤nition of the protoagriculturalist stage, Tabío established
two periods based on the site of Arroyo del Palo, which in addition to possessing
the basic characteristics also produced an abundant and well-developed
decorated ceramic assemblage. Since Tabío, this archaeological expression
(and other similar ones) has been considered a late manifestation of the
protoagriculturalists. A similar result was obtained when he used studies on
the sites of Canímar, Playas, and Aguas Verdes to de¤ne an early manifestation
of the stage. Within this approach, the regular presence of pottery was
assumed to be a characteristic of the late period and vice versa, at the same
time that the de¤ned periods were indirectly and automatically identi¤ed with
particular phases of socioeconomic development.