Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

112 / Ulloa Hung
This rule set down the bases for new approaches which, far from shedding
light on the diversity of forms and contexts, contributed to a situation in
which one assemblage could be assigned to several classi¤cations according to
the criteria used to evaluate it. Pedro Pablo Godo (1997) observes that the
term protoagriculturalists and its concept have undergone some signi¤cant
changes. First, simple ceramics functioned as a central element in the de¤nition
of the term, creating a situation in which the term protoagrícola included
all the sites of Cayo Redondo with ceramic evidence. Later, interpretations
changed as the emphasis shifted to lithics. The scheme became an early
phase de¤ned by the presence of microliths and the absence of ceramics, followed
by a Cayo Redondo expression or, if microliths and ceramics were both
present, a protoagricultural expression (Godo 1997:24). In other cases and
regions, the presence of microliths, laminar fragmentation, and retouched
®akes, even in the absence of ceramics, have been assumed to be indicators of
a protoagricultural occupation.
The site of Arroyo del Palo provides an example of this multiplicity of classi¤cations.
In some classi¤cations, it has been framed within the agricultural/
ceramic stage (Dacal Moure and Rivero de La Calle 1986) based on the variability
of its ceramic industry as well as some elements of the ground stone
assemblage. The conclusions have been that preagricultural people coexisted
with Arawak groups or borrowed their early ceramic technology and assimilated
it within their means of production. That is to say, the inclusion of this
site in the protoagricultural stage was due to technological reasons; it is
considered part of a transculturation process between foragers and arauacos
(Arawak horticulturalists). Although this last possibility cannot be discarded
completely, with the evidence now at hand this possible process of transculturation
or exchange does not show the adoption of agriculture, at least in the
traditional way. If it occurred, the assimilation must have been more on the
order of stylistic and formal elements on the part of a community that already
knew this technique before contact with the Arawak. On the other hand, if
agricultural practices existed, they could have been present at an incipient
level without displacing foraging activities in importance.
In other classi¤cations, assemblages with simple pottery have been considered
late expressions of the so-called Mesolithic societies, placed within a
protoagricultural process that has its origins around 500 b.c. (Dominguez
et al. 1994). In this case, the evolutionary chronology in which these expressions
are situated has compartmental aspects, in which new discoveries can be
integrated within the scheme by the presence or absence of certain archaeo-