Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

120 / Ulloa Hung
using historic arguments such as acculturation, migration, and other forms of
interaction (José Oliver, personal communication). This is done even when
the general sense of the argument is evolutionary or developmental. In general,
this interpretation of the precolumbian world of the Caribbean focuses
on locating archaeological cultures (designated subseries) within certain
spaces as isolated and circumscribed boxes, where the relationships between
communities are obscured to the point of establishing cultural frontiers that
are demonstrable from neither archaeological nor historical sources.
This approach is especially apparent in interpreting pottery from foraging
contexts, where Rouse uses only the data generated by the archaeology of the
Dominican Republic and limits it to the existence of a frontier between Archaic
populations and farming populations belonging to the Saladoid ceramic
series dating to between 200 b.c. and a.d. 600. The reference point in this
case is the presence of Saladoid pottery in the well-known region of La
Caleta, near the area of La Romana in the Dominican Republic, that, together
with a date of 240 b.c. for a pottery similar to that of the Puerto Rican
site of Hacienda Grande, justi¤es a relationship between the points. The
movement of groups from Hacienda Grande to the island of Hispaniola
would have displaced Archaic residents upon whom a rudimentary pottery
was imposed, as in El Caimito (Rouse 1992). With this hypothesis, the author
solves the presence of early pottery in the Antilles and in synthesis proposes
its origins from Saladoid pottery. Rouse’s thesis also depends on the assumption
of chronological contemporaneity between the ¤rst ceramic sites in the
Dominican Republic and the site of Hacienda Grande. According to him, the
Archaic component of the Dominican sites re®ects the possibility that a process
of transculturation occurred between the ceramists from Puerto Rico and
the foragers from Hispaniola, where the latter copied the Hacienda Grande
pottery style.
Perhaps the most intensive analyses of this process in the island of Hispaniola
have been carried out by specialists from the region (Rímoli and
Nadal 1983; Veloz 1991, 1992; Veloz et al. 1974). Their investigations recognize
that there is little evidence for a relationship between the ¤rst pottery of the
Dominican Republic and the Saladoid ceramics. Their evaluations have focused
on more complex and important questions, such as settlement patterns
and economic activities. This focus has led to the conclusion that an early
ceramic horizon existed before 240 b.c., in addition to reaf¤rming the essentially
foraging character of these communities.
The question of origins has also been of interest. In this case, authors like