Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

El Chorro de Maíta / 129
the right of the community over the resources and the territory, as well as the
ideology that perpetuates such rights (Curet and Oliver 1998:230).
During post-Saladoid times, the central plaza ceased to be used for the
disposal of the dead, and burials were more often located in domestic contexts.
The community, as an effective social and political unit, was displaced
by nuclear households (Curet and Oliver 1998:231) and the cult of the ancestors
reoriented toward the maintenance of domestic unit (Curet and Oliver
1998:231). The world of the ancestors assumed a hierarchical structure while
the natural world became a replica of the supernatural world. In this new
cosmology, the ancestors of the elite group came to be considered as more
powerful than the rest. The chiefs developed a role for themselves as mediators
between the natural and the supernatural worlds through a greater control
over ceremonies and iconography and a process giving them preferential access
to the ancestors. Their hierarchical position in society was elevated and
legitimated by this process because they possessed the most important ancestors.
New, specialized ceremonial spaces with greater segregation were created
in this period, suggesting a more restricted participation and specialized access
to the ceremonial activities and rituals (Curet and Oliver 1998:234). Siegel
(1999) also recognizes the process of formalization of ceremonial space in
Puerto Rico as a strategy of institutionalization of social inequality. He emphasizes
its transitional character, which he extends to burial practices (Siegel
1999:217–220). Contrary to Curet and Oliver (1998), he estimates that in the
¤rst part of the post-Saladoid period the use of the cemetery in the central
plaza was maintained in some, but not all, sites concurrently with the burials
in household areas. This interpretation suggests that at this time the communal
and domestic/private spheres were not exclusionary (Siegel 1999:219).
Siegel’s idea is important because it makes evident the fact that, in certain
circumstances, elements of the communal structure coexist with elements
characteristic of the hierarchical structure. This helps us understand the diversity
of forms possible in the process toward institutionalized social inequality.
In this chapter we assess the presence of objects of limited circulation and
of high symbolic value associated with burials of El Chorro de Maíta’s cemetery
as an expression of the process of social differentiation. The important
presence of these objects in children’s burials is assumed to be indicative of
the existence of a hereditary elite and of the institutionalization of social inequality.