Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

Subsistence of Cimarrones / 175
the heads of large prey like horses and cows were discarded before returning
to camp. This is not the case of pigs’ heads, which were customarily consumed
on the surrounding plantations, or those of the hutías or birds captured
in the local regions, the transportation of which would have caused little inconvenience.
While in general the recovered remains tend to be patterned, depositional
and preservation factors should not be dismissed because not all available
fauna are represented in the sample, nor were all the animals consumed as
food necessarily deposited at these ¤ve sites. In addition, the remains may
have suffered fragmentation and degradation over more than a century and a
half. In the case of the cow and the two pigs, the skeletal elements are represented
by portions of medium to high nutritional value, according to Morales
Muñiz (1989), suggesting a pattern of preference by cimarrones for some body
parts rather than preservation bias.
The Cimarrón 2 site is located inside a narrow canyon in the highest part
of the Sierra del Esperón and consists of a shelter, barely 14 m long and 5 m
wide at its center, formed by the detachment of a large rock from the wall. It
has three entrances. The climb to the site is dif¤cult, and it is impossible that
animals such as pigs, cows, or horses could have ascended to it, suggesting
that the faunal remains were transported to the site after butchering. This site
and La Cachimba and Cimarrón 5 were the most inaccessible and hidden
shelters of the studied sample. Here also skeletal remains of food species were
concentrated mostly around the hearth, and the parts represented attest to a
nutritional pattern similar to the Cimarrón 1 site. The only difference was that
horse remains were found at this site instead of dog bones. Similarly, the represented
parts attest to the use of portions of medium to high nutritional
yield.
With a small size of about 1 m 2 , the Cimarrón 3 site consists of a rocky
eave located in the abrupt slope of the north hillside of the Sierra del Esperón.
The hearth was found on top of rocks deposited with the purpose of leveling
the natural inclination of the shelter ®oor. The remains collected from this
hearth were a fragment of a cow femur, numerous remains of the most edible
parts of a pig, and the vertebra of a hutia. Evidently this was not a campsite
for groups of cimarrones, but its strategic position makes it an ideal site for a
lookout manned by one or two individuals. From this spot, the whole north
area of the mountain range and the coast are visible, an area that at that time
included seven sugar plantations and four coffee plantations.
The next site studied, Cimarrón 5, a rocky shelter 10 m long and 5 m wide,