The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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Table 8.2 Faunal Comparisons: Per cent of Site Total MNI Rodney’s House White Marl Bellevue Terrestrial 35 62 89 Inshore 26 25 8 Banks and reefs 26 10 2 Other: pelagic, beach 13 3 1 per) and Scombridae (tuna) – all active predators – are present in small numbers. The composition of this assemblage indicates a highly localized, mainly terrestrial subsistence strategy. Further, the virtually identical percentages of terrestrial species in both levels 3 and 2 (88 and 89 per cent, respectively) indicate a stable environment with no overt signs of over-exploitation or shift in faunal preference. Wing’s 1972 report on the White Marl site indicates that a total of 62 per cent of the MNI in the faunal sample analysed is composed of terrestrial species, with Geocapromys again dominating the sample. Cyclura, Oryzomys and a small number of Canis familiaris round out the land animals. Marine species make up the remaining 38 per cent of the MNI at White Marl. Twenty-two per cent of these species are inshore, estuarine taxa, 11 per cent are from banks and reefs and 3 per cent are from beach areas. The proportionate representation of these species accurately reflects the fact that the nearest water to White Marl is the large, shallow estuary of Kingston Harbour. The stability of the percentages through the levels of the site again indicates exploitation at or below carrying capacity of the environment. The inland location of the White Marl site explains the greater reliance of its inhabitants on terrestrial species than those at Rodney’s House. Summary and Conclusions Analysis of the faunal material from the Rodney’s House site, S-5, on the south coast of St Catherine, Jamaica, revealed subsistence strategies adapted to local conditions of dry thorn woodland and tropical marine edge environments. The communities of animals exploited derived exclusively from these areas; no montane or pelagic species appeared in the sample. A shift in proportional representation of two classes of animals, bony fish and crabs, indicates a disruption of, or voluntary change in, procurement patterns. Increasing use of fish through time, with a concomitant decrease in (mainly) terrestrial crabs, shows a growing reliance on marine resources. E ARLY A RAWAK S UBSISTENCE S TRATEGIES:THE R ODNEY’ S H OUSE S ITE OF J AMAICA 123
124 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS A comparison of Rodney’s House with the White Marl and Bellevue sites shows a clear continuum of coastal to inland localized adaptation, with Rodney’s House (marine edge) yielding the highest proportion of marine fish, and Bellevue (inland hills) contrasting with a greater reliance on terrestrial species. White Marl, at a lower elevation than Bellevue and farther from the coast than Rodney’s House, is intermediate in its ratio of terrestrial/marine taxa. Future work on these sites – if it is possible, with urbanization taking place so rapidly in Jamaica, even on the south coast – should address the questions of plant remains and comparability of molluscan samples from within and among the sites. A refinement of crab identifications, as mentioned above, may reveal some choices in microhabitat exploitation that are elusive at this point.
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The Earliest Inhabitants
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University of the West Indies Press
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Contents List of Illustrations / ix
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Illustrations A.1 Map of the sites
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13.2 Petroglyphs from Coventry and
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Preface I HAVE ALWAYS been fascinat
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Acknowledgements I WOULD FIRST like
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Introduction IN JAMAICA, THE indige
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encounter the term Arawaks used to
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90. Long Acre Point 91. Long Mounta
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ical publication in Jamaica. Geolog
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collections. Knowledge of the prove
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Section 1 Assessment and Excavation
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objective by using a frame of refer
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16 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS two
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18 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS fact
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20 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS the
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22 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS deco
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Howard (1965) recognized that Redwa
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people making Ostionan (Redware) po
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was the recovery of the Aboukir zem
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Appendix Table 1.1 Midden Sites Rep
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Table 1.2 Cave Sites Reported by Ro
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2 The Taíno Settlement of the King
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Henderson Hill lies to the south, o
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ivalves. Single gastropod valves we
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40 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS Taí
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Table 2.2 Neutron Activation Analys
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Plain may have played a role in the
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Table 2.3. Taíno Sites in the King
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contractors to drill and blast for
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chipped away. It is believed that t
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Figure 3.4 JNHT excavations at Chan
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Test Pit 6 Depth 40 cm. This is a s
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19.375 19.275 1 CHANCERY HALL, JAMA
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Appendix A Laboratory Study of the
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Table 3.1 All Recovered Organic Mat
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of slim, more or less parallel shap
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Table 3.5 Fish Bone Anatomical Part
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66 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS Surv
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Acknowledgements Thanks are due to
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SOUTH NEGRIL POINT Savannala-Mar Mo
Page 89 and 90: sudden event. Occupation 3 can be c
Page 91 and 92: dle, a ground stone artefact that m
Page 93 and 94: - infrastructural development throu
Page 95 and 96: emoval. Sometimes what is required
Page 97 and 98: Figure 5.1 Road cutting through the
Page 99 and 100: Later on the Spanish settled in the
Page 101 and 102: Figure 5.4 Long Mountain prior to d
Page 103 and 104: 86 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS amon
Page 106 and 107: 6 Notes on the Natural History of J
Page 108 and 109: Soils Several different soil types
Page 110 and 111: Shoreline On the north coast, there
Page 112 and 113: well established, especially in dis
Page 114 and 115: 7 The Exploitation and Transformati
Page 116 and 117: Art Art can be religious, functiona
Page 118 and 119: of Long Mountain”, Andreas Oberli
Page 120 and 121: Figure 7.3 William Keegan explainin
Page 122 and 123: cedar (Cedrela odorata), santa mari
Page 124 and 125: According to Rouse, the density of
Page 126 and 127: 17), grows abundantly on the island
Page 128 and 129: Incidental Dispersal The plant comp
Page 130 and 131: 8 Early Arawak Subsistence Strategi
Page 132 and 133: and bagged by level. In April of 19
Page 134 and 135: Table 8.1 Significant Vertebrate an
Page 136 and 137: tory and habitat preferences. Follo
Page 138 and 139: Changing Subsistence Strategies The
Page 142 and 143: Appendix Table 8.3 Rodney’s House
Page 144 and 145: Table 8.3 Rodney’s House Faunal L
Page 146 and 147: Section 3 Analysis of Taíno Archae
Page 148 and 149: 9 Petrography and Source of Some Ar
Page 150 and 151: The results discussed here were obt
Page 152 and 153: Petaloid Axes of Arawak Origin from
Page 154 and 155: Blue Schist The story of Jamaican b
Page 156 and 157: Coleraine) but also from other majo
Page 158 and 159: from which several Jamaican artefac
Page 160 and 161: in a lack of suitable rocks, so tha
Page 162 and 163: A surprising conclusion of the pres
Page 164 and 165: Figure 10.1 Redware, White Marl and
Page 166 and 167: triangular ridges. It is thought th
Page 168 and 169: (also see Figure 10.6), loop handle
Page 170 and 171: 11 Jamaican Redware J AMES W. LEE A
Page 172 and 173: only if planted at exactly the corr
Page 174 and 175: Handles Handles may be classified i
Page 176 and 177: Two more or less spheroidal pottery
Page 178 and 179: 12 Taíno Ceramics from Post-Contac
Page 180 and 181: and distribution of native labour w
Page 182 and 183: Figure 12.2 Distribution of New Sev
Page 184 and 185: hatching (Figure 12.5c), and closel
Page 186 and 187: were fired at a low temperature, th
Page 188 and 189: Figure 12.11 New Seville ware: jug
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ters of the caciques. These politic
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Section 4 Taíno Art Forms ART IS A
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13 The Petroglyphs of Jamaica J AME
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previously described petroglyphs ex
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glyphs in that belt, as the geologi
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Another carving that is unique is t
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Appendix Table 13.2 Jamaican Petrog
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14 Zemís, Trees and Symbolic Lands
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According to Arrom and Rouse (1992)
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The Context of Sacredness Taíno wo
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Kept in niches or on tables within
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Another important correspondence be
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eliefs in the spiritual and life-gi
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References Aarons, G.A. 1983a. Arch
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Smithsonian Biological Survey of Do
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———. 1988. Ulysses’ Sail: A
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———. 1983b. Adornos, Jamaica
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Porro, A. 1994. Social organization
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Scudder, S. 1992. Early Arawak subs
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Wing, E.S., and A.B. Brown. 1979. P
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Rouse, I. 1982. Ceramic and religio
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M. John Roobol, is a consultant geo
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The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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