The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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Section 3 Analysis of Taíno Archaeological Data IN JAMAICA, THE most abundant artefacts recovered from Taíno sites are ceramics and, second, stone tools. This section analyses and highlights the importance of the data recovered from these sites, in particular the stone and ceramic artefacts. Jamaican Taíno stone artefacts include celts, flint scrapers, zemís and pendants. Celts – petal-shaped axe blades made of either stone or shell, formally known as polished petaloid celts – are thought to be the most common stone tool. Celts, which Afro-Jamaicans call “thunderbolts”, are said to have fallen from the sky, and are traditionally placed in yabba pots to cool water (Senior 1985). Thomas A. Joyce wrote that the petaloid celts of Jamaica, both for symmetry and polish, are unsurpassed by those of any locality in the world, and considering the fact that they are in most cases fashioned from a very hard variety of stone, the amount of patient labour involved in their preparation must been enormous. (1907, 234) M.J. Roobol and J.W. Lee’s paper, “Petrography and Source of Some Arawak Rock Artefacts from Jamaica” (1976, reprinted in this volume), reports on the first technical attempt since the nineteenth century to study these stone artefacts. The authors were able to identify and subdivide the artefacts into major rock types. Roobol and Lee analysed the artefacts according to colour, size and texture and were able to identify the source of the stones used to make them, thus providing evidence of intra- and inter-island trade. The pottery of the Jamaican Taíno has been frequently described as “unique” or “simple”. Lovén suggests that the pottery indicates “an endemic ceramic development” and adds that compared with the ceramics of other Taíno people, those of the Jamaican Taíno are much plainer. Many influences that affected the Taíno in Puerto Rico, Española and Cuba never reached 129
130 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS Jamaica (1935, 322). Originally, Jamaican pottery was classified as having sub- Taíno cultural traits; however, this terminology is no longer used. The term “Western Taíno” is now used by Rouse (1992) and other scholars to indicate a culture less developed than that of the Classic Taíno of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The three other chapters in this section, by Norma Rodney-Harrack, J.W. Lee and Robyn Woodward, focus on Taíno ceramics. These chapters examine overlapping issues from different perspectives. Rodney-Harrack gives a general overview of Taíno ceramics, Lee discusses the Jamaican Redware culture, and Woodward assesses evidence of Taíno and Hispanic cultural contact. Norma Rodney-Harrack’s “Jamaican Taíno Pottery” examines the different Taíno ceramic cultures present in Jamaica – the Ostionoid and Meillacan – from a master potter’s perspective. She discusses the Taíno techniques of fabricating and firing the clay and examines both the various vessel forms recovered from Taíno sites and their different surface decorations. James W. Lee’s study “Jamaican Redware” (1980c) was the first paper published on the Ostionoid culture of the island. It illustrates the history of Redware site discoveries. Lee describes the thirteen Redware sites that were located before 1980 and the types of ceramics and other artefacts associated with this cultural period. Since 1980, twelve additional Redware sites have been identified, including Paradise Park, Westmoreland; Mammee Bay, St Ann; and Porus and Anderson, both in Manchester (Atkinson 2003, 5). Sevilla la Nueva, St Ann’s Bay, is one of the most significant sites in Jamaica. The site of the first Spanish capital, it represents the point of cultural contact among the Taíno, Spanish, English and Africans. Robyn Woodward’s study of the material culture from Seville identifies evidence of Taíno– Hispanic cultural contact. Woodward’s research is essential in understanding the processes of cultural adaptation and the importance of Taíno labour in the establishment of the sixteenth-century Spanish capital.
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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
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sudden event. Occupation 3 can be c
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dle, a ground stone artefact that m
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- infrastructural development throu
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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 140 and 141: Table 8.2 Faunal Comparisons: Per c
Page 142 and 143: Appendix Table 8.3 Rodney’s House
Page 144 and 145: Table 8.3 Rodney’s House Faunal L
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
Page 190 and 191: ters of the caciques. These politic
Page 192 and 193: Section 4 Taíno Art Forms ART IS A
Page 194 and 195: 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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