The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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Figure 12.2 Distribution of New Seville and Taíno ceramics brick floors, and a brick-lined cellar and vaulted cistern. Horizontal spatial control was maintained during this investigation, but because of the relatively short occupancy of the town and the fact that this land was used only for agriculture in later historical times, Cotter did not document temporal distinctions. Upon his death, Cotter’s unpublished collection of artefacts and field notes were left to the Institute of Jamaica, and I subsequently studied them as part of my research for my master’s thesis. It should be noted that this fortress was investigated by Dr Lorenzo López y Sebastián between 1981 and 1986, but materials recovered during this later project have not been published or made available for study. Taíno Ceramics Ceramics manufactured by the local indigenous people were the most common ceramic type in the assemblage from the fortress area. Based on the documented material discovered by Cotter, 63.3 per cent of the vessel-form ceramics from the fortress were Taíno, and 1.3 per cent of the total was New Seville ware, a locally manufactured Hispanic–Taíno Indian colonoware. Spanish tin-glazed majolica tableware accounts for just 6.7 per cent of the total, and Spanish lead-glazed and unglazed storage- and tableware make up TAÍNO C ERAMICS FROM P OST-CONTACT J AMAICA 165
A B Figure 12.3 Meillac ware: (a) boat-shaped vessel; (b) round bowl the remaining 28.7 per cent of the assemblage (Woodward 1988, 50). The intrusive European ceramics from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that Cotter collected from across the whole lower estate were not factored into this analysis. The Casimiroid peoples began human occupation of the West Indies around 4000 BC (Rouse 1992, 51). The first settlers of Jamaica were the Ostionoids, who expanded south and west through the island of Hispaniola and across the Jamaica Channel to the south coast of Jamaica by AD 650 (Atkinson 2003, 1). The Meillacan Ostionoids, who would evolve into the Western Taínos of Jamaica and parts of Cuba, were present in Jamaica by 880 BC (Rouse 1992, 96). The White Marl style of the Meillacan subseries of pottery is characteristic of all Meillacan and Western Taíno sites in Jamaica, and St Ann’s Bay in particular (ibid., 52). This ware is characterized by coilconstructed vessels, the coils being set and then shaped by an anvil-and-paddle technique rather than by scraping (Howard 1950, 140). The pottery varies in colour from brick-red through dull brown and even black. A dull polish was applied to the exterior surfaces of most vessels. Temper was not normally added to the clays; the sand or marl particles that are in evidence appear to have been part of the original clay. The paste of the Taíno sherds found in Cotter’s collection from the fortress conforms to this tradition. The shapes of the White Marl–style vessels are limited to thin-walled (averaging 8 mm) carinated boat-shaped or round bowls (ibid., 141). Both these bowl forms have symmetrically rounded bottoms and frequently have distinctive shoulders (Figure 12.3). Regardless of whether the bowls have a shoulder or not, the sides of these vessels invariably curve inward towards the rim so that the opening of the bowl is smaller than the greatest diameter of the vessel (ibid., 138). 0 5 cm 0 5 cm The rims of the White Marl–style vessels are predominantly rounded or slightly rectangular in shape (Figure 12.4a–e). The second variant is a filleted rim, which has a strip or thin fillet of clay applied along the exterior edge (Figure 12.4f–h) or, less frequently, along the interior edge (Figure 12.4i). Decorated rims are rare, but when they are encountered, they are more elaborate than on contemporaneous vessels from elsewhere in the Caribbean. Decorative devices include incised designs (Figure 12.5a), cross- 166 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS
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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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emoval. Sometimes what is required
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Figure 5.1 Road cutting through the
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Later on the Spanish settled in the
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Figure 5.4 Long Mountain prior to d
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86 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS amon
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6 Notes on the Natural History of J
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Soils Several different soil types
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Shoreline On the north coast, there
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well established, especially in dis
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7 The Exploitation and Transformati
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Art Art can be religious, functiona
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of Long Mountain”, Andreas Oberli
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Figure 7.3 William Keegan explainin
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cedar (Cedrela odorata), santa mari
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According to Rouse, the density of
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17), grows abundantly on the island
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Incidental Dispersal The plant comp
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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 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 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
Page 196 and 197: previously described petroglyphs ex
Page 198 and 199: glyphs in that belt, as the geologi
Page 200 and 201: Another carving that is unique is t
Page 202 and 203: Appendix Table 13.2 Jamaican Petrog
Page 204 and 205: 14 Zemís, Trees and Symbolic Lands
Page 206 and 207: According to Arrom and Rouse (1992)
Page 208 and 209: The Context of Sacredness Taíno wo
Page 210 and 211: Kept in niches or on tables within
Page 212 and 213: Another important correspondence be
Page 214 and 215: eliefs in the spiritual and life-gi
Page 216 and 217: References Aarons, G.A. 1983a. Arch
Page 218 and 219: Smithsonian Biological Survey of Do
Page 220 and 221: ———. 1988. Ulysses’ Sail: A
Page 222 and 223: ———. 1983b. Adornos, Jamaica
Page 224 and 225: Porro, A. 1994. Social organization
Page 226 and 227: Scudder, S. 1992. Early Arawak subs
Page 228 and 229: Wing, E.S., and A.B. Brown. 1979. P
Page 230 and 231: Rouse, I. 1982. Ceramic and religio
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M. John Roobol, is a consultant geo
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