The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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1 The Development of Jamaican Prehistory W ILLIAM F. K EEGAN and LESLEY-GAIL ATKINSON ARCHAEOLOGY IN JAMAICA developed from prehistoric interests. The island has a long, rich history of archaeological investigations. On the one hand, foreign archaeologists have come to Jamaica with the goal of fitting the island’s pre-Columbian past into the dominant frameworks of the time. Their studies have had the widest dissemination and are most frequently cited in synthetic studies (for example, Howard 1950, 1956, 1965). On the other hand, Jamaica has a tradition of research conducted by local, “avocational” archaeologists (that is, those lacking a professional degree in archaeology), whose work was less widely disseminated because their results were published primarily in Archaeology Jamaica, the newsletter of the Archaeology Society of Jamaica. Only those foreign archaeologists who have made a conscious effort to learn Jamaica’s prehistory have made use of the extensive literature that is available. 1 As a result, Jamaican archaeology is often portrayed as a “black hole” and as lacking any prior systematic research. But that characterization of Jamaican archaeology is false. The Institute of Jamaica, the Archaeological Society of Jamaica, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust and the University of the West Indies have sponsored and supported numerous projects, including both surveys and excavations. The results of these projects provide a rich database that is the equal to studies conducted on other islands in the West Indies. It is our goal in this chapter to broaden the distribution of information about Jamaica’s past by drawing attention to research conducted on the island over the past century. We will pursue this 13
objective by using a frame of reference for the history of West Indian archaeology introduced by Irving Rouse (1996). In this regard we will consider artefactual research, chronological order, culture-historical inquiry and sociocultural research, as these have been exemplified by investigations undertaken in Jamaica. The review that follows will provide a basic outline for the investigations of the past, as well as references to work that should heighten awareness of Jamaica’s rich history among archaeologists working in the West Indies. Frame of Reference In writing a history of Jamaican archaeology, we need to acknowledge that Irving Rouse established the main framework and research agenda. Rouse’s approach to culture history has dominated the field for more than sixty years (Rouse 1939, 1992). Rouse (1996) identified four levels of interpretation that developed in sequence. The first, called artefactual research, involved the discovery, description and identification of archaeological materials that were often removed to private collections and public museums. Such activities began in the eighteenth century and continue today, but they reached their acme in the early twentieth century. Rouse reports that by the 1920s attention had shifted to the second level – organizing known assemblages in chronological order. Coincident with chronology is the spatial distribution of material remains. The third level, initiated in the 1950s, involves using material remains to define “cultures” which in turn define the “peoples” who are the subject of culture-historical inquiry (Rouse 1972, 1996). The fourth level, called sociocultural research, emerged in the 1970s. It involves a shift of attention from the peoples who produced the local cultures to the societies that used them (Rouse 1996). Rouse’s scheme provides a useful frame of reference for characterizing prehistoric archaeological investigations conducted in Jamaica over the past century. For this reason we will review past research within the structure of these four categories. However, it should be noted that classification schemes, including Rouse’s characterization of stages of research, tend to emphasize similarities and disregard differences. In other words, these categories are fuzzy and porous. Some researchers were ahead of their time, while others have clung to the old ways of doing things. What is most important is that people recognize the breadth of research already conducted in Jamaica. Our review ends by highlighting the present research in the island. Finally, Caribbean archaeology cannot outrun its past. Even on islands like Jamaica, where local historical goals have been pursued, the general tendency has been to lump all of the islands into one Caribbean/West Indian culture 14 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS
Page 2: The Earliest Inhabitants
Page 5 and 6: University of the West Indies Press
Page 8 and 9: Contents List of Illustrations / ix
Page 10 and 11: Illustrations A.1 Map of the sites
Page 12 and 13: 13.2 Petroglyphs from Coventry and
Page 14 and 15: Preface I HAVE ALWAYS been fascinat
Page 16 and 17: Acknowledgements I WOULD FIRST like
Page 18 and 19: Introduction IN JAMAICA, THE indige
Page 20 and 21: encounter the term Arawaks used to
Page 22 and 23: 90. Long Acre Point 91. Long Mounta
Page 24 and 25: ical publication in Jamaica. Geolog
Page 26 and 27: collections. Knowledge of the prove
Page 28: Section 1 Assessment and Excavation
Page 33 and 34: 16 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS two
Page 35 and 36: 18 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS fact
Page 37 and 38: 20 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS the
Page 39 and 40: 22 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS deco
Page 41 and 42: Howard (1965) recognized that Redwa
Page 43 and 44: people making Ostionan (Redware) po
Page 45 and 46: was the recovery of the Aboukir zem
Page 47 and 48: Appendix Table 1.1 Midden Sites Rep
Page 49 and 50: Table 1.2 Cave Sites Reported by Ro
Page 51 and 52: 2 The Taíno Settlement of the King
Page 53 and 54: Henderson Hill lies to the south, o
Page 55 and 56: ivalves. Single gastropod valves we
Page 57 and 58: 40 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS Taí
Page 59 and 60: Table 2.2 Neutron Activation Analys
Page 61 and 62: Plain may have played a role in the
Page 63 and 64: Table 2.3. Taíno Sites in the King
Page 65 and 66: contractors to drill and blast for
Page 67 and 68: chipped away. It is believed that t
Page 69 and 70: Figure 3.4 JNHT excavations at Chan
Page 71 and 72: Test Pit 6 Depth 40 cm. This is a s
Page 73 and 74: 19.375 19.275 1 CHANCERY HALL, JAMA
Page 75 and 76: Appendix A Laboratory Study of the
Page 77 and 78: 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
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and bagged by level. In April of 19
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Table 8.1 Significant Vertebrate an
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tory and habitat preferences. Follo
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Changing Subsistence Strategies The
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Table 8.2 Faunal Comparisons: Per c
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Appendix Table 8.3 Rodney’s House
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Table 8.3 Rodney’s House Faunal L
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Section 3 Analysis of Taíno Archae
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9 Petrography and Source of Some Ar
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The results discussed here were obt
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Petaloid Axes of Arawak Origin from
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Blue Schist The story of Jamaican b
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Coleraine) but also from other majo
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from which several Jamaican artefac
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in a lack of suitable rocks, so tha
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A surprising conclusion of the pres
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Figure 10.1 Redware, White Marl and
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triangular ridges. It is thought th
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(also see Figure 10.6), loop handle
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11 Jamaican Redware J AMES W. LEE A
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only if planted at exactly the corr
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Handles Handles may be classified i
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Two more or less spheroidal pottery
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12 Taíno Ceramics from Post-Contac
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and distribution of native labour w
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Figure 12.2 Distribution of New Sev
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hatching (Figure 12.5c), and closel
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were fired at a low temperature, th
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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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