The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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UNINHABITED Figure 1.1 Irving Rouse’s chronology of the series and subseries of cultures in the West Indies. Ages: A, Archaic; C, Ceramic; F, Formative; H, Historic; L, Lithic. The Bahama Channel area includes the Bahama Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands and central Cuba; the Jamaica Channel area, Jamaica and southwestern Haiti; the Windward Passage area, eastern Cuba and the adjacent parts of Haiti; the Mona Passage area, the Dominican Republic and western Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Passage area, eastern Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. (Rouse 1992, Fig. 8.) 21
22 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS decoration and other artefacts were found. In essence, the change in emphasis reflected a shift from quality to quantity. On the one hand, the discovery of exotic artefacts is a rare occurrence akin to winning the lottery; on the other, archaeological sites are common in Jamaica, and new ones can be found with relatively little effort. Howard’s dissertation (1950) describes in detail archaeological investigations that had been conducted before 1950. In this regard it provides an important starting point for an inventory of archaeological sites and descriptions for material remains. He recorded seventy-five midden sites, twentyseven cave sites, and nine rock art sites. His inventory and references to the original publications on these sites are reported in Tables 1.1–1.3 (see appendix). We include these tables to provide present and future researchers with the sources for research up to that date. In his later publications Howard (1956, 1965) fitted Jamaican archaeology into the dominant classification scheme of the time. It is worth reiterating that his scheme was based on Rouse’s taxonomy, which identified a single line of development for the islands. Other archaeologists identified every different pottery series as representing the migration of a new group of people into the West Indies (see Keegan 2000). In contrast, Rouse has always maintained that there was a single line of development, that each new pottery series developed from the previous series and that new immigrants were not responsible for the observed changes (Siegel 1996). According to Rouse’s scheme at the time, the first Ceramic Age peoples in the islands were the Saladoid (named for the Saladero site on the Orinoco River in Venezuela). They reached Puerto Rico about 400 BC but did not expand into Hispaniola, and there was no further movement to the west, until after AD 600. Rouse (1986) described the failure of pottery-making to expand westward at this time as evidence for a “frontier” at the Mona Passage. By AD 600 a new pottery series had developed, which Rouse called Ostionoid (named for the Punta Ostiones site in Puerto Rico). The Ostionoid peoples began a new phase of population movement, expanding into Hispaniola, Cuba, the Bahamas and Jamaica after AD 600. The Ostionoid series is distinguished by simple hemispherical and boat-shaped vessels, frequently decorated with red paint (see Figure 1.2). For this reason the pottery is often called Redware. Rouse (1986) at one time concluded that the Ostionoid series then developed into the Meillacoid series (named for the Meillac site in Haiti), through the abandonment of red paint and the adoption of fine-line incised and appliqué decorations. The change occurred in central Hispaniola, and the new form of decoration spread to Cuba and Jamaica. Rouse views this transition as the spread of new ideas about decoration rather than the actual movement of
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 31 and 32: objective by using a frame of refer
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: 20 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS the
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
Page 79 and 80: of slim, more or less parallel shap
Page 81 and 82: Table 3.5 Fish Bone Anatomical Part
Page 83 and 84: 66 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS Surv
Page 85 and 86: Acknowledgements Thanks are due to
Page 87 and 88: 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
Page 226 and 227:
Scudder, S. 1992. Early Arawak subs
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Wing, E.S., and A.B. Brown. 1979. P
Page 230 and 231:
Rouse, I. 1982. Ceramic and religio
Page 232:
M. John Roobol, is a consultant geo
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