The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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ance of the seeds is fresh, and it is strongly suspected that they are of comparatively recent origin. Insects and Other Arthropods Finds of arthropods are listed in Table 3.3. Most are disarticulated parts of insects: beetles (order Coleoptera); earwig (order Dermaptera) and what appears to be the head of an ant (order Hymenoptera). Additionally, there are components of claws of chelicerate arthropods, presumably scorpions. The remains appear to be in good condition: some of the body parts remain articulated, and the individual sclerites and other exoskeletal parts do not show obvious signs of degradation such as discolouration, cracking, perforation or abrasion (Kenward and Large 1998). In short, they look fresh (though a comparison with modern reference material of the taxa has not been made), with the earwig being the most complete. The earwig possesses intact cerci (posteriorly situated pincers or “forceps”) Table 3.3 Arthropod Remains Anatomical Part Number Insects Order Hymenoptera Head, antlike 1 Order Coleoptera Thorax, including fused elytra 1 Beetle femur/fibia, jointed 1 Pronotum 1 Ventral tergite 1 Order Dermaptera Earwig abdomen with part thorax 1 Miscellaneous (mostly Coleoptera?) More or less undiagnostic, chitinous plates 4 Cf. head 1 Scorpions Segments of ?same, disarticulated chelicera 4 Limb segments with 3 ?related chelicerae 4 Total 19 61
of slim, more or less parallel shape, suggesting a female. There are nearly two thousand recorded species of Dermaptera worldwide (Sakai 1996). Beetles usually form the most conspicuous component of subfossil insect assemblages because of the toughness of their exoskeletons. In the present case, other groups seem to be present. The representation may not be abnormal, but experience of local subfossil insect assemblages would help in judging whether this collection is typical. Of the scorpions, the three “related” chelicerae (claws) in Table 3.2 are all pale yellowish-brown, while the four segments of the “same” chelicera are darker and more reddish-brown. All the chelicerae are fairly small, with the paler ones being clearly smaller than the darker. For secure identification, these should all be compared with reference material of different species and different age stages of scorpion. Molluscan Shell (and Serpulid Worm Cases) The presence of large molluscan shells was obvious, and some specimens were large enough to be extracted by hand. Among these larger shells were a mixture of thin-walled terrestrial specimens and a range of thick-walled marine or at least littoral species. The smaller molluscs were viewed under magnification. Total fragments amounted to 350, divided (for gastropods) into apices, apertures and whorl fragments and (for bivalves) into left and right umbones and valve fragments. In terms of minimum numbers of individuals, 225 specimens were recognized. Of these, 79 were marine gastropods, 74 were terrestrial gastropods and 70 were marine bivalves. The species represented were identified by means of voucher specimens returned to Jamaica for that purpose. The species so recognized were added to the rest of the sample from lot 386 layer 3, and the grand totals appear in Table 2.1. The samples identified in Leicester were a recognizably similar subset of the totals for the site as a whole. There were at least two serpulid worms (class Annelida: family Serpulidae) represented by three fragments. These form a chalky, loosely whorled, tubular casing. Height ca. 3.5 mm. Serpulids are segmented worms, not molluscs. Bone: General Bone (Table 3.4) was mostly fragmented and ranged from 1.25 to 21 mm in size. The systematic groups represented included fish, possibly amphibian, and small mammal. Because of the comminuted nature of the material there was much that could not be identified. Reptilian bone was not recognized. 62 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
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 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: Table 3.1 All Recovered Organic Mat
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
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
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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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