The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

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4 Excavations at Green Castle, St Mary P HILIP and A LLSWORTH-JONES K IT W ESLER A JAMAICAN TAÍNO archaeological project was initiated in 1998 as a joint programme of the Department of History (University of the West Indies, Mona) and the Wickliffe Mounds Research Centre (Murray State University, Kentucky). The project is co-directed by Dr P. Allsworth- Jones and Professor K.W. Wesler, and excavations have so far concentrated on the site of Green Castle, near Annotto Bay (St Mary), on the north coast of the island. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief account of the results achieved so far. Excavations at Green Castle Following a survey of available sites, it was decided that the joint University of the West Indies–Murray State University Jamaican Taíno archaeological project would concentrate first on excavations at Green Castle, and these excavations ran for three seasons from 1999 to 2001. An advantage of the site was that it appeared to be largely undisturbed, and it was thought that it would permit questions to be addressed concerning both the settlement structure and the exploitation of the environment by the pre-Columbian inhabitants. The site was first reported by Ms Jean Crum-Ewing and was mapped by JamesLee in 1978 (Lee 1978b). The excavations were made possible thanks to the generous support of the landowner, Mr Duncan MacMillan, and the cooperation of the general manager, Mr Robin Crum-Ewing. Financial support was provided both by the University of the West Indies and by Murray State Originally published in 2003, in Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology, Aruba, 2001: 186–93. 69
SOUTH NEGRIL POINT Savannala-Mar Montego Bay JAMAICA GALINA POINT Green Castle Estate Mandeville May Pen Spanish Town KINGSTON MORANT POINT PORTLAND POINT 32 km 20 mi. Figure 4.1 Location of Green Castle University, and during the last season by the National Geographic Society and the Reed Foundation. The details given below are taken from the preliminary annual reports on the excavations which have so far been submitted (Allsworth-Jones and Wesler 1999–2001). The general position of the site is indicated on the map in Figure 4.1. It is a hilltop overlooking the sea, and the contours of the hilltop are shown in Figure 4.2. Over the three years, six trenches were excavated, designated according to their position in relation to site datum. The three westernmost trenches, excavated in 2000, were shallow and yielded very little information. The northernmost trench (0–2S 9–10E) was also quite shallow and was evidently affected by erosion and deflation. Conditions were quite different for the middle trench on the eastern side (30–31S 7–10E, later extended to east and north) and the southernmost trench on the eastern side (58–60S 5–6E). The southernmost trench produced the most complete stratigraphy, to a maximum depth of 1.5 m. On its eastern side, the middle trench reached a maximum depth of 80 cm. Three consecutive occupations were detected in the southernmost trench, separated by reddish, gravelly, more or less sterile layers. The difference between the two lowest occupations was particularly clearly marked, the basal level being completely sealed by a horizon of large loose rubble up to 25 cm thick. The situation was much more complex in the eastern part of the middle trench, where it became apparent from 2000 onwards that we were dealing with an artificially cut burial pit and probably other cutand-fill features as well. In 2001 a complete adult burial was uncovered here, lying on bedrock. A number of radiocarbon dates for the site have been obtained from the Beta Analytic laboratory. For the southern trench they are as follows. Occupation 3 Level 2: 330 ± 60 BP (cal AD 1470–1645) Level 3: 430 ± 80 BP (cal AD 1420–1616) Occupation 2 Level 7: 760 ± 60 BP (cal AD 1221–1291) 70 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
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
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: Acknowledgements Thanks are due to
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
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
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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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