The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino

dle, a ground stone artefact that may be a fragment of a monolithic axe, a fragment
of a petaloid celt and several beads. There are large numbers of shells,
which are being analysed by Dr Simon Mitchell. Apart from pleurodonts,
which may well occur naturally at the site, the majority identified so far are
marine gastropods which live mostly in the intertidal zone on the rocky shore,
about 3 km from the site. In the first year, more than seven thousand fragments
of bone were recovered. Jessica Allgood completed a study of these
bone fragments, using the resources of the University of Southern Mississippi
and the Florida Museum of Natural History (Allgood 2000). In her study
she identified at least twenty-seven species of fish, as well as land mammals
including, for the first time in Jamaica, the remains of guinea pig. Dr Betsy
Carlson (Southeastern Archaeological Research Inc., Gainesville) is presently
conducting the faunal analysis recovered from the later excavations.
Conclusion
In future, we intend to investigate another hilltop occurrence on the Green
Castle estate, that of Newry. Mr Robin Crum-Ewing discovered this site in
1985 and it was mapped by Lee in that year (Lee 1985a). To all appearances,
it could well turn out to be as extensive and productive as the first site. We also
hope to examine other localities in the area, such as Coleraine and Iter Boreale
(Lee 1970b, 1970c). A suggestion originally made by Lee about Coleraine
raises the possibility that all these sites formed part of the Guayguata settlement
noted by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo in the Annotto Bay area, a
settlement whose name was later corrupted to Wagwater (Padron 1952;
Fernández de Oviedo 1959). We hope that a broader study of this type will
allow us to address general questions about Taíno regional political organization
on the eve of the Spanish conquest.
74 T HE E ARLIEST I NHABITANTS