Crossing the Borders: New Methods and Techniques in the Study of Archaeological Materials from the Caribbean

162 / Rodríguez Suárez and Pagán Jiménez
work of other authors (Pearsall et al. 2004; Perry 2002a, 2002b, 2004; Piperno and
Holst 1998; Piperno et al. 2000; Ugent et al. 1986) and our own work (Pagán Jiménez
2003, 2004, 2005).
Results and Discussion
The results obtained from both sites are summarized in Table 12.1, where the identifications
are registered by taxa for each of the analyzed fragments. The use of
plants such as maize (Zea mays), beans (Fabaceae, Phaseolus vulgaris), sweet potato
(Impomoea batatas), maranta (Maranta arundinacea), yautía or malanga (Xanthosoma
sp.), and wild plants like Zamia (Zamia pumila), including the uncertain
identifications from this last case, illustrate the development of flexible adaptive
strategies by the inhabitants of the studied sites in what refers to the incorporation,
production, and use of plants, both endogenous and exogenous. Some of the
plants that the identified grains came from were described by Antillean chroniclers.
It must be stressed, though, that grains of manioc were not found on the slides we
analyzed under the microscope, which implies that the rigid form- function correlation
of an artifact (e.g., burén preparation of manioc dough) is called into question
by our preliminary results. We can add to this Linda Perry’s data (2002a and
2004) from the Pozo Azul Norte-1 site, located in the middle valley of the Orinoco
in Venezuela, where she found that the stone teeth related to the guayos to grate
manioc did not show this plant to be represented in the identified taxa by means of
starch analysis. Through these means she was able to find in these small artifacts
other plants like maize, ñame (Dioscorea sp.), maranta, guapo (Myrosoma sp.), and
ginger (Zingiberaceae), all of which suggest, from a different area and cultural
context, that artifacts traditionally related to the preparation of bread from cassava
or manioc were not exclusively utilized in the preparation of those products.
In the case of the batata, or sweet potato, identified in the burén fragments
in both sites (Figure 12.3a.1, a.2) some chroniclers wrote on the preparation of a
“pan de aje” (bread of aje), as it is called by the aborigines and the first chroniclers,
that could be eaten raw, roasted, or boiled (Las Casas 1909). The information
now collected permits us to generate some inference with regard to the manner
of preparation of the tuberous root of this plant; meaning, the use of shell or
stone artifacts for the grating of the skin, like was done with manioc, and the posterior
grating or pounding of the pulp. For if the burén is an artifact of traditional
use in the production of cassava bread it can be assumed that a similar manner of
preparation would produce this said “pan de aje.” In accordance with Rodríguez
Ramos (2005), the sweet potato could have been converted into a paste to mix with
other products to give these a sweeter taste or just as well to turn it into bread, a
reasoning that derives from an experimental analysis conducted with edge- ground
cobbles.
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