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

Plants and Ceramic Griddles / 169
this piece does not heat up uniformly, in which instance the grains could have been
well preserved in the less heated areas.
Another explanation could be that the clay was sufficiently porous to trap some
unaffected grains. If we consider what we have previously said concerning temperature
gradients, all of the starches may not have been exposed to the same level
of heat, and thus some may have been preserved better than others.
One last possibility for the preservation of starches on the burén fragments is
that the artifacts were used in their last stage (i.e., after their use as a cooking utensil)
or before their disuse and abandonment (i.e., after their usefulness as cooking
tools) to process fresh material (e.g., pounded material or “flour” derived from
starchy plants) on work surfaces (the burén like a table work surface).
Unfortunately, at this time we cannot present or suggest a more detailed and
precise picture on the subject discussed in this chapter due to the study’s preliminary
character. We hope to elaborate on each aspect we have dealt with here as well
as on other subjects (e.g., social organization and systems of production) that are
related to the data we have gathered.
Notes
1. The French chronicler Guillaume Coppier ([year 1645] translated by Cárdenas
1981:151) said that the Carib Indians of the Lesser Antilles have maize “that they forcefully
crush on concave rocks or stones, a kind of mortar; once beaten they shape it like
sausage and wrap it in balliris leaves and then they boil it in hot water and it serves as
bread which (thank God) nourishes very well (italics in original text).” Although this
information was recovered 145 years after the start of the conquest and the colonization
of the Greater Antilles, it should not be ignored that this practice could have been
shared by the Taíno of the Lesser Antilles centuries before European intervention in
the islands.
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