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

Caribbean Paleoethnobotany / 193
with plants (Niñez 1984). Some of the species, such as cotton (Tables 13.2 and 13.3)
may be the products of local West Indian domestication where the idea of controlled
breeding of a plant was applied to endemic species. The current data are
insufficient to explore this possibility; nevertheless, as alluded to above, two- way
DNA analysis of particular ancient taxa and their modern relatives may shed important
light on this issue. Currently we lack solid evidence to demonstrate that
particular plants were domesticated locally in the islands, although the presence
of two races of maize at En Bas Saline may provide some suggestion of this, and it
may be that we will eventually find that zamia was manipulated by Caribbean Indians.
An early broad Ceramic- Age range and later postcontact disappearance of evening
primrose may reflect domesticated status, given the taxon’s apparent inability
to survive in the absence of human intervention after the human population crash
and cultural decline in the wake of European contact (Newsom and Wing 2004).
The Native American role and influence on Caribbean biodiversity, including as
plant breeders (e.g., Zaldivar et al. 2004 on Amerindian manioc breeding and perpetuation
of high levels of genetic diversity), possible domesticators (e.g., Volpato
et al. 2004), and the stewards and curators of unique germplasm (i.e., maintaining
and perpetuating ancient cultivars, e.g., see Brush 2004; Minnis and Elisens 2000),
is a particularly exciting new area that we should endeavor to pursue.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Corinne Hofman and Annelou van Gijn for including me in the
original SAA symposium (Puerto Rico, 2006) on which this volume is based. I
thank Bill Keegan for his generosity and helpful comments offered as the discussant
in the symposium, particularly his unwavering encouragement to push the
envelope.
Notes
1. For example, edible leaves, stems, roots, and other structures; for use as vegetables,
condiments, beverages, medicines, narcotic substances, fish poisons, insecticides,
colorants, fibers, containers, tools, and more.
2. The plant may equate with the archaeological evening primrose (the genus
Oenothera sp., Onagraceae [Table 13.3]), which is mildly narcotic (see Newsom and
Wing 2004).
3. Certainly such situations would have impacted Caribbean Indians in different
ways, depending on social organization, settlement patterns, degree of reliance on cultivation,
and so on, and in general how risk was managed. Consider the questions surrounding
the settlement history of Puerto Rico and the apparent abandonment of sites
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