Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

86 / Chapter 7.
or pendants of white metamorphic rock with flecks of black mineral from Calabash
Bay (E11) and a broken figurine of white quartzite found at Great Pedro
Bay (E4). There were two artifacts (a bead and a pendant) of nephritic jade
from Bottom Bay (M4), and this material likewise is considered foreign to the
island. The Redware assemblages were also defined in general by Lee in terms
of absences: no massive water bottle handles, and no filleted rims.
In terms of the general characteristics of the sites, Lee remarked that with
very few exceptions they were on the coast, situated right at the present high
water mark, adjacent to sandy beaches. Consequently, they have been subject
to a certain amount of destruction through wave action. The deposits in general
are shallow (up to 25 cm thick) but they often spread over a wide area, with
a “halo” of material around them that may be several hundred meters in extent.
Up to now, no burials have been reported from the occupation sites, but
secondary burials were encountered in the few caves that show traces of Redware
presence. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Vanderwal excavated Bottom Bay
(M4) in 1966, and he gave some details of the material recovered in his thesis
(Vanderwal 1968a: 129–130). He provided an analysis of 343 decorated rim
and body sherds, but that was all. Lee therefore was justified in saying in 1980
that up to that point there had been “no published report of a systematic excavation
of a Jamaican Redware site” (Lee 1980). In view of the fact that the sites
were few and the deposits shallow, he took the view that the Redware occupation
of the island was probably short lived and there was no overlap or coexistence
with the succeeding White Marl occupation.
In his last published map of Jamaican Redware sites, Lee recorded 11 middens
and two caves (Lee 1980:Figure 1). The open- air sites were as follows: Alloa
(A4), Little River (A15), Cardiff Hall Beach (A30), Great Pedro Bay (E4),
Alligator Pond River (E5), Long Acre Point (E6), Billy Bay (E8), Calabash Bay
(E11), Sandy Bank (E13), Fort Charles- Nembhard (E15), and Bottom Bay
(M4). The first three are on the north coast, the remainder on the south coast.
Lee was aware that Redware sherds were present at Alligator Pond (E1) and Porus
(M7), and in his final manuscript list E1 (but not M7) was recognized as
a Redware site. Porus, close to the headwaters of the Milk River, is much farther
inland than any of the other sites, but there seems no reason to exclude it
on those grounds. Mammee Bay (A50) and Anderson (M11) were found and
mapped after 1980, as was the site excavated by Keegan at Paradise Park. The
latter is referred to as Wes-15a (Keegan et al. 2003). Its situation is broadly
similar to those of the other coastal Redware sites, as detailed in Chapter 2, and
today part of the deposits are below the water table. Keegan suggests, however,
that when the site was occupied the sea was perhaps a meter lower than at pres-