Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

96 / Chapter 7.
Figure 26. White Marl (S1): Pottery characteristics.
duced two remarkably complete reconstructed griddles (illustrated at CC15.2
and 3). Not including the complete vessels, the three caves produced a total of
693, 38, and 73 potsherds and a few lithic artifacts. Apart from these three, the
most remarkable cave with material in the collection probably is Image Cave
(MC3), which was mapped by Lee in 1966 (AJ 1966, 11:1 and 1967, 5:2).
The most notable artifact found here was “a crudely whittled hardwood spindle
which may be of Arawak manufacture and which would have been used for
spinning cotton” (AJ 1966, 11:1), now housed at the Institute of Jamaica (Appendix
29). Lee thought it possible that this might be the same cave as “Spots,”
where Rebello’s famous carved wooden “images” were found in 1792. The remainder
of the caves do not contain a great deal of material, except for New
Mountain Cave (WC3), which has 254 ceramic pieces. The majority is in
St. Elizabeth parish. Once again, there is unevenness in distribution, and some
important caves, for example, White Marl Cave #1 (SC5) are entirely absent
(St. Clair 1970).
In summing up the pottery, which formed the main element in his White
Marl style, Howard concluded that it was in general “remarkably homogeneous,”
constituting “a relatively undifferentiated and conservative tradition”