Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

116 / Chapter 9.
dry- coastal and shallow- water animal communities.” It indicates a “restricted
catchment area,” with an absence of distant montane and pelagic species. In
comparison with White Marl and Bellevue, one can detect “a clear continuum
of coastal to inland localised adaptation.” It is not altogether easy to convert
her figures into percentages comparable to those used for the other sites presented
here, but according to her summary (Scudder 1991:Table 3) terrestrial
remains accounted for 35 percent of the total MNI, inshore and bank and reef
species accounted for 26 percent each, and 13 percent belonged to beach species,
including sea turtles.
Some details regarding the results from the Annotto Bay area are given in the
“List of Principal Excavated Sites,” Appendix A, under the entries for Wentworth
(Y8), Coleraine (Y19), Green Castle (Y25), and Newry (Y27). The information
comes from the reports by Allgood (2000) and Carlson (2002, 2003a,
2003b, 2004). As Carlson says, the four sites have similar faunal assemblages,
reflecting their essentially coastal position. Over 30,000 bones ( two- thirds of
them from Green Castle) have been analyzed, representing a minimum number
of individuals (MNI) of 824, or 72 vertebrate species. Despite their nearness
to the coast, terrestrial resources at these sites were not neglected, accounting
for 20, 25, 31, and 35 percent of MNI at Wentworth, Green Castle, Coleraine,
and Newry respectively. Hutía was the most important such resource, but there
were also reptiles (including iguanas and galliwasps) and a variety of birds. Still,
the predominant resource was aquatic, mainly fish, with sharks and sea turtles
as well. Among the fish, the majority were reef species. In contradistinction to
some of the other sites on the north coast, no pelagic fish were caught, but, as
Carlson says, there is evidence for a number of different techniques, including
hook and line fishing, and the use of nets or traps. Since bone preservation was
excellent, there is no reason to think that these results might not be equaled at
other sites in the island.
The general picture derived from the above suggests that the Pre- Columbian
inhabitants utilized the resources that were most near at hand, and they showed
considerable flexibility and ingenuity in doing so. They were clearly expert fishermen,
and on occasion they were not afraid to venture far offshore. As yet,
we do not have sufficient information to trace reliable time lines, such as those
suggested by Elizabeth Wing for the Lesser Antilles in terms of mean trophic
levels, whereby the numbers of inshore and pelagic fish caught tended to increase
at the expense of reef fish, and there were other indications of overexploitation
of the environment.
The CD- ROM contains a special album of paintings of Caribbean fish by