Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

118 / Chapter 9.
Table 10. Terrestrial and Marine Shells from Upton and Rodney’s House.
given in the report are sparse. Forty- two of the species are said to represent an
open shoreline environment, in particular Melongena melongena and Arca spp.
Other environments represented include rocky shorelines, mangroves, and lagoons,
with only two riverine species. Land snails, especially Pleurodonts, were
also abundant. “In the lowest two levels of excavation, a non- edible terrestrial
snail, Sagda sp., occurs to the virtual exclusion of edible species of mollusca,
suggesting a long- standing pristine environment.” In succeeding levels, their
numbers drastically decreased, “probably due to cultural destruction of their
habitat” (Silverberg et al. 1972). For Bengal (A8) and Rio Nuevo (Y4) we have
no information.
Upton (A43) and Rodney’s House (S5) provide the starkest contrast in terms
of the relative abundance of terrestrial and marine shells. Upton was studied by
Wilman (1992–1993) and Rodney’s House by Wilman (AJ 1978, 3: 4–5 and
Appendix C), Medhurst (AJ 1980, 4:10), and Scudder (1991, 1992). The figures
provided by these authors are shown in Table 10.
There is close agreement between Wilman and Scudder with respect to Rodney’s
House, which is the exact opposite of Upton in terms of these parameters.
Most of the terrestrial shells at Upton are Pleurodonts. The remainder
includes two freshwater species, Hemisinus lineolatus and Pila fasciata, which
could have been collected from a freshwater source within walking distance
of the site. The marine shells are dominated by six species of Neritina, which
make up 303 of the total, other common species being Tectarius muricatus and
Cittarium pica. At Rodney’s House, the sample used by Wilman and Scudder
comes from squares J1 and K2. Medhurst collected what he called a “representative
sample” from square S17, which as he said showed little divergence from
the preceding set. He counted 604 marine shells only. According to Wilman,
there were 46 marine and six or seven terrestrial species. Scudder added four
more marine species, but all accounts agree on what were the dominant components.
These were Arca zebra and imbricata, Donax denticulatus, Chama macerophylla,
and Ostrea frons. As Scudder comments, these are all shallow water