Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

120 / Chapter 9.
A very small excavation at this site took place in 1998, during which shells were
recovered from a one- meter- square quadrant and from a single layer in one section
(Appendix 22) ( Allsworth- Jones et al. 2001). The results of the complete
shell study are at Appendix 23. In this table, marine gastropods and bivalves are
counted separately. If the bivalves are divided by 2, and the terrestrial gastropods
are included, the comparison between the two major categories is as follows:
terrestrial 493 (17.2 percent), marine 2,380 (82.8 percent), total 2,873.
This method of calculation seems to be what the authors of the reports previously
quoted adopted. The predominance of marine species here is hardly less
than at Rodney’s House, and considerably more so than at Bellevue, despite the
fact that in its general situation and in the species represented it is more analogous
to Bellevue than to Rodney’s House. It is possible that this may reflect to
some extent the difference between “random samples” and complete samples,
albeit from restricted areas. More significantly the authors of the report on
Chancery Hall have a comment to make on the importance to be attached to
terrestrial gastropods in general ( Allsworth- Jones et al. 2001:118): “There are
many places in Jamaica where extensive accumulations of terrestrial gastropods
are concentrated in soil profiles with no evidence of archaeological occupation.
Furthermore, a Taino rubbish tip may have been a highly desirable habitat for
(them). It is therefore premature without additional investigation to assume
that the Taino people ate these terrestrial molluscs. . . . They may be present on
Taino sites simply because they lived there.” In other words, they may not have
been part of the diet at all. This is not to say that they may not (among other
things) be valuable paleoclimatic indicators.
The contribution that studies of mollusks can make is most convincingly illustrated
by the one recently carried out by Keegan and his colleagues at Paradise
Park (Keegan et al. 2003). His suggestion that the two sites here indicate
climatic change in the period from a.d. 800 to 1500 has already been
mentioned in Chapter 4. Keegan and his colleagues list 64 species of marine
mollusks that occur at both sites in terms of presence/ absence, and six major
families in terms of MNI and number of identified specimens (NISP). At Paradise,
the Ostionan (Redware) site (Wes-15a), the six major families were represented
by 3,881 NISP and 856 MNI. At Sweetwater, the Meillacan (White
Marl/ Montego Bay) site (Wes-15b), the corresponding figures are 10,637 NISP
and 4,466 MNI. Keegan’s suggestion is that it is only after the numbers have
reached about 3,000 NISP and 800 MNI that stable ratios are obtained. In
other words, small sample sizes will not do. In the earlier site Strombidae constitute
the predominant family, replaced in the later site by Lucinidae. Veneri-