Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

166 / Appendix A.
sparse. In 1965 a controlled molluscan sample was obtained for comparison
with Howard’s vertebrate sample from 1964, and from the account given by
Silverberg and colleagues (1972:36–37) it seems that two 5 x 5 ft units were
dug, presumably at some point on Howard’s grid. “Five successive occupational
strata” were identified, four separated from one another by “thin bands of culturally
sterile reddish- brown soil,” whereas the fifth was distinguished on the
basis of different ash color only. The ceramics excavated by Vanderwal in 1965
and 1966 formed “the primary control” for his seriation of south coast sites.
His diagram showed the material both from a trench (White Marl IV, with 11
levels) and a test pit (White Marl VI, with 4 to 5 levels) (Vanderwal 1968a:87,
120, 123, Figure 6). It is interesting to compare these results with those Vanderwal
obtained from his study of 1,325 potsherds excavated by Howard in 1964
in his trenches A and B levels 0–IX (Silverberg et al. 1972:13–17, Figure 5). In
the diagram for 1964, as Vanderwal put it, “the class of filleted rims increased
at the expense of, and gradually replaced, the class of plain rims.” Filleted rims
were, however, present to some degree in the lowest level. This was not the case
in Vanderwal’s own trenches, where filleted rims are not present at all in the
lower half of the sequence.
In 1967, during his operations in the southern portion of the site, Vanderwal
uncovered a burial of “a woman who had cradled in her arms a child aged
between 1 and 3 years” (Vanderwa1 1967). He also found a complete (but
broken) circular vessel with another smaller one inside; it was suspected (although
it was not confirmed) that it also contained the bones of an infant. In
all, according to Vanderwal, “24 excavations 5′ x 5′ were made, yielding a total
of 173 discrete collections and approximately 5,000 decorated potsherds”
(Vanderwal 1967).
In 1968, for the most part, attention was shifted to the northern portion of
the site, where Howard’s excavations had taken place. The work was done “expressly
to obtain more information on burial patterns, and new display material,
in as much as previously excavated burials were in a poor state of preservation”
(Vanderwa1 1968d). The burials were discovered in two areas.
(1) In Howard’s mound B, immediately west of his excavated trench, in
squares 12 J and K and 14 J. In 12 J and K a single flexed burial was found,
with no grave goods. In 14 J three burials were encountered, at different stratigraphic
depths. The lowest was undisturbed, but the uppermost had intruded
upon the middle one. Vanderwal described the latter as fully flexed, with a large
boat- shaped vessel placed over the skull and a small circular bowl by the feet.
By the head was the body of a dog.