Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Principal Excavated Sites in Jamaica / 181
Table 20. Radiocarbon Dates from Green Castle Southern Trench.
Table 21. Radiocarbon Dates from Green Castle Mid Trench.
depth of 1.5 m. The mid trench reached a maximum depth of 80 cm. Three
consecutive occupations were detected in the southernmost trench, separated
by reddish gravelly more or less sterile layers. The difference between the two
lowest occupations was particularly clearly marked, the basal level being completely
sealed by a horizon of large loose rubble up to 25 cm thick. The situation
was much more complex in the eastern part of the mid trench, where
there was an artificially cut burial pit and probably other cut and fill features
as well.
A number of radiocarbon dates have been obtained for the site from the Beta
Analytic laboratory. For the southern trench they are presented in Table 20.
Rounding, and using current calibration procedures, occupation 1 seems to
have extended from about a.d. 1050 to 1250. There is an overlap with occupation
2, but this is consonant with the hypothesis advanced by Simon Mitchell
(Department of Geography and Geology, UWI) that the rubble horizon separating
them may have represented quite a sudden event. Occupation 3 lasted
from about a.d. 1440 to 1550, assuming that the latter is the practical upper
limit for the Pre- Columbian settlement of the site. There are no indications of
Spanish contact.
The dates in the mid trench are presented in Table 21.
The date for burial 1 is an accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) date. The
dates for the burial and level 3 are quite similar, and are broadly comparable
to those for occupation 2 in the south trench. The date for level 7 corresponds
with that for occupation 3 in the south trench, and on the face of it there is a