Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Principal Excavated Sites in Jamaica / 183
son says, “the largest analysed faunal sample from Jamaica to date.” The task
was made easier, if not shorter, by the fact that, as she also says, the “density of
bone is high and preservation of the pieces of bone is excellent.” The two sets
of results overlap but are not identical. Allgood identified 19 species all told,
of which fish accounted for 14, the majority being reef dwellers. Carlson identified
50 species, excluding invertebrates. Of these three were mammals, six
birds, four reptiles, and 37 fish, including sharks. The minimum number of individuals
(MNI) represented by these species came to 320, divided as follows:
mammals 61, birds nine, reptiles 13, fish 237. Twenty- five percent of these individuals
therefore can be regarded as land dwellers and 75 percent are marine.
In accordance with Allgood’s results, the majority of the fish (41 percent) are
reef dwellers, particularly parrot fishes (Scaridae) and groupers (Serranidae),
the remainder being inshore (18 percent) or are of mixed habitat (16 percent).
It is quite clear that, as Carlson says, fish represented “the most important resource”
for the inhabitants of the site, and that they could all have been caught
in Annotto Bay itself, using either hooks and lines or nets and traps. The mammals
are dominated by hutía. Allgood identified two bones as belonging to
guinea pig (Cavia porcella) but Carlson found none. The guinea pig is not indigenous
to Jamaica, but it has been found elsewhere in the Greater Antilles.
References: AJ 1978, 1:3, 7; 1978, 2:5; Allgood 2000; Allsworth- Jones and
Wesler 2003; Carlson 2002; Frink 1994; Wesler 2001.
Newry (Y27)
Reported by Robin Crum- Ewing in 1985 and mapped by Lee in that year.
“The middens are on a hill- top and contain White Marl type pottery, as well as
numerous terrestrial snail shells, marine and brackish water shells, flint flakes,
and fragments of tools made from greenstone and conch shells.” According to
Lee’s map, there were seven probable house sites at the east end of the hill.
Excavations were conducted at this site by the UWI–Murray State University
team in 2002. Five 1 x 1 m units turned out to be relatively unproductive,
but were useful in delimiting the area of effective occupation. The deepest deposits
were concentrated in the southwestern portion of the site, where three
1 x 1 m trenches reached maximum depths of just over and just under 1 m and
40 cm respectively. Four radiocarbon dates were obtained in the two deepest
trenches, see Table 22.
In both cases the results are stratigraphically consistent and are comparable
one with the other. The calibrated equivalents suggest that the site was occupied
between approximately a.d. 970 and 1260, which is earlier than but over-