Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Aboriginal Indian Remains in Jamaica by J. E. Duerden / 227
and seven and a half by road. Several springs around are connected with the
river. The deposit of shells extends over an area of about fifteen chains around
the hill, by an average of one and a half chains wide, and is eighteen to twenty
inches deep in places.
Kempshot, where the cave containing aboriginal carvings occurs, is three or
four miles distant.
Tryall.
Mr. R. J. Taylor Domville, formerly of Running Gut Estate, and now of King’s
Valley, in a communication to the Hon. W. Fawcett, referred to the fact that in
digging cane holes in certain places on the Tryall Estate no end of broken pieces
of jars, shells, and now and then a stone axe, were to be found. Mr. Fawcett forwarded
the letter to the Museum, suggesting that the matter might be worthy
of investigation. Later, Mr. Domville was able to supply further details with regard
to such accumulations on two distinct hills on the estate— Mammee Hill
and Spotty Hill. Researches now carried out demonstrate that at Tryall, and the
surrounding estates, there must have been important Indian settlements. Relics
have been found, to a depth of two or three feet, extending over a number
of acres of ground; while a cave has been discovered at California, containing
heaps of broken pottery and many portions of human skulls and other bones.
Tryall Estate is situated in St. James, a little off the main road, at about nine
miles from Montego Bay. It adjoins the Running Gut Estate, and is now owned
by Mr. Edgar Turnbull, and under the management of Mr. Melville, the latter
of whom rendered very considerable assistance in the work. The country
around is formed of the White Limestone and, from the sea, exhibits one or
more terraces of rounded hills or downs, from fifty to a hundred feet high,
backed by a higher series of hills. It is on the former, overlooking the flat erosion
plain which extends to the sea, that the Indians appear to have erected their
settlements in this parish.
Mammee Hill. This hill consists of two flat terraces rising one above the
other, and sloping upwards to the high elevations which constitute the greater
part of the interior. Deposits are found scattered over an area of four or five
acres; this being the most extensive accumulation yet met with. They are most
plentiful along the margins of the plateau, and consist of shells, pottery, bones,
and pieces of flint similar to those obtained in other mounds. The marine bivalves
Codakia (Lucina) tigerina and Tellina fausta are especially abundant. In
one spot about a dozen examples of Perna obliqua were obtained, a species
more characteristic of the accumulations on the south side, and no doubt regarded
as a [17] special delicacy. Exposed fragments of shells are to be seen over
all the surface of the ground. A bridle path cut round a portion of the hill first
displayed to Mr. Domville the abundance of foreign objects. Here, as in other