Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Aboriginal Indian Remains in Jamaica by J. E. Duerden / 243
and not one island alone has produced them, but many, throughout the Bahamas.”
Prof. W. K. Brooks, who described two Bahaman skulls secured by
Mr. Ober, speaks of them as “extremely broad in proportion to their length,”
and as “among the most brachycephalic of all human skulls,” and further remarks
that “The Ceboyans flattened their heads artificially in infancy, so that
the vertical part of the forehead is completely obliterated in all adult skulls, and
the head slopes backward immediately above the eyes.”
In the second contribution (1894) Mr. Ober refers (p. 12) to several flattened
brachycephalic crania from Cuba and (p. 23) to two others from Santo
Domingo, all found in caves.
[26]
Description of the Caves
Halberstadt.
An account of this cave has already appeared in the Journal of the Institute,
April, 1895, by the Editor; in Nature, June 20, 1895, by the present writer and
a preliminary notice of the bones obtained was given by Sir Wm. H. Flower, in
Nature, Oct. 17, 1895.
The following are the chief facts of importance: The cave is a natural formation
in the rugged honey- combed limestone rocks on the Halberstadt Estate, in
the Port Royal Mountains, St. Andrew. It is situated at a height of about 2,000
feet above the sea level, the shore, along a direct road, being about two miles
distant. A labourer first discovered in its vicinity a human limb bone, which led
the Rev. W. W. Rumsey to make further search. After removing a number of
loose limestone blocks it was seen that the latter concealed a cavern in the rocks.
Descending into this, through a very narrow aperture, the floor was found covered
with human skulls and bones, on the top of which were the pieces of what
appears to have been a cedar- wood canoe.
The cavern is formed in the sloping hillside and is irregular in shape, extending
inwardly for a distance of about twenty feet. It is somewhat triangular
in vertical section; the walls are smooth, as if waterworn, and in places
have a little stalactitic matter upon them. The cave is barely sufficiently high
and broad in its maximum dimensions to allow an adult to sit upright. When
first discovered no orderly arrangement of the bones was apparent, though
Mr. Rumsey states that the skulls appeared to be arranged in a row. No attempt
at burial had been made, most of the remains being superficial. A thick deposit
of yellowish powdery cave earth occurs, and into this some of the bones had
sunk. The upper skulls and bones are well preserved, while those below, especially
in the cave earth, have suffered a little through decay.
The superimposed cedar- wood slabs are certainly suggestive of the remnants