Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

10 / Chapter 2.
self was not able to relocate any of these sites, but the coordinates of the fi rst
three are recorded in Fincham (1997). Lee was also not able to find some of the
others, including a cave on Great Goat Island in Old Harbour Bay.
Halberstadt attracted particular attention because of the large number of
human remains found within it, a minimum of 34 individuals according to
Duerden (1895). W. H. Flower (1895) and A. C. Haddon (1897) studied some
of the remains, and as a result their physical characteristics were fairly clearly
established. The practice of cranial deformation was noted, and Duerden commented
that both at Richmond Hill and at Great Goat Island skulls had actually
been found within “mortuary vessels” intended for the purpose. Eight complete
vessels were obtained at Richmond Hill, and others elsewhere (Duerden
1897:Plate V). There were 32 perforated Oliva shells at Richmond Hill, and
at Halberstadt there were portions of a cedar canoe and a lignum vitae mortar,
interpreted as part of the funerary ritual. Finally, Duerden drew attention to
the existence of four caves with rock carvings or petroglyphs: Dryland (YC1),
Pantrepant (TC2), Kempshot (JC1), and Mountain River Cave (SC1). The
last was afterward lost for many years, until Lee relocated it in 1954. Duerden
photographed a rock carving inside the cave and also one on a “fallen piece of
rock” outside (Appendixes 18 and 19), the latter being particularly valuable because
this rock does not now seem to be readily visible.
Frank Cundall continued to keep track of Pre- Columbian discoveries in Jamaica,
updating Duerden’s map from time to time. His final list of “Arawak
caves, middens and rock carvings” was published posthumously as an appendix
to P. M. Sherlock’s book The Aborigines of Jamaica in 1939. During the period
between 1897 and 1939, a number of excavations were carried out on the
island, notably by G. C. Longley and T. de Booy. Longley “passed the winter
months” in Jamaica for six years prior to 1914, and during that time he excavated
five sites “in the interior of the island”: Armadale (A2), St. D’Acre (A3),
Scarborough (A10), Green Hill (A46), and Logie Green (C12). As a result of
this work, he presented 1,500 objects to the Museum of the American Indian
in New York, but the record of the excavations is sparse indeed (Longley 1914).
At St. D’Acre he dug trenches “sometimes 5 or more feet deep,” and at Green
Hill his work was even more “extensive,” but apart from that we know nothing.
De Booy carried out work at Retreat (A13), which had already been investigated
by Duerden. He reported and mapped 16 middens, four of which
he excavated (de Booy 1913:Figure 111). He concentrated in particular on
midden 4. Interestingly enough, he stated that his aim here was not to obtain
more archaeological material but to procure “as accurate information as pos-