Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

54 / Chapter 4.
Marl/ Montego Bay). There are evident differences in exploitation patterns between
the two sites, and Keegan suggests that these may reflect in part a change
in environmental conditions. There may have been a rise in sea level of up to
one meter between the two occupations. “This would help to explain why part
of the Ostionan deposit is today below the water table” (Keegan et al. 2003).
More rainfall would also have increased river flow and reduced near- shore salinity
in Bluefields Bay, with consequent effects for molluscan environments,
including the growth of a coastal mangrove swamp.
At Treasure Beach we do not have dated deposits, but the geological succession
outlined by Maharaj (1996) is congruent with the above. Red sandstone
deposits in the form of a hardpan (the Sandy Bank member) are widespread
from Great Pedro Bluff to Fort Charles. They occur at elevations of up to 6 meters
above sea level and are correlated by Maharaj with the last interglacial.
West of Boatman’s Bay they are overlain by what Maharaj describes as “one of
the largest palaeo- dunefields in the Caribbean” (1996). Originally these eolian
sand dunes may have been transverse, that is, perpendicular to the dominant
onshore sea winds. But the White Limestone hills on either side may have created
a wind tunnel effect, forcing the migrating dunes to reorient themselves.
The suggested date for the dunes is only “middle Holocene” in general, but they
are very important from the archaeological point of view, since the important
Redware site of Great Pedro Bay (E4) is situated directly beneath them. As described
by Lee, the site consists of “small areas of thin midden deposition on
the pre- dune land surface.” Since this is one of the few sites on the island where
there is a direct correlation between archaeological occupation and large- scale
geological events it would be desirable to obtain greater precision as to when
the dune field was formed.
The prehistoric occupation of the island was affected by its geological makeup
in other ways than this. Limestone obviously played a very prominent role. Fincham
(1997) lists 1,073 caves in Jamaica as a whole. Most of them are in the
White Limestone, and the same applies to the relatively small number that was
used by the Pre- Columbian inhabitants. The Montpelier Formation, one of 11
in the White Limestone “supergroup,” is particularly important from the raw
material point of view. This is a chalky facies that outcrops widely on the north
coast (Zans et al. 1962). It contains numerous good quality chert nodules, the
use of which at several Taíno sites was remarked upon by Lee (three in St. James
parish, two in Trelawny, one in St. Ann, and five in St. Mary). In Lee’s view,
the material would have been collected in the form of pebbles along the rivers
and beaches rather than extracted from the matrix.