Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

Mapping the Sites / 79
Figure 17. All mapped sites: Middens and caves.
then, when necessary, do a datum transformation” such that the information
will tally with the published maps. Information as to how to do that is given
by Mugnier. As he says, “no coordinates are ever final”! But that need not deter
the users of this CD- ROM.
The position of all the mapped sites, in relation to the drainage basins, is
shown in Figure 17. There are 271 sites all told, including the new ones postdating
Lee’s work, but the recorded measurements refer to 280 sites, since nine
of them are “double” occurrences, that is, related middens that are less than
400 m apart.
Measurements taken for all the sites include their elevation (in meters) and
their distance from the sea (in kilometers). Where possible, the length and
breadth of the middens (in meters) was noted, on the basis of Lee’s sketch plans.
One hundred and seventy- seven middens were recorded in this way, and their
areas were calculated on the assumption that each formed an approximate ellipse,
using the formula in Girling (1978) whereby the area = πab, a being half
the major axis and b half the minor axis. In order to allow for summary visual
representation, the decision was taken to divide the results into predetermined
histogram categories, which had regard to the range of the observations. There
are five categories for elevation and distance from the sea, and four for midden
area, Table 3.
The results for midden area are expressed in square meters, but are easier
to refer to in terms of hectares, since 1 hectare = 10,000 square meters. It will
be observed that the histogram category sizes are not equal, they get larger as
one proceeds to the right. As stated above, this was done for the sake of visual