Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
COURSE HANDBOOK & SYLLABUS
Caribbean Archaeology (Arcl.3049)
2011-2012
(0.5 Unit; 2nd & 3rd Year Option)
Dr. José R. Oliver
Coordinator/Lecturer
Office No. 104, first floor
e-mail (UCL) j.oliver@ucl.ac.uk
telephone (UCL) 020 7679 1524
1. BRIEF OVERVIEW
This course is an introductory overview of the archaeology of the Caribbean Islands, the region where the Old World
encountered the New World in AD 1492. The approach is both critical and historical. The course revolves around the
following broad areas of inquiry:
• A critical reappraisal of the dominant culture historic frameworks (‘Prosperian/Arielan’) discourses of
colonial heritage in the light of post-colonial native (‘Calibanesque’) approaches.
• A consideration and critique of the notions of ‘Island Archaeology’ as a distinct (island as laboratories)
from continental archaeologies in order to review:
• Ancient population movements from continental South and Central America and subsequent inter-island
and pan-Caribbean networks of relationships, and their impact in the formation of identities ethnicities and
their material (cultural) expressions, including art, iconography and power.
• Explore the nature of sociocultural adaptations and transformations, from c. 5000 BC up to and including
the 'Columbian' encounter, AD 1492-1530.
b. Organization of Lecture Themes. This course is divided into seven parts comprising 12 lecture topics or themes
(some are one hour long, others are two hours long): (1) Introduction to concepts of ‘Island Archaeology’, Caribbeanscape and post-Colonial Archaeology; (2) The Caribbean Pre-Arawak (Archaic) and the ‘Prosperian’ vs ‘Calibanesque’
views (in analogy to Shakespeare’s characters in ‘The Tempest’) of Hunter-gatherers; (3) The Arawakan Diaspora into
the Caribbean; (4) Native Transformations-The Windward Islands (5) Native Transformations –The Greater Antilles;
(6) The Tainoan Sphere: Art, Power and Identity; (7) Around the Time of Christopher Columbus. A Summary of
Weekly Lectures is provided on page 8, whereas the detailed Course Syllabus (including reading assignments) begins
on page 9.
.
c. Basic Texts. The two useful texts for this course are Rouse (1992) and Wilson (2007). Other reference textbooks
(including internet resources) are listed below, starting on pages 4.
Rouse, Irving (1992) The Taínos: The Rise and Fall of the People Who Greeted Columbus. Yale University Press.
IoA- DGE ROU 1
Wilson, Samuel (2007) The Archaeology of the Caribbean. Cambridge World Archaeology Series, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge. Issue Desk- WIL
2. COURSE AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND ASSESSMENT
a. Aims:
• To introduce students to the key arguments regarding the historical development of ancient societies in the
Caribbean.
• To familiarize students with the strengths/weaknesses of culture historic and vs. postmodern/post-colonial
approaches as these apply to archaeological data.
Page-A
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
•
•
•
To teach students to criticize and evaluate interpretations of archaeological data.
To provide students with experience in critical assessment of the archaeological evidence.
To provide students with experience in using essential principles of interpretation that can be applied in their
own research (e.g. BA dissertations).
Students will become familiar with the key literature and source materials for each topic of discussion. At the end of
this course, the successful student should be able to recognize and understand what are the principal questions and
problems that archaeologists have wrestled with in Caribbean archaeology and critically evaluate how effectively have
these been addressed in recent years. That is, students should be able to evaluate whether or not the explanations
provided by archaeologists fit the available data. As elsewhere in the developing world, postmodern and post-colonial
critiques to culture historic and even processual (“new”) archaeologies have only recently begun to impact Caribbean
archaeology and reshape the kinds of research problems that archaeologists are currently addressing.
b. Teaching Methods. This course consists of formal lectures presented with PowerPoint (copies can be made
available to students, upon request, for review). Handouts and other materials will be distributed to the students in class
when appropriate. Also where relevant, genuine archaeological artefacts as well as reproductions will be brought and
shown in class.
c. Tutorial & Review Sessions. There will be no group-oriented formal tutorial sessions outside the regularly
scheduled class meetings, but individual/personal tutorials can be arranged by prior appointment and will take place in
my office. However, I will endeavour to reserve a room two dates (1-1.5 hours) outside lecture-time meant to review
and clarify lecture topics and reading materials. All students are welcome. The dates will be announced in class (the
week prior).
d. Student Workload. There will be 20 hours of lectures scheduled during regular class meetings. Students are
expected to undertake about 80 hours of reading plus 40 hours preparing for and producing the assessed essay work.
The total workload is about 140 hours for this course (the equivalent of 1/2 Unit).
e. Course work Assessment & Delivery. Work will be assessed by means of two essays based on topics covered
during the Term (each one worth 50% of the grade). The first essay is due on Tuesday 21 February and the second is
due on Friday 13 April, 2012. Please note: If you are a one-term Affiliate Student, the second essay is due on Friday
23 March, 2012. The essay questions are provided in the last two pages of the detailed syllabus (pp. 11-12). The
length of each essay should not exceed 2,500 words (bibliography, figures/tables excluded) for a total of 5,000
words. Please note that since 2010, UCL-wide regulations stipulate that if your work is found to be between 10% and
20% longer than the official limit your mark will be reduced by 10%, subject to a minimum mark of a minimum pass,
assuming that the work merited a pass. If your work is more than 20% over-length, a mark of zero will be recorded.
The following should not be included in the word-count: bibliography, appendices, and tables, graphs and illustrations
and their captions.
• Coursework (Essay) Submission procedures
Students are required to submit hard copy of all coursework to the course co-ordinators’ pigeon hole via the Red
Essay Box at Reception by the appropriate deadline. The coursework must be stapled to a completed official
coversheet, cover sheet (2nd yr is mauve and 3rd yr is pink coloured) obtainable from outside Judy Medrington’s
office door (Room 411 A, 4th floor). Please note that all the cover sheet information must be provided (see
example in the intra-web at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/intranet/forms/index.htm ). Please note that it is an
Institute requirement that you retain a copy (this can be electronic) of all coursework submitted.
• Late Submission Penalties
Please also note that new, stringent penalties for late submission were introduced UCL-wide from 2010-11. The
penalties for late submissions are as follows: The full allocated mark should be reduced by 5 percentage points for
the first working day after the deadline for the submission of the coursework. The mark will be reduced by a
further 10 percentage points if the coursework is submitted during the following six calendar days. Where there
are extenuating circumstances that have been recognised by the Board of Examiners or its representative, these
penalties will not apply until the agreed extension period has been exceeded.
• Extension request Forms (ERF)
Late submission will be penalized, in accordance with UCL regulations above noted, unless permission has been
granted and an Extension Request Form (ERF) completed. If there is any other unexpected crisis on the
submission day, students should telephone or preferably e-mail the Course Co-ordinator ( j.oliver@ucl.ac.uk ), and
follow this up with a completed ERF. The ERF form can be downloaded from
our intranet site:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/intranet/forms/index.htm
Page-B
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
•
TURNITIN
Date-stamping of the coursework (essays) will be via ‘Turnitin’, so in addition to submitting a hard copy, students
must also submit their work to ‘Turnitin’ by the midnight on the day of the deadline. Students who encounter
technical problems submitting their work to ‘Turnitin’ should email the nature of the problem to ioaturnitin@ucl.ac.uk in advance of the deadline in order that the ‘Turnitin’ Advisers can notify the Course Coordinator that it may be appropriate to waive the late submission penalty. To upload your essays into ‘Turnitin’ for
this course, you need to enter the ID and Passwords:
ID= 297997
Password= IoA1112
• Marked Coursework –Return (Feedback) Timescale
You can expect to receive your marked work within four calendar weeks of the official submission deadline. If
you do not receive your work within this period, or a written explanation from the marker, you should notify the
IoA’s Academic Administrator, Judy Medrington. When your marked essay is returned to you, you should return it
to the marker within two weeks.
• Citing Sources (References Cited)
Coursework should be expressed in a student’s own words giving the exact source of any ideas, information,
diagrams, etc. that are taken from the work of others. Any direct quotations from the work of others must be
indicated as such by being placed between inverted commas. Please, make sure you follow the guidelines/rules
(known as Harvard system) for referencing and citing consulted literature sources in the text as well as in
References Cited section of the essay. The guidelines can be obtained from:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/handbook/common/referencing.htm.
Plagiarism is regarded as a very serious irregularity which can carry very heavy penalties. It is your
responsibility to read and abide by the requirements for presentation, referencing and avoidance of plagiarism to be
found in the IoA ‘Coursework Guidelines’ on the IoA website
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/administration/students/handbook
• Coursework Resubmissions.
Students are not normally allowed to re-write or re-submit essays in order to improve their marks. All essay papers
must be typed in a word processor (PC), unless there is a medical reason. KEEP a COPY of your essay in your PC
files as an insurance against loss or misplacement.
For further guidelines on coursework and standard requirements please also consult your 2nd or 3rd year degree
Handbook at this web site: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/silva/archaeology/course-info/ug2-3 s.
f. Communication. The primary channel of communication within the Institute of Archaeology is by e-mail
(j.oliver@ucl.ac.uk). If you wish to be contacted on your personal or work e-mail address, please arrange for e-mail
sent to your UCL address to be forwarded to your other address, since staff and other students will expect to be able to
reach you through your College e-mail - which they can find on the UCL web-site. You must consult your e-mail
regularly. Please also ensure that in addition to the Institute, I have your up-to-date telephone/cell phone number, in
case you need to be contacted. You can also leave written messages in the mail bin on my door outside my office. In
case of urgency or emergency you may phone me at home (020 8361 9743).
Moodle Resource: To login go to http://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/login/index.php and in the new window page you
will find the course name and code number (ARCL2039).
The Moodle password for this course is: taino (in small letters).
Once in Moodle you will find a folder that contains the PowerPoints prepared for this course so that you can review
them at will and a copy of this hand out/syllabus. Please note that Dr. Oliver’s PowerPoints CANNOT be
distributed to the public; they are for your personal, private use only.
g. Hard of Hearing. You should be aware that your course coordinator (Dr. Oliver) is hard of hearing. Although
hearing-aids are very helpful, there are occasions when he cannot clearly understand your oral comments or questions
even with the hearing aids on. Therefore, please, do not be afraid or embarrassed to speak loud or interrupt him to get
his attention.
Page-C
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
h. Course Attendance. A minimum of 70% attendance is required for all scheduled lectures and discussion meetings
(seminars). Absence due to illness or other justifiable adverse circumstances must be supported by appropriate
documentation. If properly documented, the 70% will not include the absence due to adverse circumstances.
Attendance is reported to College and thence (if relevant) to the student's Local Education Authority. Students should
also be aware that potential employers seeking references often ask about attendance and other indications of reliability.
i. Dyslexia. If you have dyslexia or any other disability, please make your lecturers aware of this. Please discuss with
your lecturers whether there is any way in which they can help you. Students with dyslexia are reminded to indicate
this on each piece of coursework.
j. Student Feedback. At the end of each course you (and your fellow class-mates) will be asked to give your views on
the course in an anonymous questionnaire, which will be circulated during the last two meetings of this term. These
questionnaires are taken seriously and help me to further improve and develop the course. The summarised responses
are considered by the Institute's Staff-Student Consultative Committee, Teaching Committee, and by the Faculty
Teaching Committee. If you are concerned about any aspect of this course I hope you will feel able or comfortable
talking to me, but if you feel this is not appropriate, you can consult your Personal Tutor, the Academic Administrator
(Judy Medrington) or the Chair of Teaching Committee (Dr. Mark Lake).
k. Detailed Syllabus Information (starting on page9 below). For each theme listed in the syllabus, a summary
statement of its contents is given along with the required readings. Preferably, the required materials should be read
before the scheduled lecture date. Optional for further reading are also listed for each lecture topic. The latter are
included for those interested in exploring further the topic and for those who plan to choose an essay question related to
the topic.
j. Reading Materials & Libraries. Some of the books (Teaching Collection) are at the Issue Desk of the Institute's
Library. Another UCL Library which sometimes also contains a required/recommended readings listed in the course
syllabus is the 'Watson' Science Library, primarily in the 'Anthropology', 'History', and 'Geography' sections. For the
most part, the reading materials that appear in journals are very accessible and do not require photocopies to be placed
at the Issue Desk. Articles from these journals can be download as electronic PDF files via euclid internet on your
own. Note that many references will be available already in PDF by accessing it from CD-Rs that will be left in an
envelope on the plastic bin outside my office (Room 104). You can BORROW the CD-R to download into your PC or
Laptop, but MUST return the same day. When you borrow it you will sign a sheet with your name, cel. phone #and
date/time of borrowing. Hop this works will be explained in class.
Bibliographic & Internet Resources
TEXTBOOKS – CARIBBEAN ARCHAEOLOGY
Rouse, Irving (1992) The Taínos: The Rise and Fall of the People Who Greeted Columbus. Yale University
Press. IoA- DGE ROU 1
This book is the standard culture historic model of Caribbean archaeology, the result of nearly 60 years of continuous
scholarship by Irving Rouse. It’s theoretical framework is grounded on normative archaeology. Despite its shortcomings it
provides the “common” nomenclature used to refer to the ancient cultures and peoples of the Caribbean by archaeologists of all
persuasions. This was Rouse’s last major synthesis.
Wilson, Samuel (2007) The Archaeology of the Caribbean. Cambridge World Archaeology Series,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. IoA- DGE WIL and Issue Desk WIL 19
This book represents the first synthesis of Caribbean-wide archaeology since Rouse’s 1992 work (above). It attempts to not
only update Rouse’s work but also provide some of the new critiques arising from Rouse’s “normative” culture history.
MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS (in chronological order, 2008-2011)
The University of Alabama Press holds a near monopoly of academic publications in English language on Caribbean
Archaeology, through its series Caribbean Archaeology & Ethnohistory ( http://www.uapress.ua.edu/NewSearch4.cfm ). The
series includes also re-publication of classic works that were no longer in print. Among the newest publications (2008-11):
Corinne Hofman, Menno Hoogland, Annelou L. van Gijn, eds. (2008) Crossing the Borders: New Methods
and Techniques in the Study of Archaeological Materials from the Caribbean. Tuscaloosa: University of
Alabama Press. IoA-DGE HOF (1 copy)
Page-D
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
Reid, Basil A. (2008) Archaeology and Geoinformatics: Case Studies from the Caribbean. IoA -DGE REI
Oliver, José R. (2009) Caciques & Cemí Idols. The web spun by Taíno Rulers between Hispaniola and
Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. IoA DGE OLI & Issue Desk DGE OLI 1.
Rodríguez Ramos, Reniel (2010) Rethinking Puerto Rican Precolonial History.
Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press. IoA DGE ROD (1 copy)
Kepecs, Susan, L. Antonio Curet, and Gabino La Rosa Corzo, editors (2010) Beyond the blockade : new
currents in Cuban archaeology. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press. IoA DGE KEP (1 copy)
Fitzpatrick, Scott M. and Ann H. Ross, eds. (2010) Island Shores, Distant Pasts : Archaeological and
Biological Approaches to the Pre-Columbian Settlement of the Caribbean. Gainesville: University Press
of Florida. IoA DGE FIT (1 Copy).
Curet, L. Antonio and Lisa M. Stringer, eds. (2010) Tibes : People, Power, and Ritual at the Center of the
Cosmos. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press. IoA- DGE CUR (1 copy)
Curet, L. Antonio and Mark W. Hauser (2011) Islands at the Crossroads : Migration, Seafaring, and
Interaction in the Caribbean. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press. IoA- [ON ORDER].
The editors’ galley proof in PDF is available for consultation. Ask lecturer.
Hofman Corinne L. and Anne van Duijvenbode, eds. (2011) Communities in contact : essays in archaeology,
ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean.
Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- CATALOGUE-PROCESSING]
E-book (PDF format) available for consultation. Ask Lecturer.
TEXTBOOKS –CARIBBEAN ETHNOHISTORY
Pané, Fray Ramón ([1497-8] 1999) An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians (Study and Notes by Jose J.
Arrom; translated by C. Griswold). Duke University Press. IoA DGE-PAN (1 week loan) or Science
Library ANTHROPLOGY WX 495 PAN
This book is the best existing translation into English (with annotations by Prof. Arrom) of the first document ever written on
the topic of religious beliefs and practices of an aboriginal group in the Americas. It is an outstanding invaluable document
where the natives’ voices are at the forefront, rather than the interests and prejudices of the Spaniards.
Wilson, Samuel M. (1990) Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus. The University of
Alabama Press. IoA- WIL Issue Desk (DGE WIL)
This book, also by Wilson, remains the only good English account of the Spanish conquest of Hispaniola and of the early
contacts and conflicts between natives (Taínos and others) and Europeans.
Hulme, Peter (1986) Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Native Caribbean 1492-1797. Routledge.
Reprinted in 1992. IoA DGE HUL (four copies available)
This is a critical review of the notions of native Arawaks/Tainos and Carib notions portrayed in the ethistoric and archaeological
literature up to the early 1990s. Hulme is well known for his postmodern literary criticism, and for his research on Caribbean
history.
OTHER GENERAL REFERENCES
Lovén, Sven (1935) Origins of Tainan Culture, West Indies. Göteborg : Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag.
Issue Desk IoA-LOV (1 copy) or
Lovén, Sven ([1935] 2010) Origins of Tainan Culture, West Indies. Tuscaloosa: The University of
Alabama Press. Facsimile of the 1935 English edition, prefaced by L. Antonio Curet.
IoA [now in the Cataloguing phase]
This was a very influential synthesis of Caribbean archaeology and ethnohistory, presenting the first coherent and encompassing
understanding of the Caribbean’s ancient past. It is a classic in its early culture-historic approach. It is useful as a contrast to
later work by Irving Rouse (and many others). In many ways, the influence of Loven’s 1935 work (alongside Rouses many
syntheses) continued to influence and inform the debates through most of the 20th century and currently serves as an prime
example of the so-called Prosperian/Ariel perspectives in colonial and postcolonial, post-modern, debates and critiques (i.e., the
Calibanesque perspective, after the main characters of Shakespeare’s play, ‘The Tempest’, 1610-11).
Steward, Julian H. editor (1948-1951) Handbook of South American Indians. Bulletin No. 143, Vol. IV.
Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution. Washington D.C. IoA-DG SERIES HAN
This reference is still the essential "indexed" source where you can obtain the most basic details for the different natives of
South America, including ethnohistory, archaeology, and linguistics. Volume IV deals with the Circum-Caribbean area and
chapters are written by various leading scholars of the times in archaeology, anthropology, ethnohistory and linguistics.
Allaire, Louis (1999) The Archaeology of the Caribbean region. In: The Cambridge History of the Native
Peoples of the Americas, Vol. III-Part I: South America, Edited by F. Salomon and S. B. Schwartz,
pages 668-733. IoA DG SAL
Page-E
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
This is a long chapter summarizing Caribbean archaeology by a former PhD student of Irving Rouse. His views are very much
in the culture historic tradition of Rouse. It is useful to compare this summary with that of Smuel Wilson (2007) above cited.
His traditional views on the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Carib clash with recent postmodernist critiques.
Delpuech, André and Corinne Hofman editors (2004) Late Ceramic Age Societies in the Eastern Caribbean.
Paris Monographs in American Archaeology Series (Eric Taladoire editor). British Archaeological
Reports International Series 1273. Oxford: Archaeopress. IoA DGE Qto DEL
This volume presents an updated review of the archaeology of the northeastern Caribbean region (from Puerto Rico to
Gadeloupe) as well as some summaries encompassing the Lesser Antilles. It is an edited volume with chapers written by
different authors, experts on their regions. It cvers a variety of topics.
Whitehead, Neil, editor (1999) Wolves from the Sea, edited by N. Whitehead, pp.61-89. KITLV Press.
Leiden. IoA- Desk Issue WHI 6 (3 hr); DGE WHI (1 week loan)
This edited volume focuses on the so-called Carib peoples of the Lesser Antilles, including cultural features, linguistics, and
archaeology. It remains the best general source written in English on the inhabitants of the Windward Islands.
CARIBBEAN CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS (IACA in English)
Proceedings of the International Congress for the Study of Pre-Colombian Cultures of the Lesser Antilles. After
1991 it changed its title to: Proceedings of the International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology (IACA for
International Assoc. of Caribbean Archaeology)). The ICCA proceedings are the main source of articles on Caribbean
archaeology. It is published every two years. Articles are written in English, Spanish and French. Not all the volumes are
available at the IoA Library. (filed as DGE INT ). But the Lecturer has a CD with all the Proceedings in PDF format that
students can download. To do so, make an appointment with me and bring a memory-stick with you.
JOURNALS & WEB SITES
Latin American Antiquity. Published quarterly by the Society for American Archaeology.
published between 1990-2006 are available for downloading at: http://library.ucl.ac.uk/F
Articles
Although articles on Caribbean Archaeology in the LAA are not abundant, there are nevertheless a number of important ones
available for downloading. Note that the American Antiquity (the parent journal) used to carry articles on Caribbean
archaeology prior to 1990. Recent (2007-2009) issues are in the IoA lirbrary, current Periodicals/Journal section.
Journal of Caribbean Archaeology. Published by the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University
of Florida-Gainesville. Articles dating between 2000-2008 can be downloaded as PDF from:
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/JCA/current.htm
This is an exclusively electronic journal. Some articles may be useful for your essay research, depending on what topic you
wish to develop.
Cuba Arqueológica Internet Site at http://www.cubaarqueologica.org/index.php?q=node/6
To date, this is the best Internet site to keep abreast of developments in Caribbean archaeology and anthropology. It has a very
useful library (link above: to Biblioteca) from where you can download PDF documents (articles, books, etc.). It also has its
own (free) downloadable electronic journal. In its library it has books (Spanish, French, and English) that are no longer in
press, some which our Institute’s library lacks. However the language of the web site is Spanish.
WEB SITES: Geographic-Climatic & Science Data: Caribbean
Articles on paleo-climate (hurricanes, sea-level changes, volcanism), geology, biology, environment,
paleo-vegetation, paleo-fauna, etc. are usually accessible from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/
http://www.climate-zone.com/continent/north-america/ for island-specific geographic data
http://daphne.palomar.edu/pdeen/animations/23_weatherpat.swf for Climate: Inter-tropical
Convergence Zone or ITCZ video of the yearly oscillation patterns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX7Q-0QuID4 provides a video of the 2011 hurricane/tropical
storm season (4 minutes) over the Western Pacific, Atlantic & Caribbean gathered by NOAA (US).
The same in better resolution can be viewed (need Windows Media Player) at NOAA official site:
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/animations/high_quality/897_HurricaneSeason2011full720p.mp4
The NOAA has a lot other information on past hurricanes in
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastall.shtml and http://maps.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/# (where you can
get historic data on interactive map)
and NOAA article: Tropical Cyclone Climatology at:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/#cp100
EXHBITION CATALOGUES & TEXTS
Page-F
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
Bercht, Fátima, Estrellita Brodsky, John Alan Farmer & Dicey Taylor (editors 1997) Taíno: Pre-Columbian
Culture from the Caribbean. The Monacelli Press. New York. IoA Issue Desk BER 8
This is a beautifully illustrated catalogue of “Taíno” artefacts, but it also includes useful essay chapters by various authors on
the topic of Taíno natives and material culture.
Oliver, J. R., C. McEwan and A.Casas Gilberga, editors (2008) El Caribe Pre-Colombino: Fray Ramón
Pané y el Universo Taíno. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona-Instituto de Cultura, Museu BarbierMueller, Ministerio de Cultura-Madrid and Fundación CaixaGalicia. IoA DGE Qto OLI
This book with multiple editors accompanied an exhibition of Taíno artefacts held by the Museum of America in Madrid,
the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Precolmbian Art in Barcelona and the British Museum in London. The chapters highlight the
historical context of the encounter between Spaniards and vaious natives in Hispaniola, on the social and political-religious
meaning of the objects exhibited and on the story of how these Caribbean collections were acquired by European museums.
The text is in Spanish. If interested, I the English translation (Word) of some of the chapters.
*************************************************
Page-G
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
Institute of Archaeology-UCL
Summary of Weekly Lecture Topics-2012
ARCL. 3049 CARIBBEAN ARCHAEOLOGY
TUESDAYS, ROOM B-13, 9-11 AM
TERM II: 10-January to 23 March, 2012
Reading Week: 13-17 February
Dr. José R. Oliver
Office Room 104; Hrs: Mon 1:00-2:00 PM, Tues: 1:30-2:30 PM
j.oliver@ucl.ac.uk tel. (020) 7679 1524
PART I: INTRODUCTION TO THE CARIBBEAN
WEEK 1 (10 JAN)
1. The Caribbean Islands, Islanders and ‘Caribbean-scape’
PART II. THE CARIBBEAN PRE-ARAWAK (ARCHAIC)
WEEK 2 (17 JAN)
2. From Troglodytes to the Lithic & Archaic H-G
WEEK 3 (24 JAN)
3. The ‘Calibanesque’ Response: Deconstructing Hunter-Gatherers
PART III. THE ARAWAKAN DIASPORA FROM SOUTH AMERICA
WEEK 4 (31 JAN)
4. The Saladoid Diaspora into the Caribbean (400 BC-AD 500)
5. La Hueca and the ‘Huecoid’ series (200 BC - AD 500): A Case Study
PART IV. NATIVE TRANSFORMATIONS-THE WINDWARD ISLANDS
WEEK 5 (07 FEB)
6. The Troumassoid Groups in the Windward Antilles
READING WEEK 13-17 February First essay due on Tuesday 21 February
PART V. NATIVE TRANSFORMATIONS-THE GREATER ANTILLES
WEEK 6 (21 FEB)
7. The Ostionoid ‘Revolution’ in the Greater Antilles (AD 500 to 1100)
WEEK 7 (28 FEB)
8. The Development of Civic-Ceremonial Centres in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola
PART VI. THE ‘TAINOAN SPHERE’: ART, POWER & IDENTITY
WEEK 8 (06 MARCH)
9. Art, Iconography & Poilitical-Religious Power
10. Marcel Mauss in the Caribbean
PART VII:AROUND THE TIME OF COLUMBUS
WEEK 9 (21 MARCH)
10. The Caribs: Archaeology,. Ethnohistory & Cayo Pottery
WEEK 9 (28 MARCH)
11. Aborigines and Europeans around La Isabela, Northern Dominican Republic
12. From Aboriginal Genocide to Ethnogenesis: Syncretism and New Identities
Essay No. 2 due Friday 13 April, 2012
Affiliates Students ONLY: Due Friday 23 March (last day of classes, Term 2)
Institute of Archaeology-UCL
Page-H
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
ARCL. 3049
CARIBBEAN ARCHAEOLOGY
TUESDAYS, Room B-13, 9-11 AM
TERM II: 10-January to 23 March, 2012
2 hour lectures
Reading Week: 13-17 February
Dr. José R. Oliver
Office: IoA Room 104
Office Hrs: Mon 1:00-2:00 PM, Tues: 1:30-3:30 PM (also see schedule posted on door)
j.oliver@ucl.ac.uk tel. (020) 7679 1524
PART I: INTROUDCTION TO THE CARIBBEAN
Week 1 (10 JAN)
1. Introduction: The Caribbean Islands, Islanders and ‘Caribbean-scape’
First, the course handbook and syllabus will be distributed, paying attention to its general aims objectives,
coursework requirements, deadlines, modes of assessment and other elements of its organization as well how to keep in
contact with each other.
The rest of the lecture focuses on notions and colonial/post-colonial and current
critiques/discourses of ‘Island Archaeology’. It uses Shakespeare’s characters in the play ‘The Tempest’ (1610-11) to
introduce you to the competing scholarly voices in (re)creating our current understanding of the past history of the
aboriginal islanders and bring an awareness of the scarring impact of the colonial experience in how we characterize
Caribbean islands and their inhabitants, past and present. The final part intends to familiarize the student with the
geography of the Caribbean and some of the physical attributes of the islands and the sea.
Required Readings:
• Boomert, Arie and Alistair Bright (2007) Island Archaeology: In Search of a new Horizon. Island
Archaeology Journal 2(1):3-26. IoA-euclid (also PDF in Folder 3. Theory & Method)
• Fitzpatrick, Scott F. (2007) Archaeology’s Contribution to Island Studies Samuel Island Studies Journal
2(1): 77-100 IoA-euclid (in PDF in Folder 3. Theory & Method)
• Rivera-Collazo, Isabel (2011) The Ghost of Caliban: Island Archaeology, Insular Archaeologists and the
Caribbean. In: Islands at the Crossroads: Migration, Seafaring and Interaction in the Caribbean, edited by
L. A. Curet & M. W. Hauser, pp. 221-40. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. IoA-on order
(also PDF in Folder 0. Textbooks & PhD theses: Curet & Hauser 2011).
• Torres, Joshua and Reniel Rodríguez Ramos (2008) The Caribbean: A Continent Divided by Water. In:
Archaeology and Geoinformatics: Case Studies from the Caribbean, edited by B. A. Reid, pp. 13-29.
IoA -DGE REI (also PDF in Folder 0. Textbooks & PhD theses: Reid ed. 2008).
• Wilson, Samuel (2007) The Archaeology of the Caribbean. Cambridge World Archaeology Series,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Read pp 08-19. IoA- DGE WIL and Issue Desk- WIL 19
(also PDF in Folder 0. Textbooks & PhD theses).
NOTE: Although a formal (in-class) lecture on current and paleo-climatic/-environmental
research is not offered, it is recommended that you familiarize with some of this information by
reading:
Cooper, Jago (in press) The Climatic Context for Pre-Columbian Archaeology in the Caribbean.
Draft. To be published in: The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology. Oxford University
Press. 16 pp, (in PDF Folder 1: Paleoclimates & Environment).
Page-I
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
Cooper, Jago and Richard Boothroyd (2011) . In: Communities in contact : essays in archaeology,
ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean, edited by C. L. Hofman and A.
van Duijvenbode, pp. 393-405. Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- DGE HOF
[currently being catalogued] (also in PDF Folder 0 Textbooks & PhD theses: Hofman & van
Duijvenbode)
The internet links below amplify the above readings: (a) provides basic island geographic data; (b) provides
an interactive/motion view of the oscillation of the Inter-Tropical Converget Zone through the 12 months. The
ITCZ is crucial to the tropical climate seasonal regimes and storms like hurricanes; (c) is a 4.5 minute video of
the entire 2011 hurricane season (for WMP) compiled by NOAA; (d) is the same but easier to view (but lower
quality) through YouTube. These help you better understand Coopers discussions. Best if you see them in
this order:
(a) http://www.climate-zone.com/continent/north-america/
(b) http://daphne.palomar.edu/pdeen/animations/23_weatherpat.swf
(c) http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/#cp100
(d) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX7Q-0QuID4
Other key literature can be obtained from “PDF Folder 1: Paleoclimates & Environment and Folder
2. Paleobotany and Paleofauna”. These are excellent for researching essay questions where these
data are relevant.
For Further Reading:
‡ Newsom, Lee A. and Elizabeth S. Wing (2004) On Land and Sea: Native Biological Resources in the West
Indies. See Chapter 2: Environmental Setting, pp.10-25. The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
IoA- DGE NEW (2 copies, 1 week loan). (also PDF in Folder 2. Paleobotany & Paleofauna)
PART II. THE CARIBBEAN PRE-ARAWAK (ARCHAIC)
Week 2 (17 JAN)
2. The Caribbean Pre-Arawak (Part 1)- From Troglodytes to the Lithic & Archaic H-G
Who were the first inhabitants of the Caribbean? How were they characterized? The Spanish chronicles (14921500s) described some of the inhabitants in Cuba and Hispaniola as cave dwellers or troglodytes, an European and
continental-centric image (a Prosperian discourse) that has endured well into the mid-20th century characterization of
hunter-gatherers: primitive bands of hunter-gatherers, highly mobile, who lacked houses (cave-dwellers), had no
agriculture and who were all ultimately vanquished or assimilated by the more advanced, sedentary, agricultural
Arawak-speaking groups migrating from NE South America (the Saladoid/Huecoid series or traditions). This lecture
traces the legacy of such conventional views and early scholarly understanding of the Caribbean’s ‘First Inhabitants’
and their descendants, the Guanahatabey and Ciboney. It discusses the archaeologist’s interpretations from the pre1950s era back the early1990s, from the conventional culture-historic hunter-gatherer (H-G) models espoused by
Rouse, Cruxent, Cosculluela, and Alegría to the critiques and reactions emerging from the Marxists frameworks (Latin
American Social Archaeology movement) of native archaeologists in Cuba and Dominican Republic in the 1970s. The
lecture will in introduce the key archaeological traditions or series (in Rouse’s terminology) of cultural complexes, their
spatial distribution, time depth and provide examples key sites and their material culture.
Required Readings:
• Keegan, William (1994) West Indian Archaeology 1: Overview of Foragers. Journal of Archaeological
Research 2(3): 255-284. IoA-Peridocials (not available in euclid)
• Rouse, Irving (1992) The Taínos: The Rise and Fall of the People Who Greeted Columbus. Yale
University Press. Read Ch. 3: pp.49-70. IoA- DGE ROU 1
• Rivera-Collazo, Isabel (2011) Between the Land and Sea in Puerto Rico: Climates, Coastal Landscapes and
Human Occupations in the Mid-Holocene Caribbean. Read pp. 21-31. Unpublished PhD Dissertation,
Institute of Archaeology-UCL. Not available at IoA (in PDF in Folder 0: Textbooks & PhD theses).
• Wilson, Samuel, Harry B. Iceland & Thomas R. Hester (1998) Preceramic Connections between Yucatán
and the Caribbean. Latin American Antiquity 9(4):342-352. IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 5: PreArawak).
For Further Reading:
Page-J
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
‡ Alegría, Ricardo, H. B. Nicholson and Gordon R. Willey (1955) The Archaic Tradition in Puerto Rico.
American Antiquity 21(2):113-121. IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 5: Pre-Arawak Archaeology)
‡ Cosculluela, Juan A. (1946) Prehistoric Cultures of Cuba. American Antiquity 12(1): 10-18. . IoA-euclid
(also PDF Folder 5: Pre-Arawak Archaeology)
‡ Kozlowski, Janusz (1974) Preceramic Cultures of the Caribbean. Warsaw-Krakov, Poland: Pañstwowe
Wydawnictowo Naukowe. IoA-DGE KOZ
‡ Lovén, Sven (1935) Origins of Tainan Culture, West Indies. Göteborg : Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag.
Issue Desk IoA-LOV (1 copy) (also PDF Folder 7: Classics of Caribbean Archaeology).
‡ Reid, Basil A. (2009). Myths and Realities of Caribbean History. Read Chapter 6: The Ciboneys Lived in
Western Cuba at the Time of Spanish Contact, pp. 83-87. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.
Ioa- DGE REI (1 copy)
‡ Veloz Maggiolo & Elpidio Ortega (1976). The Preceramic of the Dominican Republic. In Proceedings of
the First Puerto Rican Symposium on Archaeology. Edited by L. Robinson & G. Vescelius, pp. 147-168.
Fundación Arqueológica, Antropológica e Histórica de Puerto Rico, San Juan. IoA- DGE ROB
Week 3 (JAN 24)
3. The Caribbean Pre-Arawak (Part 2)- The ‘Calibanesque’ Response: Deconstructing HunterGatherers
This lectures shifts attention to the recent approaches and frameworks to study the early inhabitants of the
Caribbean, starting with the ‘Calibanesque’ critiques and postulates of island archaeologists such as Luis ChanlatteBaik, A. G. Pantel, Reniel Rodríguez Ramos and J. Pagán-Jimérnez. It specifies the nature of the problems with current
theories and methods in assessing the nature of hunter-gatherers in the Caribbean. It focuses on Angostura site in
Puerto Rico and other Pre-Arawak sites in the island as case studies to examine in more depth and detail. The
conventional H-G models espoused throughout the 20th century do not fit the current data: these are complex huntergatherers, many of whom invented pottery independently, had a pronounced sedentary lifeway, managed/cultivated
both wild and domesticated plants (crops), and maintained an extensive Circum-Caribbean trade/exchange network.
More importantly, they were neither exterminated nor assimilated the by a purportedly more ‘civilized’ Saladoid and
Huecoid populations that migrated from South America into the Caribbean by 400 BC. To avoid the prejudices implied
by the terms Archaic, Paleoindian/Mesoindian, or Hunter-gatherer, the term ‘Pre-Arawak’ is adopted to identify these
diverse original inhabitants. More than 800 years of co-existence between the Pre-Arawak and the Saladoid and
Huecoid led to a new social/cultural reformulation and synthesis (syncretism), the Ostionoid tradition (series) in the
Greater Antilles, in part ancestral to the historic Taino (Arawak speakers).
Required Readings:
• Pagán-Jiménez, Jaime (2011) Early Phytocultural Processes in the Pre-Colonial Antilles: A Pan-Caribbean
Survey for an Ongoing Starch Grain Research. In: Communities in contact : essays in archaeology,
ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean, edited by C. L. Hofman and A. van
Duijvenbode, pp. 87-116. Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- DGE HOF
[currently being catalogued] (also in PDF Folder 0 Textbooks & PhD theses: Hofman & van
Duijvenbode)
• Rivera-Collazo, Isabel (2011) Paleoecology and Human Occupation During the Mid-Holocene: The Case
of Angostura. In: Communities in contact : essays in archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography of the
Amerindian Circum-Caribbean, edited by C. L. Hofman and A. van Duijvenbode, pp. 407-420.
Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- DGE HOF [currently being catalogued]
(also in PDF Folder 0: Textbooks & PhD theses: Hofman & van Duijvenbode)
• Rodríguez Ramos, Reniel (2008) From the Guanahatabey to the “Archaic” of Puerto Rico: The NonEvident Evidence. In: Ethnohistory 55(3): 393-415. IoA-euclid (also PDF in Folder 5: Pre-Arawak;
and http:\\ethnohistory.dukejournals.org)
• Rodríguez Ramos, Reniel, Elvis Babilonia, Antonio Curet and Jorge Ulloa (2008) The Pre-Arawak Pottery
Horizon in the Antilles: A New Approximation. In: Latin American Antiquity 19(1): 47-63 IoA-euclid
(also PDF in Folder 5: Pre-Arawak).
For Further Reading:
‡ Allaire, Louis (1999) The Archaeology of the Caribbean region. In: The Cambridge History of the Native
Peoples of the Americas, Vol. III-Part I: South America. Edited by F. Salomon and S. B. Schwartz, pages
685-697. IoA-DG 100 SAL
Page-K
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
‡ Boomert, Arie (2000) Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco Interaction Sphere. Chapter 4: "Archaic
cultural patterns & subsistence strategies". IoA- DGE Qto BOO
‡ Callaghan, Richard T. (1993) Passage to the Greater Antilles: An analysis of the watercraft and the marine
environment. Proceedings of the 14th International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology, pp. 64-72.
IACA, Barbados. (Ask Lecturer for a copy)
‡ Davis, David (2000) Jolly Beach and the Pre-Ceramic Occupation of Antigua, West Indies. Yale
University Publications in Anthropology,No. 84. New Haven. IoA-DGE DAV
‡ Hofman, Corinne and Menno Hoogland (2004) Plum Piece: Evidence for Archaic Seasonal occupation on
Saba, Northern Lesser Antilles Around 3300 BP In Journal of Caribbean Archaeology, No. 4: 12-27.
University of Florida-Gainesville. (in PDF Folder 5: Pre-Arawak Archaeology or download from
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/JCA/current.htm OR
‡ Hofman, Corinne, Alistair Bright and Menno Hoogland (2006) Archipelagic Resource Mobility in the
Northern Lesser Antilles: The View from a 3,000 Year-old Tropical Forest Camp Site on Saba. Journal
of Island and Coastal Archaeology 1(2): 145-164. IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 5: Pre-Arawak
Archaeology)
PART III. THE ARAWAKAN DIASPORA FROM SOUTH AMERICA
Week 4 (31 JAN)
4. The Saladoid Diaspora into the Caribbean (400 BC-AD 500)
Literally hundreds of articles, papers and several monographs have been written on the Saladoid series, a ceramic
‘tradition’ that signalled the arrival of a major population movement into the Caribbean (400 BC), one that closely
matches the distribution of Northern/Caribbean Maipuran languages that in form the large Arawakan stock of
languages. A great deal has been focused on constructing the cultural chronology and stylistic sequences that mark the
path of the Saladoid series through the Antilles. The focus until recently was in modelling and/or accounting for the
Saladoid distribution in terms of large scale "processes" of migration, population replacement, acculturation, and/or
diffusion. Rouse is the main architect behind the refinement of this chronology and in forwarding models of population
movements and how it is reflected in material culture. Rouse presented a phylogenetic developmental model (using the
biological concept of ‘founders’ effect) where continuous divergence led to daughter cultures (cultural styles) from a
shred common ancestral style. More recently the focus is on accounting for the social and cultural behaviours of
societies and communities, on the complexities of regional and macro-regional scales of interaction and exchanges
within and between communities, islands and groups of islands and much further afield, in mainland Central America,
especially the Isthmus of Colombia-Panama. In this lecture we will examine this growing corpus of evidence on the
impact of Saladoid migrations into the Caribbean.
Readings:
• Rouse, Irving (1992) The Taínos: Rise and decline of the people who greeted Columbus. Yale University
Press. Read pp.71-90 IoA DGE ROU 1
• Wilson, Samuel (2007) The Archaeology of the Caribbean. Cambridge World Archaeology Series,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Read Chapter 3, pp. 59-94. IoA- DGE Wil and Issue Desk
WIL 19 (also PDF in Folder 0. Textbooks & PhD theses).
• Curet, L. A. (2007) Caribbean Paleodemography. Population, Culture History and Sociopolitical Processes
in Ancient Puerto Rico. Read pp. 72-76. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. IoA- DGE CUR
• Rodriguez Ramos, Reniel, Joshua Torres and José R. Oliver (2010): Rethinking Time in Caribbean
Archaeology. In: Island shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Approaches to the preColumbian Settlement of the Caribbean, edited by Scott M. Fitzpatrick and Ann H. Ross, Ch. 5, pp. 88144 Gainesville: University Press of Florida. IoA- DGE FIT (also PDF Folder 10. Thematic Papers).
• Haviser, Jay (1995) Settlement Strategies in the Early Ceramic Age. In The Indigenous People of the
Caribbean, pp. 59-69. Edited by Samuel M. Wilson. University Press of Florida. IoA-DGE WIL
For Further Reading:
‡ Knippenberg, Sebastiaan (2006) Stone Production and Exchange Among the Northern Lesser Antilles.
PhD Dissertation, Department of Archaeology, University of Leiden. Read Chapter 7: Interisland
Relationships, pp. 265-275. (in PDF Folder 7. Epi-Saladoid-Troumassoid+ Lesser Antilles).
Page-L
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
‡ Rouse, Irving and Ricardo E. Alegria (1990) Excavations at Maria de la Cruz Cave and Hacienda Grande
Village Site, Loiza, Puerto Rico. Yale University Publications in Anthropology No. 80. New Haven:
Dept of Anthropology, Yale University.
‡ Siegel, Peter E. (editor, 1989) Early Ceramic Population Lifeways and Adaptive Strategies in the
Caribbean, pp. 249-266. British Archaeological Reports-International Series, No. 506. Oxford. IoA Qto
DGE SIE
‡ Rodríguez, Miguel (1989) The Zoned-Incised Crosshatch (ZIC) Ware of Early Precolumbian Ceramic Age
Sites in Puerto Rico and Vieques Island. In Early Ceramic Population Lifeways and Adaptive Strategies
in the Caribbean, pp. 249-266. Edited by Peter E. Siegel. British Archaeological Reports-International
Series, No. 506. Oxford. IoA DGE Qto SIE
Also if interested in historical linguistics (for further reading):
‡ Rouse, Irving and Douglas Taylor (1955) Linguistic & Archaeological Time Depth in the West Indies.
International Journal of American Linguistics 21(2): 105-115. IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 4:
Ethnohistory & Linguistics).
‡ Walker, Robert S. and Lincoln A. Ribeiro (2011) Bayesian Phylogeography of the Arawakan Expansion
in Lowland South America. Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences (on line:
www.rspb.royalsocietypublishing ) (also PDF Folder 4: Ethnohistory & Linguistics).
This paper includes the relationship of Taino, Island Carib and Garifuna languages of the Caribbean to the other
continental Arawakan languages.
5. La Hueca and the ‘Huecoid’ series (200 BC - AD 500): A Case Study
Up until 1979, the scenario of a Saladoid expansion and domination of the Caribbean, and as the sole contributor
the rise of the later Ostionoid (Greater Antilles) and Troumassoid (Lesser Antilles) series/traditions were widely
accepted. But in 1979 a new complex discovered at the site of La Hueca (LH) in the small island of Vieques (off
eastern Puerto Rico) yielded a unique archaeological assemblage that, at first, was dated even earlier than the earliest
Saladoid components. In the intervening decades several other “Huecoid” sites have been found and excavated in sites
such as Punta Candelero (Puerto Rico) and Hope Estate (St. Martin). Who were the ‘people’ responsible for the La
Hueca complexes? Where did they originate? How they related to the Saladoid complexes/styles, and to the surviving
(late) Pre-Arawakan groups? Is the LH a variant of the same Saladoid ‘cultural pattern’ or must it be treated as a
separate ‘archaeoethnic’ identity? The Huecoid sites are famous for their large variety of gemstone microlapidary
artefacts for body decoration. Many of the stones and minerals are exotic to the Caribbean Islands and had to be
imported. What are the social implications of this vast gemstone trade network?
Readings:
• Oliver, José R. (1999) The La Hueca Problem in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean: Old Problems, New
Perspectives, Possible Solutions. In: Archaeological Investigations on Saint Martin (Lesser Antilles).
The Sites of Norman Estate, Anse des Pères and Hope Estate with a contribution to the ‘La Hueca
problem’, pp. 253-282. Edited by Corinne L. Hofman and Menno L.P. Hoogland. Archaeological
Studies Leiden University. Leiden, Holland. IoA DGE HOF (also PDF Folder 6: Saladoid &
Huecoid Archaeology).
• Rivera-Collazo Isabel (2010) Of shell and sand, coastal habitat availability and foraging strategies at Punta
Candelero. MUNIBE No. 31: 272-284. (in PDF Folder 6: Saladoid & Huecoid Archaeology)
• Rodríguez Ramos, Reniel (2010) Rethinking Puerto Rican Precolonial History. Tuscaloosa: University of
Alabama Press. Read Chapter 5, pp. 88-144 IoA DGE ROD (1 copy).
For Further Reading:
‡ Hofman, Corinne L. and Menno L.P. Hoogland, ed. (1999) Archaeological Investigations on Saint Martin
(Lesser Antilles). The Sites of Norman Estate, Anse des Pères and Hope Estate with a contribution to
the ‘La Hueca problem’, pp. 253-282. Archaeological Studies Leiden University. Leiden, Holland. IoA
DGE HOF
PART IV. NATIVE TRANSFORMATIONS-THE WINDWARD ISLANDS
Week 5 (07 FEB)
6. The Troumassoid Groups in the Windward Antilles
Page-M
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
Following several centuries of Saladoid development, major changes began to take place throughout the entire
Caribbean (starting c. AD 500/700-). Compared to Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, high level of socio-political integration
(chiefdoms) was not attained in the Lesser Antilles. In terms of ceramic styles, the shift from Saladoid to the early
Troumassoid appears to be gradual and of a continuous nature, contrasting with what occurred in the Greater Antilles.
Still, the Troumassoid (later followed by the Suazan and Mamoran Troumassid subseries/subtradition) groups were
dynamic societies engaged in broad regional trade and exchange networks. In this lecture we shall explore the different
archaeological methods approaches to garnish evidence of the nature of inter-island connectivity (trade/exchange) that
point to their mobility: we will look at strontium to address the question of birthplace of individuals (Ansé-á-la Gourde
site, Guadeloupe) and the expanding circulation of valued lithic resources at a regional scale.
Readings:
• Boomert Arie (in press, 2009) . The Caribbean Islands. The Cambridge Prehistory: South America. Final
Draft version. Unpublished Draft. Leiden. (In PDF Folder 10: Thematic Papers).
• Bright, Alistair (2011) Blood is Thicker than Water: Amerindian Intra- and Inter-relationships and social
organization in the Pre-Colonial Islands. PhD Dissertation. Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University.
Read: Chronology: pp. 71-75; Site patterns pp. 105-120; Multiscalar approach pp. 223-244. (in PDF
Folder 7: Epi-saladoid-Troumassoid + Lesser Antilles)
• Lafoon, Jason E. and Barton R. de Vos (2011). Diverse Origins, Similar Diets. In: Communities in
contact : essays in archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean,
edited by C. L. Hofman and A. van Duijvenbode, pp. 186-203. Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow
[distributor]. IoA- DGE HOF [currently being catalogued] (also in PDF Folder 0 Textbooks & PhD
theses: Hofman & van Duijvenbode) OR
• Booden, Mathijs, R. Panhuysen, M. Hoogland, H. N. de Jong, G. R. Davis and C. L. Hofman
(2008) Tracing Human Mobility with 87SR/86SR at Ansé-á-La Gourde, Guadeloupe. In: Crossing
the Borders: New Methods and Techniques in the Study of Archaeological Materials from the
Caribbean, edited by Corinne Hofman, Menno Hoogland, Annelou L. van Gijn, pp. 214-225
Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. IoA-DGE HOF (1 copy) (also PDF Folder 0:
Textbooks & PhD theses).
• Knippenberg, Sebastiaan (2011) Much to Choose From: The Use and Distribution of Siliceous Stone in the
Lesser Antilles. In: Communities in contact : essays in archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography of
the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean, edited by C. L. Hofman and A. van Duijvenbode, pp. 173-187.
Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- DGE HOF [currently being catalogued] (also
in PDF Folder 0 Textbooks & PhD theses: Hofman & van Duijvenbode)
• Wilson, Samuel M. (2004) Linking Prehistory and History in the Caribbean. In: Late Ceramic Age
Societies in the Eastern Caribbean. Edited by A. Delpuech and C. L. Hofman, pp. 269-272. British
Archaeological Reports International Series 1273-Paris Monographs in American Archaeology 14.
Archaeopress, Oxford, England. IoA Issue Desk DEL 5 (DGE Qto DEL)
For Further Reading:
‡ Boomert Arie (1995) Island Carib Archaeology. In Wolves from the Sea, edited by N. Whitehead, pp.2335. KITLV Press. Leiden. IoA Issue Desk WHI 6, or DGE WHI
‡ Allaire, Louis (1999) The Archaeology of the Caribbean region. In: The Cambridge History of the Native
Peoples of the Americas, Vol. III-Part I: South America. Edited by F. Salomon and S. B. Schwartz
IoA-DG 100 SAL
‡ Petersen, James (1995): Taíno, Island Carib and Prehistoric Economies in the West Indies: Tropical Forest
Adaptations to Island Environments. The Indigenous People of the Caribbean. Edited by S. M. Wilson,
pp.118-130. University Press of Florida. IoA-WIL Issue Desk
READING WEEK 13-17 FEBRUARY
ESSAY NO. 1 DUE ON TUESDAY, 21 FEBRUARY (NEXT WEEK)
PART V. NATIVE TRANSFORMATIONS-THE GREATER ANTILLES
Week 6 (21 FEB)
Page-N
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
7. The Ostionoid ‘Revolution’ in the Greater Antilles (AD 500 to 1100)
Following several centuries of Saladoid development, major changes began to take place throughout the entire
Caribbean (starting c. AD 500/700). This is marked by the development of the Ostionoid series in the Greater Antilles
and the Troumassoid series in the Lesser Antilles. In the Greater Antilles this change was accompanied by greater
socio-political complexity that eventually led to the development of cacicazgos (chiefdoms), possibly, including the
earliest evidence of stone demarcated plazas adorned with petroglyphs and ball courts (batey). It was during this period
that the groups bearing Ostionoid ceramics began to expand from Puerto Rico into Hispaniola, Cuba, the Bahamas
Archipelago, Cuba and Jamaica. Rouse (1992) and Wilson (2007) suggest that around AD 1000, the earlier Ostionoid
groups diverged into three subseries (or subtraditions): the Ostionan, Meillacan and Chican subseries, the latter of
which gave rise to the historic Taíno (Arawak-speakers).
Required:
• Curet, L. Antonio (2003) Issues on the Diversity and Emergence of Middle Range Societies of the Ancient
Caribbean: A Critique. Journal of Archaeological Research. Vol. 11(1): 1-41. IoA-euclid (also PDF
Folder 3. Theory & Method).
• Curet, L. Antonio and José R. Oliver (1998) Mortuary Practices, Social Development and Ideology in PreColumbian Puerto Rico. Latin American Antiquity 9(3): 217-239. IoA- euclid (also in PDF Folder 10.
Thematic Papers).
• Curet, L. Antonio, Miguel Rodríguez and Joshua Torres (2004) Political and Social History of Eastern
Puerto Rico: Ceramic Age. In: Late Ceramic Age Societies in the Eastern Caribbean. Edited by A.
Delpuech and C. L. Hofman, pp. 59-85. British Archaeological Reports International Series 1273-Paris
Monographs in American Archaeology 14. Archaeopress: Oxford, England. Issue Desk DEL 5 (DGE
Qto DEL)
• Oliver, José R. (2009) Caciques & Cemí Idols. The web spun by Taíno Rulers between Hispaniola and
Puerto Rico. Read Chapter 2, pp. 6-30. The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
IoA DGE OLI (also PDF Folder 0. Textbooks & PhD theses)
• Rodriguez Ramos, Reniel, Joshua Torres and José R. Oliver (2010) Rethinking Time in Caribbean
Archaeology. In: Island shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Approaches to the preColumbian Settlement of the Caribbean, edited by Scott M. Fitzpatrick and Ann H. Ross, pp. 21-53
Gainesville: University Press of Florida. IoA- DGE FIT (also PDF Folder 10. Thematic Papers).
For Further Reading:
‡ Curet, L. A. (2005) Caribbean Paleodemography. Population, Culture History and Sociopolitical
Processes in Ancient Puerto Rico. Read pp. 76-91. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. IoADGE CUR
‡ Curet, L. Antonio and Lisa M. Stringer, eds. (2010) Tibes : People, Power, and Ritual at the Center of the
Cosmos. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. IoA- DGE CUR (1 copy)
‡ Rouse, Irving (1992) The Taínos: Rise and decline of the people who greeted Columbus. Yale University
Press. Read pp.92- 101 (sections on western, central, eastern Ostionoids). IoA DGE ROU 1
‡ Wilson, Samuel (2007) The Archaeology of the Caribbean. Cambridge World Archaeology Series,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Read pp, 95-110. Issue Desk WIL 19; IoA- DGE Wil (also
PDF Folder 0. Textbooks & PhD theses).
Week 7 (28 FEB)
8. The Development of Civic-Ceremonial Centers in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola
This lecture focuses on the nature and significance of the rise of civic-ceremonial centres in Hispaniola and,
especially, Puerto Rico. There are many questions about what such elaborate sites might mean, whose answers are still
debated. What are the social, political and religious (ideological) implications of the shift from a single unmarked
central plaza (communal, public gathering space) of early Ostionan period to first single and then multiple stonedemarcated precincts around a plaza? What were the functions of such sites? What kinds of activities took place at
these multi-court sites? Why there are such major differences of scale and plan lay-out of the civic-ceremonial
constructions between Hispaniola (huge) and Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands (much smaller)? Were they only occupied by
ritual specialist care-takers i.e., ‘vacant’) or permanently inhabited? Are these sites ‘centers’ in the sense of a regional
settlement pattern? How did the surrounding communities/settlements articulate with civic-ceremonial ‘centres’? What
may be the cause or causes for their abandonment or collapse, and what happens to the surrounding communities?
Page-O
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
Particular emphasis is given to Tibes (Ponce, P.R.) and Caguana (Utuado, P.R.). Tibes (1000-1250) still is the earliest
multi-court site to emerge in the Caribbean, and had been more or less continuously occupied since Saladoid times.
Caguana, on the other hand, arose after Tibes, and climaxed around AD 1300-1400 with an impressive iconographic
display around its main batey (plaza). With the partial exception of two others (Jácanas, Tierras Nuevas) vast majority
of the ‘batey’ sites on Puerto Rico do reproduce the same iconographic personages (petroglyphs on monoliths) nor in
the same order, why?
Required Readings
• Curet, L. Antonio, Lee A. Newsom and Susan de France (2006) Prehispanic Social and Cultural Changes at
Tibes, Puerto Rico. Journal of Field Archaeology 31: 23-39. IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 10:
Thematic papers).
• Oliver, José R. (2005) The Proto-Taíno Monumental Cemís of Caguana: A Political-Religious Manifesto.
In: Ancient Borinquen: Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Native Puerto Rico, edited by Peter E. Siegel,
pp. 230-284. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. IoA-DGE SIE (also PDF Folder 9: Chicoid and
Taino Archaeology)
• Siegel, Peter E. (1996) Ideology and Culture Change in Prehistoric Puerto Rico: A View from the
Community. Journal of Field Archaeology 23(3): 313-333. IoA- euclid (also in PDF Folder 10.
Thematic Papers).
• Siegel, Peter E. (1999) Contested Places and Places of Contest: The Evolution of Social Power and
Ceremonial Space in Puerto Rico. Latin American Antiquity 10(3) 209-238. IoA-euclid (also PDF
Folder 3. Theory & Method).
For Further Reading:
‡ Oliver, José R. and Juan Rivera Fontán (2006) Bateyes de Viví, Utuado, Puerto Rico. Final Report for
nomination to the National Historical Register of Historical Places- U. S. National Park Service. On file
at: State Preservation Historical Office of Puerto Rico, San Juan. (in PDF Folder 11: Archaeology by
Island or Site).
PART VI. THE ‘TAINOAN SPHERE’: ART, POWER & IDENTITY
Week 8 (06 MARCH)
9. Art, Iconography & Political-Religious Power
This lecture focuses on both ‘mobilia’ (portable) and ‘immobilia’ (fixed, rooted, ‘monumental’) material culture
conventionally assigned to the ‘Taíno’. Of the vast array of ‘Taíno’ material culture, we shall concentrate on a series
of objects that are highly charged with symbolism and with potency or power. The key objects of ‘art’, and their
iconography, fall in a broad class of potent things called ‘cemís’, and what humans did with them is of particular
importance in addressing questions about social and political complexity and the nature of the political systems, the socalled cacicazgos or “chiefdoms”. Key to this lecture is the notion of cemí (Anglophones write it as ‘zeme’ or ’zemi’)
alongside native conceptualizations of a multi-natural and animistic cosmos, radically different from our postEnlightment nature/culture dichotomy. Through an understanding of what is cemí and how it becomes materially
expressed and revealed in nature, we will come to much more enriched understanding of the nature of political-religious
power in the Greater Antilles. Cemís, along with human caciques (chiefs) are implicated in not only the rise of chiefly
power but in its exercise and ultimately in its successes and failures. Indeed, valuable cemí-imbued objects were stolen
by competing chiefly factions, and symptomatic of its ‘owner’s’ failure to exercise control over the spiritual powers,
and a significant cause for political instability. We will look first at a selection of portable materials, such as threepointed stones, and trace their developmental history and their significance in understanding the rise of chiefs and
chiefdoms; then we shall turn to the fixed monumental icons and the ceremonial plazas (and cave sites) that forms a
crucial part of the evidence for the rise of chiefdoms (or cacicazgos).
Required:
• Curet, L. Antonio (1996) Ideology, Chiefly Power and Material Culture: An Example from the Greater
Antilles. Latin American Antiquity 7(2):114-131 IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 3: Theory and Method)
• Oliver, José R. (2000) Gold Symbolism Among Taíno Chiefdoms: Of Feathers, Çibas and Guanín Among
Taíno Elites. In: Pre-Columbian Gold, Technology Style and Iconography. Edited by Colin McEwan,
pp. 196-217. London: British Museum Press. Issue Desk MCE; IoA- DF 300 MCE (3 copies, standard
loan; also PDF Folder 9. Chicoid and Taíno Archaeology)
Page-P
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
• Oliver, José R. (2009) Caciques & Cemí Idols. The web spun by Taíno Rulers between Hispaniola and
Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. Read: Ch. 3-5 (pp. 43-55), Ch. 6-7 (pp.6070). IoA DGE OLI. (also PDF Folder 0: Textbooks and PhD theses).
Ostapkowicz, Joanna, Alex Wiedenhoerft, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Erika Ribechini, Sam Wilson, Fiona
Borck and Tom Higham (2011) ‘Treasures… of Black Wood, Brilliantly Polished’: Five Examples of
Taíno Sculpture from the Sixteenth Century Caribbean. Antiquity 85: 942-959. IoA-euclid (also PDF
Folder 9: Chicoid and Taíno Archaeology).
• Curet, L. Antonio (1996) The Chief is Dead, Long Live… Who? Descent and Succession in the
Protohistoric Chiefdoms of the Greater Antilles. Ethnohistory 49(2):259-280. IoA-euclid (also PDF
Folder 3: Theory & Method).
For Further Reading:
‡ Curet, L. Antonio (2006) Missing the Point and an Illuminating Example- A Response to Keegan’s
Comments. Ethnohistory 53(2): 393-398. Ioa- euclid
‡ Keegan, William F. (2006) All in the Family: Descent & Succesion in the Ethnohistoric Chiefdoms of the
Greater Antilles- A Comment on Curet. Ethnohistory 53(2): 383-392. . Ioa- euclid
Note: above articles in PDF Folder 4: Ethnohistory & Linguistics; file: ‘Keegan, William & Reply by
Curet ETHNOHISTORY 2006’
‡ Keegan, W. F. and M. D. Maclachlan (1989) The Evolution of Avunculocal Chiefdoms. In American
Anthropologist Vol. 91(No. 3): 613-630 . Ioa- euclid
‡ Pané, Ramón ([1497] 1994) An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians. Duke University Press. Read
pp. 25-38. IoA DGE PAN (1 week)
‡ Siegel, Peter E. (1996) Ancestor Worship and Cosmology among the Taíno. Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art
and Culture from the Caribbean. Edited by Fátima Bercht, John A. Farmer and Dicey Taylor, pp.106111. New York: The Monacelli Press. IoA Issue Desk BER 8
‡ Wilson, Samuel M. (1998) The Taíno Social and Political Order. In Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art and
Culture from the Caribbean. Edited by F. Bertch et al., pp. 46-55. The Monacelli Press IoA Issue Desk
BER 8.
‡ Wilson, Samuel (2007) The Archaeology of the Caribbean. Cambridge World Archaeology Series,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Read Chapter 4, pp. only pp, 110-136. IoA- DGE Wil and
Issue Desk WIL 19
14. Marcel Mauss in the Caribbean: The Circulation of Guaíza masks & Stone Heads
This lecture takes a different approach in studying how political-power was deployed by humans though reciprocal
gifts exchange (i.e., Neo-Maussian theories), inheritance, descent and other important social mechanisms. Here the
guaíza or face-masks (also mesans ‘soul of the living) form the basis to discuss how, in order to exercise power and
control, the chiefs have to be partible, dividual persons; parts of which were or had to be gifted (giving in order to keep)
to foreign or stranger others. There is also an argument that chiefs had some potent things that could not be gifted
(keeping, in order to give). One of these is the stone heads/skulls of ancestors) and would only ‘circulate’ within allies
as heirlooms. Mauss’ theory of ‘The Gift” (in his ‘Essai sur le don’) and its implications for social, personal and ethnic
relational identities that result from gift exchanges (or its absence) contribute to an enhanced understanding of how and
why Rouse’s (and many others) notion of “Taíno as a monolithic, homogeneous ‘people’ and ‘culture’ emerging from
one single ancestral stock is flawed. While the guaíza masks are widely distributed throughout the Caribbean, the
petrified skulls of the ancestors (so-called Macoris style ‘stone heads’) were restricted only to SE Hispaniola and Puerto
Rico. What does this differential distribution mean? Who are the personages represented by the stone heads? The
objective of this lecture is to show how theories of reciprocity can make sense out of the archaeological materials, of
why they are distributed in time and space in this and not in other ways, of why the Taíno of northern Hispaniola
expressed (materially) their ‘Taínoness’ differently from those of, for example, Puerto Rico.
Required Readings:
• Oliver, José R. (2009) Caciques & Cemí Idols. The web spun by Taíno Rulers between Hispaniola and
Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. IoA DGE OLI. (also PDF Folder 0:
Textbooks and PhD theses).
Read: Ch 12 (pp.87-90); Ch. 14 (pp. 109-117); Ch. 16-17 (pp.141-156); and Ch. 18 157-171)
For Further Readings:
Page-Q
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
‡ Mol, Angus (2007) Costly Giving, Giving Guaízas: Towards an organic Model of the Exchange of Social
Valuables. MPHil Dissertation. Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University. (in PDF Folder 0.
Textbooks and theses).
‡ Pané, Fray Ramón ([1497-8] 1999) An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians. Read pages 34-38Duke
University Press. IoA DGE-PAN (1 week loan) or Science Library ANTHROPLOGY WX 495 PAN
PART VII: AROUND THE TIME OF COLUMBUS
WEEK 9 (21 MARCH)
10. The Caribs: Archaeology, Ethnohistory & Cayo Pottery
Who were the ‘Caribs’? What language they spoke? Where they came from and when? What is or are the
archaeological (material culture) correlates? The term ‘Carib’ (Caribes in Spanish) is fraught with problems of identity
and ethnicity, ever since Columbus first coined it by writing ‘caniba, and its plural ‘canibale(s)’ in 1492, while traveling
along the coast of Cuba. Subsequently the Spanish endowed it with a legal veneer: Caribes or caníbales were any
aborigines (even in Hispaniola) who did not submit to the Spanish Crown, who resisted and rebelled against the Spanish
with arms. They were said to be anthropophagi (human flesh eaters), fierce, savages, and so on. Until the late 1980s
archaeologists were in a quandary: the Tromassoid (i.e., Suazan, Marmoran subseries) material culture could be
accounted for as a gradual development out of the late Saladoid series of styles in the Lesser Antilles, and none could
be dated to the period just before and after European contact. The Lesser Antilles were treated by the Spanish as a
resource to exploit (enslave) natives for labour: they appear in 1500s maps labelled as ‘Islas Inútiles’ (Usless Islands).
No good ethnohistoric documents exist between 1492 and the 1660s, when the French wrestled the islands from
Spanish control. By then the impact of Spanish imperialism had, directly and indirectly, affected the aboriginal ‘Carib”
lifeways. The French chronicles demonstrated, however, that the ‘Caraïbe’ language was not related to the mainland
stock known as Carib (from Kariña, Kalina). Instead, it belonged to the Caribbean Maiupran (Arawakan), like the
Taíno. In fact, in the pre-French era, the Lesser Antilleans were sometimes referred as ‘iñeri’ or ‘inyeri’ (French:
‘igneri’) an Arawak word that means ‘husband/man’. This language was called (confusingly) Island Carib by 19-20th
century linguists. Their speakers were in fact Kalinago (i.e., Kalina-people). However, the vocabulary included a
substantial set of Carib words. Accrding to French chroniclers, it was the females who spoke the Arawakan language
and the males who used (also) the Carib language. Later, when the British extradited the rebellious Indian natives and
their allied Black African (maroons and freed), known as Garífuna (i.e., old script: Kalipona) to the then British
Hounduras (Belize); they are the last (and very few) remaining native speakers of Island Carib (but sufficiently
divergent to be a separate Garífuna language). In this lecture we shall look at what the archaeological evidence tells us
about the identity and nature of the ‘Carib’ aborigines.
Required:
• Boomert, Arie (1995) Island Carib Archaeology. In Wolves from the Sea, edited by N. Whitehead, pp.2335. KITLV Press. Leiden. IoA Issue Desk WHI 6, or DGE WHI
• Boomert, Arie (2011) From Cayo to Kalinago. In: Communities in contact : essays in archaeology,
ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean, edited by C. L. Hofman and A. van
Duijvenbode, pp. 291-306. Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- DGE HOF
[currently being catalogued] (also in PDF Folder 0 Textbooks & PhD theses: Hofman & van
Duijvenbode)
• Bright, Alistair (2011) Removed from Off The Face of the Island: Late Pre-Colonial and Early Colonial
Amerindian Society in the Lesser Antilles. In: Communities in contact : essays in archaeology,
ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean, edited by C. L. Hofman and A. van
Duijvenbode, pp. 307-325. Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- DGE HOF
[currently being catalogued] (also in PDF Folder 0 Textbooks & PhD theses: Hofman & van
Duijvenbode)
• Davis, David D. and R. Christopher Goodwin (1990) Island Carib Origins: Evidence and Nonevidence.
American Antiquity 55(1): 37-48. IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 7: Epi-saladoid-Troumassoid +
Lesser Antilles).
• Sued-Badillo, Jalil (1995) The Island Caribs: New Approaches to the Question of Ethnicity in the Early
Colonial Caribbean. In Wolves from the Sea, edited by N. Whitehead, pp.61-89. KITLV Press.
Leiden. Issue Desk WHI 6 (3 hr); DGE WHI (1 week loan)
For Further Readings:
Page-R
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
‡ Bright, Alistair (2011) Blood is Thicker than Water: Amerindian Intra- and Inter-relationships and social
organization in the Pre-Colonial Islands. PhD Dissertation. Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University.
(in PDF Folder 7: Epi-saladoid-Troumassoid + Lesser Antilles)
‡ C. L. Hofman and A. van Duijvenbode, eds. (2011) Communities in contact : essays in archaeology,
ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian Circum-Caribbean. Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford:
[Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- DGE HOF [currently being catalogued] (also in PDF Folder 0
Textbooks & PhD theses: Hofman & van Duijvenbode)
‡ Reid, Basil A. (2009). Myths and Realities of Caribbean History. Read Chapter 7: Myth 7- The Island
Caribs were Cannibals, pp. 88-99. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. Ioa- DGE REI (1
copy)
‡ Rouse, Irving (1948) 'The Carib'. In Handbook of South American Indians. Julian H. Steward, general
editor, Bulletin No. 143 Vol. IV, pp. 547-564. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution.
Washington D.C. IoA DG Series HAN (in-library use only)
‡ Sued-Badillo, Jalil (1984) Another Version of the Carib Affair and: Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Caribs
and the Problem of Ethnic Identification. In Homines, 8(1):199-208. University of Puerto Rico, San
Juan. Not available at IoA. (If interested I have a copy for you to borrow).
‡ Whitehead, Neil, ed. (1995) Wolves from the Sea. Leiden: KITLV Press. IoA Issue Desk WHI 6, or
DGE WHI
Week 10 (28 MARCH)
11. Aborigines and Europeans around La Isabela, Northern Dominican Republic
If the educated public around the world know anything about the encounter between Caribbean aboriginal societies
and the Europeans, it is that Columbus and his men (women, albeit few, did come in the 2nd voyage) conquered then
Indians that came to be known as Taíno (Taínos, plural). Historiography has, however, consigned other ethno-linguistic
groups to obscurity. Cuban historian María Nelsa Trincado, in reference to Cuba, commented (I paraphrase) “if
anything, the Spaniards conquered not Taínos who made Chicoid style ceramics but the people who produced and used
Meillacoid pottery”. Indeed! Rouse was wrong in placing Meillacan styles/cultures as earlier than the Chicoid styles in
Cuba, Hispaniola and the Bahaman Archipelago. As it turns out, C14 dates and stratigraphy demonstrate that groups
using Meillacan and Chican ceramics co-existed for centuries, up to and including the arrival of the Spaniards. At the
time of first contacts in northern Dominican Republic (AD 1494-1498), at least three different languages were spoken
in northern Hispaniola, with distinct ethnic markers in the form of bodily decoration and material culture. They nonArawakan speakers were labeled as Cigüayo and Macoríx by the more numerous Arawakan speakers (‘Taíno’), hence a
multi-cultural/linguistic region where Macoríx speakers and Arawakan-speakers and at least three different ‘ethnic’
groups lived in a mosaic-like settlement pattern, with villages within sight of each other. In this lecture, we will
examine at the first “permanent” Spanish (European) settlement in the New World, La Isabela, established in December
of 1494. Archaeological research was conducted by Kathleen Deagan and José M. Cruxent at the Spanish walled
settlement (El Castillo) and its immediate areas. What did the archaeological evidence reveal about Spanish-Native
relationships and intra- and inter-ethnic loyalties? While much work has been done at sites established by the Spanish,
very little is known of the impact of the Spaniards on indigenous settlements. However, J. R. Oliver’s and Jorge Ulloa
Hung’s (Museo del Hombre Dominicano) ongoing archaeological project in this region (2010-present) will provide
some new, tantalizing (albeit, preliminary) archaeological information about the native organization around La Isabela.
The conventional wisdom (Prosperian discourse), is that all Taínos were exterminated as a result of Spanish conquest
(by the sword and diseases like smallpox) by the 1520-30s, is to be re-examined. For this we shall turn further away in
Northeastern Cuba, to the sites of Los Buchillones and then the cemetery of Chorro de Maíta.
Required Readings:
• Deagan, Kathleen (2004): Reconstructing Taíno Social Dynamics after Spanish Conquest: Gender and
Class in Culture Studies. American Antiquity 69(4): 597-626. IoA-euclid. (also PDF Folder 9. Chicoid
and Taíno Archaeology).
• Valcárcel Rojas, Roberto, Darlene A. Weston, Hayley A. Mickleburg, Jason Lafoon and Anne van
Duijvenbode (2011) El Chorro de Maíta: a Diverse Approach to a Context of Diversity. In:
Communities in contact : essays in archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography of the Amerindian
Circum-Caribbean. Leiden : Sidestone; Oxford: [Oxbow [distributor]. IoA- CATALOGUEPROCESSING (in PDF Folder 0: Textbooks & PhD theses)
• Martinón Torres, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, Jago Cooper and Thilo Rehren (2007) Metals, Microanalysis
and Meaning: A Study of Metal Objects Excavated from El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba. Journal of
Archaeological Science 34: 194-204. IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 10: Thematic Papers).
Page-S
Arcl.3049 Caribbean Archaeology(2012)
• Thibodeau, A. M., D. J. Killick, J. T. Chesley, K. Deagan, J. M. Cruxent, and W. Lyman (2007) The
Strange Case of the Earliest Silver Extraction by Colonists in the New World. PNAS 74(9): 3663-3666
(doi 10.1073). IoA-euclid (also PDF Folder 10: Thematic Papers).
For Further Reading:
‡ Deagan, Kathleen and José M. Cruxent (2002a) Archaeology at La Isabela: America’s First European
Town. Read Ch 11. New Haven: Yale University Press IoA-DGE DEA (2 copies). (also PDF Folder 0.
Textbooks & PhD theses).
OR
‡ Deagan, Kathleen and José M. Cruxent (2002b) Archaeology at La Isabela: America’s First European
Town. Read CH 10. New Haven: Yale University Press IoA-DGE DEA (2 copies). (also PDF Folder 0.
Textbooks & PhD theses).
This is a more popular version of the above (for non-archaeologists).
12. From Genocide to Ethnogenesis: Syncretism and New Identities in the Caribbean
There are two particular events that are paradigmatic of the encounters between the Europeans and the
New World aborigines. One took place in Hispaniola and marks the first recorded iconoclast attack on
Catholic images ordered by native chiefs in Hispaniola in 1496-7. The second event tells the story of how,
in 1511, a chief from eastern Cuba adopted an icon of the Virgin Mary as if it were cemí idol, and then
wielded her to exert influence and power on his opponents in warfare as well as ritual combat. These two
events exemplify the ends of a continuum: on one end is the rejection and attack of the foreign symbols of
religious (and political power); at the other is the voluntary, interested adoption and reinterpretation of a
foreign (Catholic) political-religious symbol in order to exercise power. In this last lecture I will focus on
the very important anthropological concept of syncretism, the process that was behind the redefinition of
aboriginal societies as a new personal as well as ethnic identity, the “Indio” (the “Indian”), which arose in
response to Spanish imperialism in colonial times. The implications of the resistance (anti-syncretism) and
active rejection (i.e., freedom fighters) of Spanish dominance and culture is evaluated in terms of the
implications that syncretism (via acculturation, transvaluation, masking) has on the future of the Caribbean
natives.
Required Readings:
• Oliver, José R. (2009) Caciques & Cemí Idols. The web spun by Taíno Rulers between Hispaniola and
Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. IoA-DGE OLI.
Read: Ch. 19C. (pp. 215-220), Chs. 20-21 (pp. 221-244)
Essay No. 2 due Friday 27 April, 2012
Affiliates Students ONLY: Due Friday 23 March (last day of classes, Term 2)
Page-T