A PALEO-INDIAN STEMMED POINT from TRINIDAD, Westindies
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A PALEO-INDIAN STEMMED POINT FROM TRINIDAD, WESTiNDIES Peter O'B. Harris THE BICHE POINT This paper reports the context and technology of the Biche point, proposes a tentative 2-phase framework of paleo-environment, reviews data on Caribbean flaked stone points within a framework of 3 separate subregional traditions, and assigns a tentative lifeway and chronology to the Biche point. CONTEXT Fifteen year old Jameel Baksh was sweeping the family yard in Baptist Street, Biche, in February 1988. As he reached the southwest corner of the house, he noticed something small and sharp exposed in a shallow erosion channel formed by rainwater falling from the roof. He dug up à large stemmed chert point (Fig.1). He took it to school in a town some 20 km away, and showed it to his teacher. She asked her younger brother to show it to his teacher in the nearby college. He in turn passed it to the history master, who recognized it as a possible Amerindian artifact, and brought it another 30km to the Archaeology Centre at the University of the West Indies, where it is now on permanent display. Biche is a large village in east Trinidad, located near the western edge of the Nariva swamp (Fig.2). Here a series of silt-free rivers flow slowly east from the Central Range, but are hindered from reaching the sea by a coastal sand ridge, which stretches across the full 21 km width of the bay. The trapped waters form a large freshwater swamp, with stands of moriche palms, and a single exit. Today much of this has been drained and is worked as agricultural land. The context of the point seems good. The base of the erosion channel lay 7 cm below ground surface, and the point lay a furthers cm deeper (Fig.4). Jameel's house is located near the top of a low ridge, some 40 m above sea-level, and 3.5 km from the swamp edge. The top of the ridge is some 10 m west of the house, and is littered with blocky pieces of poor quality brown sandstone (4-13 cm) eroding from the surface, together with a few mudstone pebbles (1-5 cm). The location conforms in most respects with a Venezuelan paleo-site definition formulated by Cruxent: "small ridges or hillocks (8-12 m high) in a savana or past savana environment, with outcrops of usable stone" (Cruxent pc 1972). However the stone is extremely friable, and could not be used for making implements. Careful surface searches by both Arie Boomert and myself failed to find any usable stone flakes or fossil bones, so that for the present the point must be considered an isolated find. MANUFACTURE The point weighs 36g, is 9.2 cm long, 3.8 cm wide, and 1.3 cm thick. The material is a brown chert with occasional dark streaks, and a certain degree of impurity. Chert pebbles with these attributes are found in the eastern half of the Central Range, and a deposit is known near Four Roads, Tamaña, on the northern flank of the Central Range. This is some 10 km from the find, on the other side of this 100 m high range of hills. However pebble size here is typically less than 8 cm, and a larger pebble (say 12 x 6-7 x 3-4 cm) would be required for manufacture. This would make the southeastern part of the Cordillera Costal in the state of Sucre a more likely source. Tobago and the Guayana Shield can be geologically excluded 73 74 A PALEO-INDIAN STEMMED POINT (Kuarsingh pc 1988). The ripples in the flaking scars show that it is a high quality material from a flint- worker's perspective (Purdy pc 1991). Manufacture can be reconstructed in 3 stages: (1 ) The pebble was reduced to a blank through percussion flaking. Strong controlled blows to the edge from above remove radial flakes from the lower surface. The tool was probably a soft hammer. Insufficient surface is left from this first stage to check this. But it is the most logical tool for chert of this quality, because of its control; and the shallow flaking scars of stage 2 are characteristic of its use. This hammer requires a soft dense material such as manatee rib, heavy hardwood, or deer antler. The first 2 should have been available: from the freshwater Nariva swamp and the Central Range forest. Paleo-deer antlers in Trinidad are likely to have been too light. (2) The blank was then reduced to the symmetry and shape intended by its manufacturer. Shallow 4-10 mm scars confirm use of the soft hammer. There is good lateral and longitudinal symmetry; however one should note a slight difference in the latter (Fig.5). The gradient of aspect A is extremely smooth; while aspect B has 2 small indents. These coincide with an apparent design division of the point into 3 distinct parts: point, blade, stem. These nicks suggest that aspect A was governed primarily by cross-sectional symmetry, and aspect B primarily by shape. (3) Finally the edges were finished. Here the 1.5-4 mm miniscars suggest percussion rather than pressure flaking. The microscope (12 x magnification) also shows tiny areas of rough stone along the edges of the front 5.5 cm of the point, 0.5 mm wide, where the protuberances between edging scars have been broken off. It is not clear whether this derives from abrasion as a final stage of manufacture, or from use. DESIGN The finished point appears to conform with a clear set of design functions. The point section (3 cm) has an unusuallythicksubcircular cross-section, and edges which form a 75-85° angle. The design function suggests puncturing: eg a tough skin. The blade (3.7 cm) has convex wings which curve out (3.8 cm at their widest) and in (2.9 cm at the rear), and edges which form a 40-50° angle. The design of this part suggests ease of penetration and withdrawal. The stem (2.5 cm) tapers in thickness and width to a rounded end. The design suggests insertion into a haft, plus fastening with say vegetable gum and binding with plant fibre string. The notches at the base of the wings suggest a fairly substantial shaft (say ca 2.3cm diameter without binding). In summary the above elements suggest a spear of unknown length, with a sturdy shaft (say 2.3cm thick), tipped by an equally sturdy point (6.8cm long without stem), apparently designed for piercing thick- skinned animals and easy withdrawal. The dimensions seem too large foraspearthrowerdart. Technology involves percussion flaking with a soft hammer, and probably does not include pressure retouch. The culture seems to have required a practical rather than aesthetic standard of symmetry and finish, and the skill level is high. Design, size and technology suggest a date prior to extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna (ca BC9000), and to the appearance of pressure flaking (ca BC 9000 in the U.S. plains). Finally the thick subcircular cross-section of the point section is perceptibly different from the flattened ellipse of most other stone points. HARRIS 75 PALEO-ENVIRONMENT CARIBBEAN Some data are available for this early period. A temperature curve for the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere (say 45* N) shows a 7*C difference between BC 16,000 and BC 7600 (Fig.3). The pattern would have been the same on the Caribbean coast of South America, but the temperature difference would have been smaller, say 2-3'C (Van der Hammen 1974:25). The difference in Atlantic sea level for the same period is believed to approach 100 m. The climatic regime prior BC 12,500 is believed to have been sufficiently drier to produce wide areas of savana where tropical rain forest is found today. TROPICAL LOWLANDS The few items of local data support the implications of the broad picture given above. Lower sea level is shown by a subsea pollen sample 14 km off Trinidad's southeast point with a C14 date of BC 15,870± 6001 (Muller 1959:28) (Fig.2). A mixture of savana and mangrove pollens locate the coastline on the continental shelf at 40m below present sea level (Enrique Gonzales pc 1976). The 20m and 50m subsea contours have been plotted in, and the latter clearly shows Trinidad as part of the mainland. The Nariva swamp probably migrated in and out with the coastline along a SW-NE axis. Several pollen cores from the Guyana and Surinam coast show a history of shifting sea level (Van der Hammen 1974:21): eg a 31 m core with two C14 dates from Oglebridge in the Guyana coastal plain (ibid: Fig. 18). Around BC 43,000, the site lay within the mangrove zone near its inland boundary (75% mangrove pollen). A gradual lowering of sea level led into an undated 3.5 m section dominated by savana (91%). Next a rapid sea level rise initiated a 13.5 m section dominated by mangrove (98%), with a date of BC 6640 2 m above its beginning. Then the sea level fell gradually, and the youngest 2 m section was dominated by savana (55-58%). Using Fig.3 as a reference, one may tentatively correlate the 3.5 m savana phase with the last glacial of BC 20,000-12,000. Cores from the interior show a similar pattern, but here the fluctuations reflect periodic changes of rainfall. A 6.3 m core from lake Moreiru in the Rupununi savana shows a repetitive 3-phase cycle: rapid rise in lake level, followed by a period of high water, and a gradual fall to a lake low (ibid: Fig.