Birgit Faber Morse

Birgit Faber Morse An Evaluation Of The Danish Anthropologist, Gudmund Hatt’s, 1923 Santo Domingo Excavations And Collection Abstract In 1923 the Danish anthropologist, Gudmund Hatt, spent a couple of months on archaeological fieldwork in Santo Domingo. His investigations fell into two groups. In the east he made excavations in a number of shell-heaps, primarily at the mouths of rivers and at the center of the island his activities were mainly concentrated in the Constance Valley. He concluded that the Tainan culture originated on the island of Hispaniola and spread eastward and westward from there. Resumen En 1923 el antropólogo danés Gudmund Hatt realizó durante varias meses excavaciones arqueólogicas en Santo Domingo, donde seleccionó dos áreas de trabajo. En el Este excavó varios concheros contiguos 450 a la costa y en las desembocaduras de los rios; en el centro de la isla su trabajo se concentro principalmente en el Valle de Constanza. Sus conclusiones lo llevaron a proponer que el origen del desarrollo de los Tainos fue en la isla Hispaniola (hoy Haiti y República Dominicana), desde donde se extienden hacia el Este y al Oeste. Resume Durant 1923 l’anthropologiste danois Gudmund Hatt passa quelques mois en prospectiones archeologiques a Saint Dominque. Ces recherchés porterent des deux groupes. A l’est, il fouilla plusieur amas coquillers sur la cote, essentiellement a l’embouchure des rivieres. Au centre de l’ile, ses activites se concentrerent principalement sur la vallee de Constanza. Il concluait que la culture taino etait issue de l’ile d’Hispaniola et s’y deploya a l’est et l’ouest. Introduction A Danish-Dutch archaeological expedition that left Copenhagen by ship for the West Indies in December 1921 consisted of Professor J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong, Dr. phil. Gudmund Hatt and his wife, Emilie Demant Hatt, who was an ethnograpfer. They first visited and excavated on the three U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix, which Denmark in 1917 had sold to the U.S.A. They reasoned that because these islands are located on the border between the Tainos of the Greater Antilles and the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles, an archaeological examinination there should cast light on the interaction between these two Caribbean peoples and their cultures (Hatt 1922, 1924 and 1925). Hatt was familiar with earlier reports from this area, among them J. Alden Mason’s report (1915) and J. W. Fewkes’ “The Aborrigines of Porto Rico and Neighboring Islands” (1907). De Josselin de Jong left the expedition for the Dutch West Indian Islands, St. Eustatius and Saba in the fall of 1922, when excavations were finished on St. Thomas and St. John and before they began on St. Croix. After Hatt finished his work on the last island during the spring of 1923, he decided to spend a couple of months on archaeological fieldwork in Santo Domingo. His reasons for this were, that after his discoveries in the Virgin Islands he thought that the earlier ceramics from these islands, characterized by white-on-red pottery had originated from the Lesser Antilles to the south; whereas the later ceramics which had modeled-incised pottery had derived from the Greater Antilles to the west (Fig. 1). Hatt (1923) felt that the later cultural development had originated in Hisponiola and wanted to test this hypothesis. His investigations in Santo Domingo fell into two groups, an eastern and a central group. In the east he made excavations in a number of shell-middens on the coast, primarily at the mouths of rivers. In the center of the island his activities mainly were concentrated in the Constanza Valley. XXe CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL D'ARCHÉOLOGIE DE LA CARAÏBE The Eastern Group The eastern group included excavation in shell-middens on the northeast coast at the mouths of Rio Nisibon and Rio Maimon (Fig. 1A) and at the southeast coast at the mouths of Rio Chavon and at a sandy beach, called La Caleta (Fig. 1B), west of La Romana. After his excavations Hatt thought that the ceramics had reached a higher development in the southeast, where they were decorated with incised geometric designs that sometimes covered the whole vessel, and the forcefully drawn lines often ended with an indentation, which could have been made with the same tool as the incised lines (Fig. 3a). Relief ornamentation was found mostly in connection with handles, which were often shaped like grotesque representations of the human body, where the head was the most visible part and the limbs were rudimentary, similar to what Hatt (1925) recently had seen in the Virgin Islands and from Puerto Rico. Characteristic also of the pottery along the southeastern coast were broad loop handles with faces in relief supported by a couple of bars, representing arms (Fig. 3b). 451 On the northeast coast the ceramics were less uniform, but also less developed than in the southeast. Relief ornamentation played a greater role; frogs are sometimes represented that way, and where incised lines also occur in combination they are generally rather vague. Loop handles are rare, whereas flat handles with relief faces are common, often shaped like animal and birds heads; they can also be surrounded by representations of limbs combined with the nose and eyebrows in a strange way (Fig. 3c). Hatt (1923) felt that the northeastern ceramics represented a less conventional and more varied form of Taino art than the southeastern, but the area is also located more out of the way and therefore received less influence from outside. Before Hatt left the eastern part of the island he mentioned a large vase that was rather unusual, since he had not seen any other that was similar (Fig. 3d). It was found at Vacama near Rio Maimon and he felt that it probably was a burial vessel, since it had part of a skeleton represented in high relief on the sides. One side has the skull, the divided lower jaw and three limb bones, and the other side, the back bone and two limb bones and the incised lines connecting the relief work are well done (Hatt 1925, 1932 and 1941). The Central Group The Constaza Valley is a beautiful, fertile mountain valley, located about 1200 m above sea level in the Cordillera Mountains in the central part of the island (Fig. 1C). The floor of the valley measure about 35 square km. Hatt thought that it had contained at least four Indian settlements and that the name Constanza derived from two parallel earth walls that had been called “la casa de la reina Constanza”. These earth walls that run parallel east-west enclose a rectangular plaza of about 80 by 60 m and were about 1 m high and 4 to 7 m wide. From Las Casas (1909) and Oviedo (1851) Hatt knew that such enclosures or “bateyes” had been found in connections with Taino villages. In Puerto Rico most of these bateyes or ball courts are enclosed with stones, some of which are engraved with petroglyphs (Alegria 1983). In eastern Cuba at Laguna Limones the court is enclosed on all sides with earth walls (Harrington 1921), whereas in the Constanza Valley it is only the two long sides. Hatt discovered seven of these ball courts in the valley; three of the Indian settlements each had two that were lying in pairs and the fields surrounding them were rich in artifactual remains (Hatt 1923 and 1932). At that time the best preserved of the bateyes in the Constanza Valley was at El Palero; it is located close to El Palero creek on a river plain and its parallel walls enclose a level area of 92 by 35 m and were over 1 m high. Indian artifact were spread over the whole area (Fig. 4a and b), but Hatt could not find any midden or layers of cultural remains. To the west of this court the terrain was covered with small artificial mounds that Hatt also had seen in other parts of the Cordillera Mountains. They were first thought of as being Indian graves, but several were excavated and found not to be so, XXe CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL D'ARCHÉOLOGIE DE LA CARAÏBE because they only consisted of stones and gravel mixed with local soil. Instead Hatt thought that these mound must have had some agricultural purpose, since he remembered Oviedo (1851) describing the cultivation of cassava and how the Indians made small mounds for the manioc plants. He also noticed that the local farmers still use the Taino word “conuco” for the small clearings in the woods (Hatt 1925). Hatt mentions a visit he paid to the most famous batey in Hispaniola, “Corral de los Indios” with a diameter of about 225 m, located north of San Juan de Maguana, which was first described by Schaumburg (1852). He thought that the large enclosure here had belonged to the great “caciques” of the Maguana county, whereas the simpler works in the Constanza Valley were bateyes for the local mountain villages (Hatt 1925). The ceramic art was highly developed in the Cordillera Mountain. Fig. 4c shows a typical vessel from Manabao; its rim is decorated with incised lines and pits and just one handle is left in shape of 452 a grotesque head with big hollow eyes. Anthropo- and zoomorphic faces with large hollow eyes were characteristic of many of the pottery handles Hatt collected from the Constanza Valley and other parts of the Cordilleras (Fig. 4d). Also found in the same area were fragments of stone idols with deep, hollow eyes that remind one of the ceremic art from the same region.

Load more