John G. Crock Archaeological Evidence Of Eastern Taínos: Late Ceramic Age Interaction Between The Greater Antilles And The Northern Lesser Antilles Abstract Strong stylistic and iconographic correlations suggest that Anguilla and other islands in the northern Lesser Antilles were part of a Taíno-related cultural sphere that extended from the large islands of the Greater Antilles to the small islands of the northeastern Caribbean. Various lines of evidence are used to help evaluate the nature of interaction between these two subregions during the Pre-Columbian era. Résumé La présence de fortes corrélations stylistiques et iconographiques suggère que l’île d’Anguilla et les autres îles septentrionales des Petites Antilles faisaient parti d’une sphère culturelle relié aux Taínos et que cette sphère s’étendait des grandes îles des Grandes Antilles jusqu’aux petites îles du Nord-est caraïbe. Nous 836 présentons plusieurs catégories de données afin d’évaluer la nature des interactions entre ces deux sous- régions pendant les siècles qui précèdent l’arrivé des européens. Contents Anguilla is one of the closest islands to the Greater Antilles and Virgin Islands in the Lesser Antillean chain. As such, it represents an ideal location from which to study the relationship between the small islands of the eastern Caribbean and larger islands to the west during late prehistory. Anguilla lies on the eastern side of the Anegada Passage, 110 km east of Virgin Gorda and Anegada, the easternmost of the Virgin Islands, and 250 km east of Puerto Rico, the closest of the Greater Antilles proper. Despite the formidable open water distance between the northern Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles, numerous lines of evidence document a high degree of communication and cultural integration between the two regions during the Late Ceramic Age. Data from Anguilla (Crock 2000; Crock and Petersen 1999; Petersen and Crock 2001) suggest that trends in population growth and the emergence of settlement hierarchies occurred at the same time as similar trends in the Greater Antilles where such developments are argued to be the precursors of complex chiefdoms known at European contact. The timing of these processes in Anguilla is remarkably similar to Puerto Rico, for example, occurring around ca. A.D. 900-1200, during Rouse’s Period IIIb (e.g., Curet 2003; Rodriquez 1992; Rouse 1992; Siegel 1992). Close similarities in material culture and types of sites suggest that populations in the two subregions were not simply developing in parallel fasion but were rather part of the same cultural trajectory. Ceramic decoration, elaborate stone three-pointers and shell ornaments, as well as ceremonial cave sites suggest that Late Ceramic Age Anguillians were in direct and regular contact with proto-Taíno and Taíno groups in the Greater Antilles. This evidence strongly suggests that politically complex, Taíno-related societies occupied settings well beyond territories defined by the large islands of the Greater Antilles, and even beyond the Virgin Islands farther east. Until recently, scholarly consideration of chiefdom development in the Caribbean has been limited to Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico, to the exclusion of the small islands of the Virgin Islands and eastern Caribbean (e.g., Curet 1992; Siegel 1992; Moscoso 1981; Wilson 1990). Interestingly, the large island bias with respect to the perceived distribution of stratified societies mirrors the limited geographic coverage provided by the ethnohistoric record. A complete lack of ethnohistoric knowledge about Amerindians in the northern Lesser Antilles has been long used to justify traditional characterizations of small island populations as less socially complex than their contemporaries on the large islands of the Greater Antilles (e.g., Steward 1948). To be sure, the archaeological record does support some generalizations about the relative complexity XXe CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL D'ARCHÉOLOGIE DE LA CARAÏBE of different subregions, especially in so far as greater complexity can be measured by the identification of prehistoric ball courts, or “bateys” (cf. Alegría 1983). For example, Rouse (1992:126) views the south coast of Puerto Rico as the birthplace of “Formative” Taíno complexity based on the identification of “the first public structures in the West Indies-- the earliest structures identifiable as dance plazas or ball courts.” Following this criterion, the only Classic Taíno “outpost” Rouse (1992) acknowledges outside the Greater Antilles is the Salt River site in St. Croix, a site that is legitimized as Taíno both by being mentioned in the chronicles and by archaeological evidence of a prehistoric ball court (Alegría 1983; Hatt 1924; Morse 1989). Setting aside the inadequacy of the chronicles for determining the presence/absence of Taíno people, the use of ball courts as a de facto measure of complexity is problematic as well. Not all ball courts have been preserved to be studied and where they do remain, they are difficult to identify archaeologically, even in some cases where they were recorded historically, as in Cuba. Though rare 837 examples of elaborate, stone and petroglyph-lined courts exist in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, for example, less obvious examples probably have gone unrecognized in many localities. Many courts were likely defined less permanently, including those that may have existed in open plazas throughout the region. For example, plaza-like spaces have been identified at Early Ceramic Age sites like Golden Rock in St. Eustatius (Versteeg and Schinkel 1992), Indian Creek in Antigua (Rouse and Morse 1999), Trants in Montserrat (Petersen 1996), and Maisabel in Puerto Rico (Siegel 1992). These may have functioned as dance or ceremonial spaces, or as early versions of ball courts. As the definitions of civic-ceremonial space evolved in the Caribbean, open spaces within Late Ceramic Age sites, even those not lined with stones, could have easily hosted ball games and other public events that were presided over by elites. The impact of post-depositional disturbance on these features, in the case of significant Early and Late Ceramic Age deposits, should be mentioned as well. Centuries of cultivation activities throughout the region, along with other disturbances, surely has helped obscure some ball courts. Courts that were delineated loosely with only stones may have been destroyed as a result of historic cultivation, with the stones removed to rock piles within or at the margins of agricultural fields. Despite the apparent absence of ball courts in Anguilla, research suggests that Taíno-related peoples occupied at least some of the northern Lesser Antilles, including Anguilla. These results contribute to a growing body of archaeological data (e.g., Rouse 1992; Hofman 1993) that support critical interpretations of the geographically biased ethnohistoric record. Archaeological evidence (Allaire 1990; Crock 2000; Hofman 1993; Hoogland and Hofman 1999) and ethnohistoric accounts of kinship connections between the two regions (Sued Badillo 1995) suggest that the northern Lesser Antilles were connected to the Greater Antilles culturally, economically and perhaps even politically late in regional prehistory and even at the time of European contact. The material evidence of cultural relationship comes mainly from the stylistic similarity between ceramic artifact assemblages. Ceramic styles represented at Late Ceramic Age sites in Anguilla and across the northern Lesser Antilles can be placed within broader Caribbean typologies largely developed from Greater Antillean collections (e.g., Rouse 1952, 1964, 1992; Veloz Maggiolo 1972). Temporal attributions and cultural, or “ethnic,” affiliations within the Caribbean have long been based almost entirely on local and regional ceramic seriations, for better or worse. Well-ordered typologies of decorated ceramics have made it possible to suggest cultural and “ethnic” links between communities, islands, and regions. It is on this basis that Rouse (1992) suggests that there were “Eastern Taíno” in the northern Lesser Antilles during the Late Ceramic Age, ranging from Saba and Anguilla as far south as Antigua and Montserrat. Ceramic decoration that indisputably connects Anguilla to the Greater Antilles includes curvilinear XXe CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL D'ARCHÉOLOGIE DE LA CARAÏBE broad-line incision, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic lugs, and other complex modeled incised forms including pelican head adornos. At least two sites in Anguilla, Sandy Hill and Shoal Bay East, have produced adorno, lug, and vessel forms that can be attributed to Rouse’s Period IV, post A.D. 1200, based on their similarity to Chican Ostionoid pottery, including the Esperanza, Boca Chica and Capá styles (Rouse 1952, 1964, 1992; Veloz Maggiolo 1972). These and many other sites have produced decorated sherds that are similar or identical to curvilinear designs used to define Chican Ostionoid styles in the Greater Antilles and Virgin Islands. For example, numerous sites in Anguilla have produced sherds with identical decoration to ceramics used to illustrate Esperanza, Boca Chica, and Capá styles from Puerto Rico (Rouse 1952), so-called “vasijas taínas” from Hispaniola (Veloz Maggiolo 1972), and “Taíno Ornithomorphic” pelican head handles from Cuba (Dacal Moure and Rivero de la Calle 1996:111). Despite the importance of ceramic typologies for resolving social issues in the Caribbean, it is important to remember that Late Ceramic Age decorated ceramics comprise, on average, only 3- 838