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 5% of a given ceramic assemblage, and sometimes, as for Anguillian sites, even less than 1% (e.g., Crock 2000; Hofman 1993; Petersen and Watters 1991). For this reason, it is dangerous to rely solely on ceramic decoration, or “style” and important to develop other lines of evidence to fully reconstruct interregional interaction for any portion of the Late Ceramic Age.

Other material culture that helps further connect the late-prehistoric people in Anguilla to contemporaries in the Greater Antilles includes elaborate and massive stone three-pointed zemis, shell and bone snuffing tubes/inhalers, shell vomit spatulas, shell inlays from wooden statues/duhos, and shell masks and other ornaments. While most Anguillian sites have produced stone zemis of some sort, such as smaller, more common three-pointer forms, several sites, argued to represent higher status settings, have produced large and often elaborate three-pointed zemis and zemi fragments. These large stone zemis exhibit forms of elaboration similar to those recognizably associated with elites in the Greater Antilles, using the arguments of others (Curet 1992; Oliver 1994; Olsen 1974; Rouse 1992; Walker 1993; Veloz Maggiolo 1972).

Ethnohistoric accounts from the Greater Antilles suggest chiefly power in the Caribbean was exemplified and legitimized by the chiefs’ possession of the most powerful “zemis,” or ritual objects. In his early account of Taíno religion, Friar Ramon Pané (1999) described zemis made of wood, cotton, shell, and stone. The Taíno believed that these objects contained specific spirit beings and they were used in various ceremonial contexts, ranging from divination to fertility rituals. “Private", or personal, zemis were widespread across Taíno society, but "public" zemis that held power to affect society at large were controlled by the “caciques” or chiefs (Oliver 1994:26). The power inherent in some particular zemis was so great that the caciques would often try to steal them from each other to gain greater control over the supernatural world (Oliver 1994; Pané 1999; Stevens-Arroyo 1988).

Late Ceramic sites in Anguilla have produced numerous artifacts related to “public” zemis manufactured from stone, wood, and possibly cotton like those described in the chronicles and collected thereafter. For example, large zoomorphic three-pointed stone zemis and zemi fragments have been recovered from the Sandy Ground and Sandy Hill sites in Anguilla. These objects share commonalities with those discussed in the Spanish chronicles.

Other material forms that are represented among both the prehistoric Anguillians and protohistoric Taínos include shell ornaments and ornate shell masks, or “guaízas,” as well as ritual paraphernalia such as snuffing tubes and inlays from wooden stools, statues, and/or cotton idols. Shell masks and ritual paraphernalia from Anguilla have close correlates in local and broad regional contexts, including nearby within the northern Lesser Antilles and to the west in the Greater Antilles (Dacal Moure

XXe CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL D'ARCHÉOLOGIE DE LA CARAÏBE and Rivero de la Calle 1996; Kerchache 1994; Veloz Maggiolo 1972; Murphy 1999). These items certainly link the two subregions stylistically and also provide evidence of deeply rooted ideological commonalities. The broad distribution of Taíno material culture can be reasonably attributed to a common cultural heritage combined with uninterrupted and regular contact between the northern Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles, particularly during the Late Ceramic Age.

Regular interaction between Anguilla and the Greater Antilles also is exemplified, for example, by the presence in Puerto Rico of green limestone tools and calcirudite three pointers that were likely manufactured in Anguilla. These raw materials appear to have been quarried in neighboring St. Martin and transported to Anguilla for manufacture and later export (Crock 2000; Knippenberg 2003). The importance of Anguilla as a trade center is becoming more clear and, in the case of the production of three-pointed zemis, may be related to its ceremonial importance.

839 Ceremonial cave sites in Anguilla such as Fountain Cavern and Big Spring provide evidence of the island’s ceremonial importance and also help place Late Ceramic Age Anguillians within the Taíno mythological realm. Fountain Cavern includes at least a dozen petroglyphs and a large stalagmite statue associated with a freshwater spring (Watters 1991). The head of the Fountain Cavern statue is carved into what some have suggested is a likeness of the Taíno deity “Jocahu” (Douglas 1986), alternatively Yucahú, or Yucahuguamá, the “Lord of the Yuca” (cassava), one of the more powerful members of the Taíno pantheon (Pané 1999; Stevens-Arroyo 1988). A similarly sized petroglyph statue was identified in Cuba (Harrington 1921), but regionally such three-dimensional petroglyphs are seemingly quite rare. Faces similar to the one depicted on the Fountain Cavern statue adorn a few other stalagmites and classic anthropomorphic, three-pointed stone zemis, related to the Taíno, recovered in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba (Fewkes 1906; Kerchache 1994; Stevens-Arroyo 1988).

At the Big Spring site, more than 60 rock carvings have been identified surrounding a freshwater pool (see Petersen et al., this volume). Two other cave sites in Anguilla, Airport Cave and Tanglewood Cave, have produced human remains in association with Amerindian artifacts (Crock and Petersen 1999). The use of caves for ritual and human burial represents another feature linking the Late Ceramic Age peoples in Anguilla with the Taíno of the Greater Antilles (e.g., Stevens-Arroyo 1988).

In summary, social stratification, material culture, and religious ideology evident in the archaeological record of Anguilla justifies the inclusion of these peoples within the proto-Taíno/Taíno cultural sphere. The cultural relationships documented archaeologically further demonstrate the pertinence of Spanish chronicles (e.g., Las Casas 1951; Pané 1999), to the Lesser Antilles portion of the Caribbean, despite the general omission of Amerindians from this region in the early documents themselves.

References Cited Alegría, R. E. 1983 Ball Courts and Ceremonial Plazas in the West Indies. Yale University Publications in Anthropology 79. New Haven. Allaire, L. 1990 Prehistoric Taino Interaction with the Lesser Antilles: The View from Martinique, F.W.I. Paper presented at the 55th Annual Meeting, Society for American Archaeology, Las Vegas, Nevada, April 18-22. Crock, J. G. 2000 Interisland Interaction and the Development of Chiefdoms in the Eastern Caribbean. Ph.D Dissertation. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Crock, J. G., and J. B. Petersen 1999 The Anguilla Archaeology Project 1992-1993. Report prepared for the Anguilla Archaeological and Historical Society. On file at the University of Maine at Farmington Archaeology Research Center, Farmington, Maine, and the Anguilla National Trust. Curet, L. A. 1992 The Development of Chiefdoms in the Greater Antilles: A Regional Study of the Valley of Maunabo, Puerto Rico. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. 2003 Issues on the Diversity and Emergence of Middle-Range Societies of the Ancient Caribbean: A Critique. Journal of Archaeological Research 11(1):1-42.

XXe CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL D'ARCHÉOLOGIE DE LA CARAÏBE Dacal Moure, R., and M. Rivero de la Calle 1996 Art and Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Cuba. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh. Douglas, N. 1986 Anguilla Archaeological and Historical Society Review, 1981-1985. Anguilla Archaeological and Historical Society, The Valley, Anguilla. Fewkes, J. W. 1906 The Aborigines of Porto Rico and Neighboring Islands. Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. Harrington, M.R. 1921 Cuba Before Columbus. Indian Notes 17(1). Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York. Hatt, G. 1924 Archaeology of the Virgin Islands. In Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of the Americanists, pp 29-42. The Hague. Hofman, C. L. 1993 In Search of the Native Population of Precolumbian Saba (400-1450 A.D.) Part One. Pottery Styles and Their Implications. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Hofman, C. L., and M. L. P. Hoogland (eds.) 1999 Archaeological Investigations on St. Martin (Lesser Antilles). Archaeological Studies Leiden University No. 4. Leiden, The Netherlands. Hoogland, M. L. P., and C. L. Hofman 1999 Expansion of the Taino Cacicazgos Toward the Lesser Antilles. Journal de la Societie des Americanistes 85:93-113. Kerchache, J. 840 1994 L’Art Taino: L’Art des Sculpteurs Tainos Chefs-D’Oeuvre des Grandes Antilles Precolombiennes. Musee du Petit Palais, Paris. Knippenberg, S. 2002 Distribution and Exchange of Lithic Materials Among the Northern Lesser Antilles: Zemis and Axes from St. Martin. Paper presented at the Late Ceramic Age in the Caribbean Seminar, Leiden, The Netherlands. Las Casas, B. 1951 Historia de las Indias. 3 vols. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City. Morse, B. F. 1989 Saladoid Settlement Patterns on St. Croix. In Early Ceramic Population Lifeways and Adaptive Strategies in the Caribbean, edited by P. Siegel, pp. 29-41. BAR International Series 506, Oxford. Moscoso, F. 1981 The Development of Tribal Society in the Caribbean. Ph.D. Dissertation, State University of New York, Binghamton. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Murphy, A. R. 1999 The Prehistory of Antigua, Ceramic Age: Subsistence, Settlement, Culture and Adaptation Within an Insular Environment. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Calgary. Oliver, J. R. 1994 Reflections on Taino Myths, Cemis and Sacred Ceremonies. Paper presented at the conference “The Aboriginal Population of the Lesser Antilles,” held in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Olsen, F. 1974 On the Trail of the Arawaks. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. Pané, R. 1999 An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians. Introductory study, notes and appendixes by J. Arrom, translated by S. Griswold. Duke University Press, Durham. Petersen, J. B. 1996 Archaeology of Trants. Part 3. Chronological and Settlement Data. Annals of Carnegie Museum 65(4):323-361. Petersen, J. B. and J. G. Crock 2001 Late Saladoid to Late Prehistoric Occupation in Anguilla: Site Setting, Chronology and Settlement Hierarchy. In Proceedings of the 17th International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology, edited by G. Richard, pp. 124-135. St. Georges. Petersen, J. B. and D. R. Watters 1991 Amerindian Ceramic Remains from Fountain Cavern, Anguilla, West Indies. Annals of Carnegie Museum 60(4):321-358. Rodríguez, M. 1992 Late Ceramic Age Diversity in Eastern Puerto Rico. Paper presented at the 57th Annual Meeting , Society for American Archaeology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 8-12. Rouse, I. B. 1952 Porto Rican Prehistory: Introduction; Excavations in the West and North. In Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Vol. XVIII(3):336-459. New York Academy of Sciences, New York. 1964 Prehistory in Haiti: A Study in Method. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, Number 21. Originally published in 1939, reprinted by Human Relations Area Files Press, New Haven. 1992 The Tainos. Yale University Press, New Haven. Rouse, I. B., and B. F. Morse 1999 Excavations at the Indian Creek Site, Antigua, West Indies. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, 82. New Haven. Siegel, P. E. 1992 Ideology, Power and Social Complexity in Prehistoric Puerto Rico. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York, Binghamton.University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Stevens-Arroyo, A. M. 1988 Cave of the Jagua: The Mythological World of the Tainos. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Steward, J. H. 1948 The Circum-Caribbean Tribes. In Handbook of South American Indians, edited by J. Steward, vol. 4, pp. 1-25. Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, no. 143, Washington, D.C. Sued Badillo, J. 1995 The Island Caribs: New Approaches to the Question of Ethnicity in the Early Colonial Caribbean. In Wolves from the Sea, edited

XXe CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL D'ARCHÉOLOGIE DE LA CARAÏBE by N. Whitehead, pp. 61-90. KITLV Press, Leiden, The Netherlands. Walker, Jeffery B. 1993 Stone Collars, Elbow Stones and Three-Pointers, and the Nature of Taino Ritual and Myth. Ph.D. dissertation, Washington State University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Versteeg, A. H., and K. Schinkel 1992 The Archaeology of St. Eustatius The Golden Rock Site. Publication of the St. Eustatius Historical Foundation, Number 2. Publication of the Foundation for Scientific Research in the Caribbean Region, Number 131. Amsterdam. Veloz Maggiolo, M. 1972 Arqueología Prehistorica de Santo Domingo.McGraw-Hill Far Eastern Publishers Ltd, Singapore. Watters, D. R. 1991 Archaeology of Fountain Cavern, Anguilla, West Indies. Annals of Carnegie Museum 60(4):255-320. Wilson, S. N. 1990 Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

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Figure 1. Late Ceramic Age decorated sherds from Anguilla. Figure 1a, Sandy Hill site and Figure 1b, Shoal Bay site.

Figure 2. Zoomorphic limestone zemi fragment from the Sandy Hill site in Anguilla.

XXe CONGRÈS INTERNATIONAL D'ARCHÉOLOGIE DE LA CARAÏBE Figure 3. Shell mask from the Sandy Hill site in Anguilla.

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Figure 4. Stalagmite “Jocahu” statue from the Fountain Cavern site in Anguilla.

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