ELISABETH S. WING

ANIMAL REMAINS EXCAVATED AT THE SPANISH SITE OF NUEVA CADIZ ON ISLAND,

Archeological excavations were made by Drs. J. M. CRUXENT and J. M. GOGGIN in December 1954 at the early Spanish site of Nueva Cadiz on Cubagua Island. These excavations consisted of 15 trenches of which 2 were in house remains and 13 were across low middens. I have studied the animal remains that were excavated with the hope of learning something about the food habits of these people. The objective was to learn which local food animals were depended upon and what animals were brought to the island by the Spanish and people coming from the Carib- bean and .

The island of Cubagua is located 15 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 9 km south of the island of Margarita. Politically the islands of Cubagua, Margarita, Coche, and Los Frailes belong to the Venezuelan state of . Cubagua is a small island some 92/5 km in length, 4*/B km in width, and 261/2 km^ in area. It is low, flat, and composed mostly of limestone. Being excessively well drained and in a region of so called steppe climate, Cubagua has been rightly called a desert island (HUMMELINCK, 1940). Vegetation is very scanty, consisting predomi- nantly of and thorny shrubs. This may be in part due to defor- estation by man, but the vegetation was probably xerophytic and sparse when the first man found Cubagua. The fauna is also meager and what there is does not differ taxonomically from that on the mainland. Al- though the land is very poorly endowed, the sea around the island has rich oyster beds. The industry supported the town of Nueva Cadiz. This town, the first Spanish settlement in South America, was founded about 1516 and destroyed, probably by a hurricane, in 1545. Pearl divers were brought from the Bahamas, Greater , west coast of Venezuela, Llanos, and the Orinoco valley (CRUXENT & ROUSE, 1958). The excavated material was very fragmentary and it was not possible to identify much of it. There were, however, 290 ele-

Mrs. ELISABETH S. WING, Dept. of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 07:28:41PM via free access ANIMAL REMAINS EXCAVATED AT NUEVA CADIZ 163 ments which were identified. One can determine the importance of an animal to the people in two ways. The percentage of oc- currence of minimum numbers of individuals of an animal in the excavated trenches will give a measure of the frequency of use of this animal. Or by estimating the average weight of usable meat on the particular species and multiplying this by the mini- mum number of individuals, one can obtain a rough measure of its importance (for example, one deer would be more important than one rabbit). The percentage of usable meat varies with the size and kind of animal. The percentages used here are those given by WHITE (1953). The Table gives a list of the animals which were identified and their relative importance calculated in the two ways noted above. Food animals from the sea, in- cluding fish and turtle, were the most important, occurring in all of the trenches and having an estimated cumulative weight of usable meat of 1942 pounds. Next in importance were wild mammals and birds occurring in 75 percent of the trenches. The most important of these was the deer and secondly the rabbit which combined produced 424 pounds of usable meat. Finally, domesticated animals occurred in 58 percent of the trenches. The most important domesticated animal was the pig and secondly

ANIMALS REPRESENTED IN THE MIDDENS AT NUEVA CADIZ AND THEIR RELATIVE IMPORTANCE

Total number Percent of Pounds of of individuals occurrence usable meat

Sea turtle 17 58 1700 Sparidae (porgy) 27 58 242 Catfish, ray, and others 3° 100 Syfot/agws (rabbit) 19 50 33 Orfocot7«MS (deer) 9 33 393 PAa/acrocora* (cormorant) 4 *5 Pe/«ca«t

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 07:28:41PM via free access 164 ELIZABETH S. WING the chicken which combined produced 353 pounds of usable meat. It is no surprise that the inhabitants of a desert island would depend heavily on the sea for their source of food. Sea turtle evidently made up a large part of their diet. This animal has probably always been an important food source of the people living in the Venezuelan islands. By 1737 the slaughter of sea turtle in Willemstad on Curacao became so objectionable that it was prohibited (HUMMELINCK, 1940). Fish were also an im- portant part of the diet then as now. At present the inhabitants of Cubagua are mostly fishermen. The land animals natural to this area were deer, Orfocot7«ws gymnolts, and rabbit, Sy/vi7ag«s //oriianMs 1. It was not possible to determine the subspecies of these animals. Since is so close, it was likely the source of rabbit as well as deer. ROBINSON & LYON (1902) note that the rabbit, Sy/rtVagws //o- rü&jrtws margarttoc, was so plentiful on Margarita that it was split and dried like codfish and brought to on the main- land by the boatload. The birds represented in the middens were, as one would expect, mainly water birds. Pelicans are known to breed in the mangrove swamps on Margarita and there are sea colonies of boobies, pelicans, and cormorants along the coast. The muscovy duck occurs naturally over a large area of South and Central America and is commonly domesticated. The black vulture is characteristically a village scavenger. There is no evidence that the pearl divers coming to Cubagua from more distant areas brought any of their local animals with them. This, however, is not true of the Spanish, who must have brought the domesticated animals represented at the site. The greater abundance of pigs is undoubtedly a result of their scaven- ging nature enabling them to prosper where there is no pasturage. In addition to these animals one human individual was re- presented. This may be further evidence for the catastrophic destruction of Nueva Cadiz.

To summarize it may be said that the people of Nueva Cadiz depended most heavily on the sea for their food. Sea turtle and fish, particularly Sparidae, were most important. Although the inhabitants originated from many parts of South America, the

* This species designation is according to HERSHKOVITZ'S paper on the rabbits of South America (1950).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 07:28:41PM via free access ANIMAL REMAINS EXCAVATED AT NUEVA CADIZ 165 , and Spain, only animals brought by the Spanish were found. Of these animals only pig and chicken remains were a- bundant. More important than these domesticated animals were the deer and rabbit, which were probably caught on neighboring Margarita Island. Sea birds such as pelican, boobies, and cormo- rant and the muscovy duck were occasionally used.

I wish to thank Dr. J. M. GOGGIN for the opportunity to study this collection of animal remains. I am also indebted to Drs. P. BRODKORB and D. ROSEN for verifying my identification of birds and fish respec- tively.

LITERATURE CITED

CRUXENTJ. M. & ROUSE, I., 1958. An archeological chronology of Vene- zuela. Socta/ Set. Mono. K7, Pan ^««r. I/nt'on. HERSHKOVITZ, P., 1950. Mammals of Northern Columbia. Preliminary report no. 6: Rabbits (Leporidae), with notes on the classification and distribution of the South American forms. iVoc. 17. S. No/. Mws. 100 (3265), p. 327-375. . J , HUMMELINCK, P. WAGENAAR, 1940. S/udtM on M« /anna o/ Cunifao, ^4rt

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