Principales Casos de Uso del Sistema

Lee A. Newsom

Introduction

Environmental archaeology (EA) is a subfield of mod-ern anthropological archaeology that emphasizes natu-ral resources, ecology, environment, and related issues from a humanistic perspective. Four primary areas of specialization exist: zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, bioarchaeology, and geo- or pedoarchaeology. Carib-bean EA has underpinnings in the research of individu-als such as Jesse Fewkes, who wrote as early as 1914 about the potential significance of natural resources and island habitats for aboriginal peoples in the Lesser Antilles. By the 1930s, pathbreaking excavations and research in the Greater Antilles (Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Cuba) by Froe-lich Rainey (1940) and Irving Rouse (1941, 1986, 1992) included explicit observations about indigenous sub-sistence practices, based on recovered faunal remains.

These scholars focused attention, in particular, on time-transgressive changes in the relative abundances of land crab and shellfish remains, which Rainey and Rouse in-terpreted as evidence of an apparent dietary shift. This

“crab/shell dichotomy” was originally hypothesized to have been the result of food preferences or the cumu-lative effects of human overexploitation over time. The

faunal assemblages were eventually more fully explained by other scholars, particularly William Keegan (1985), using optimal foraging theory (diet breadth models), which better accounted for the complexity of human-resource interactions and decision making. The vari-ous efforts to clarify this issue during the 1960s through 1980s proved especially beneficial to the development of EA research in the region by stimulating some of the first detailed and ecologically informed considerations of foodways and the environmental circumstances of human economic patterns and settlement. This included the first systematic studies of plant and animal remains from Caribbean sites as various specialists became in-volved in projects to undertake identifications and anal-yses of the collections. Through this research, Elizabeth S. Wing (1969, 1989, 2008), who was originally trained as a zoologist, initiated scientifically oriented zooarchaeol-ogy, ultimately establishing a fully comprehensive pro-gram in Caribbean EA at the Florida Museum of Natural History that also incorporated archaeobotany and geo-archaeology. The museum remains an important center for EA research for the Caribbean region.

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Zooarchaeology

Wing and others (e.g., Lisabeth Carlson, Susan deFrance, Sandrine Grouard, Yvonne Narganes Storde, Lourdes Pérez Iglesias, and Nathalie Serrand) have since clari-fied the essential relationship of marine faunal resources to Caribbean human existence throughout all periods of human occupation. They have identified the key foci of indigenous fishing—taxa such as groupers (Serrani-dae), snappers (Lutjani(Serrani-dae), parrotfish (Scari(Serrani-dae), and particular shellfish—and illuminated the variety and na-ture of fishing techniques and practices. Harking back to the former idea of a crab/shell dichotomy, this research has indeed revealed evidence of unsustainable practices, such as overfishing that led to adverse effects on land crab populations and predictable shifts in exploitation of fish taxa across trophic levels. However, Caribbean zoo-archaeologists have also demonstrated that the fishing enterprise was only part of a much more complex and involved interaction with fauna. For example, muscovy ducks and turtles may have been managed, and capro-mid rodents (Capromyidae; also known as hutias) were apparently intentionally moved to islands where they were not originally found. Other small animals were evidently intentionally introduced from South America (e.g., agouti, Dasyprocta leporine; guinea pig, Cavia por-cellus; opossum, Didelphis marsupialis; and armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus) for reasons that are still debated.

The potential significance and roles of these captive fauna in Caribbean indigenous social and economic systems, while still unknown, could certainly have served at least to enhance protein sources in this region, where terres-trial vertebrate fauna were impoverished. There is some suggestion that at least guinea pig presence involved ex-clusive use by elites, perhaps with ritual connotations, while the other animals may have been allowed to run wild in the islands, enhancing the availability of wild protein sources. Human interaction with domesticated animals besides guinea pig is clear from the presence of dogs; evidence includes dog burials and tooth modifica-tion (perhaps for a muzzle or other restraining device).

Several additional types of animals, e.g. capuchin mon-key (Cebus sp.) and macaw (Ara autochthones), may also have been kept as companions or pets.

Archaeobotany

Taíno staple crops and some aspects of indigenous co-nuco gardening practices have long been known from ethnohistoric documents. However, in the 1980s, Lee Newsom (1993) and Deborah Pearsall (1989) began to

clarify details by initiating archaeobotanical research in the region. Although the first report and potential evi-dence of conuco crops—purported maize kernels (Zea mays) from the Sugar Factory site on St. Kitts—turned out to be incorrect, kernels and cob fragments have since been recovered from two late Ceramic (Ostionoid) sites:

En Bas Saline, Haiti, and Tutu, St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands. Intriguing suggestions that maize was multi-cropped exist in the presence of two distinct races at the former site, but there is no indication that maize ever attained the status of a staple food in the region.

Root crops appear to have been the focus of food pro-duction; at least seven types of root crops are thought to have been grown in the Caribbean just prior to the arrival of Europeans. En Bas Saline is one of few sites to produce macro remains of these crops, including manioc (Manihot esculenta) and possibly also sweet potato (Ipo-moea batatas). Seeds of chili pepper (Capsicum sp.), an-other of the ethnohistorically mentioned crops, were also recovered from En Bas Saline. Maize and the other crops previously mentioned plus a series of important arboreal taxa that have also been identified from Ceramic Age as-semblages, including papaya (Carica papaya), guanábana (Annona sp.), achiote (Bixa orellana), and cojóbilla (Anadenanthera sp.), were introduced from outside the region. Undoubtedly in the Caribbean, as elsewhere, the significance and use of these botanical resources evolved over time. Nevertheless, their continued use in the Ca-ribbean islands over the centuries demonstrates conti-nuity with mainly South American traditions involving agricultural investments, home gardening, and a variety of ethnobotanical practices and ritual and belief systems.

In the 1970s, several Caribbeanists began to specu-late in writing about whether plant cultivation and some degree of reliance on domesticated plants could possi-bly have occurred earlier than the Ceramic Age in the islands. Potential evidence from collections predating about 500 BC was known from the María de la Cruz rock shelter in Puerto Rico, which was excavated in the 1940s by Rouse and Ricardo Alegría, and from Krum Bay, St. Thomas. The rock shelter reportedly yielded wild avocado (Persea americana) and yellow sapote (Pouteria campechiana), both of which are native to Central America and have had long associations with indigenous home garden production there. Níspero, or sapote (Manilkara sp.), seeds from Krum Bay are mor-phologically consistent with M. zapota, a species from Central America that is cultivated for its edible fruit and

“chicle” gum. Recently, Jaime Pagán-Jiménez (2009) has provided intriguing support for this hypothesis based on starch grain evidence from sites such as Maruca on

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Puerto Rico. These data suggest history of maize and manioc that predates the Ceramic Age in the region and an early presence of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), sweet potato, and several other potential root crops from South America. The present consensus is that Caribbean subsistence economies before the middle of the first mil-lennium BC extended beyond fishing and foraging to include plant management. Moreover, the relevant ar-chaeobotanical assemblages imply two separate sources of original germplasm: Central America and South America. Pagán-Jiménez’s analyses have also revealed the presence of the cycad Zamia (marunguey), another edible starch source and one that may represent in situ domestication of a native plant.

Zooarchaeologists and archaeobotanists have also been active with historic period contexts, revealing de-tails of colonial or mestizo maize production, the fusion cuisine and foodways of enslaved peoples on Bahamian plantations, and the introduction of additional crops and domesticated animals from outside the region, for example, tomatoes (Lycopersicon sp.) from Mexico and pigs (Sus scrofa) from Iberia. Caribbean EA thus has also emerged as a way to elucidate the third major intercon-tinental transfer of biodiversity affecting the region, the so-called Columbian Exchange.

Recent technological refinements have made pos-sible another relevant development: absorbed organic residues analysis to detect the presence of lipids and water-soluble compounds retained on or within items such as pottery, pipes, inhalers, and other bone or ce-ramic implements. This avenue of research is providing new insights into prehistoric food production and con-sumption practices, including feasting behavior, espe-cially when combined with studies of vessel form and function. It is also a way to further elucidate ritual be-haviors and practices, revealing both the history and va-riety of narcotic plants used by Caribbean Amerindians as smoking materials. These include tobacco (Nicotiana) and cojóbilla (Anadenanthera) snuff. Joanna Ostapko-wicz (1997, 1998) and Elenora Reber (2012) have been at the forefront of this research. Genetic analysis is the latest addition to the analytical tool kit. One study pres-ently under way involves ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis of bottle gourd (Lagenaria) remains.

Bioarchaeology

Bioarchaeology in the Caribbean has clear roots in the work of Adelaide Bullen, for example, her 1970 study of a burial on Saint Lucia. By the 1980s and 1990s, consid-erably more work was under way by others that

incor-porated increasingly sophisticated means of analyses.

Research conducted on human remains from formal cemeteries (e.g., El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba; Maisabel, Puerto Rico; Anse à la Gourde, Guadeloupe; Malmok, Aruba; St. Michielsberg, Curaçao) and analyses of vari-ous isolated burials (e.g., Golden Rock, St. Eustatius) have provided details illuminating human health and nutrition and demographic and other issues, which are further contextualized with evidence for symbolic and ritual behavior, social inequality, and more. William Keegan originated osteochemical research in the region, using stable isotopes analyses of Lucayan Taíno remains from the Bahamas. Biogeochemical analyses have since been increasingly used to clarify information about diet for separate subregions, time periods, and cultures of the region. Most recently, work by Menno Hoogland (Hoogland, Hofman, and Panhuysen, 2010), Ann Ross and Douglas Ubelaker (Ross and Ubelaker 2010), and others involving analysis of skeletal morphometric traits and tooth wear patterns in combination with strontium isotope analysis has provided significant insights into human mobility and migration patterns. Genetic analy-ses have also been undertaken. Martínez-Cruzado (2010) has worked extensively on human mtDNA lineages in Puerto Rico. That and other research involving aDNA recovered from skeletal material from Hispañiola and Cuba was recently summarized by Schurr (2010). Along with the archaeobotany and zooarchaeology, this kind of research is providing a clearer picture of the shifting balance and baselines for human population in the re-gion, including health and disease transmission, creat-ing a better overall sense of the historical demographics of the region.

Geoarchaeology

Like the other pursuits, geoarchaeology, or pedoar-chaeology, includes a range of techniques and scales of analyses. These may include basic soil and sediment research on a single site (e.g., Scudder’s [2001] recent work at Tibes, Puerto Rico, which distinguished natu-ral from cultunatu-rally influenced deposits). On a larger scale, geoarchaeology may involve broader study of the surrounding landscape and regional environment (e.g., Waters and colleagues [1993] on Jamaica). Core sampling focused on discerning both paleoecological trends is increasingly being used in the region, as are Geographic Information Systems methods and technol-ogy. These have provided insights into drought history and freshwater availability, vegetation patterns, and various other concerns relevant to human occupation,

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such as the abandonment of particular islands or por-tions of islands at particular points in time. The multi-proxy paleoecological record generated by Peros and colleagues (2007) from Laguna de la Leche, Cuba, is an outstanding example of modern practice. In this case, a team of EA specialists clarified the effects of relative sea level change and climate change in the context of human settlement dynamics.

Certainly Caribbean EA research has advanced con-siderably from the time when a crab/shell dichotomy was first discussed. A much-improved understanding of human behavioral ecology and a fairly expansive data base has done much to better contextualize the re-gion’s human cultures in terms of their environmental circumstances. Research examining the development of anthropogenic landscapes, including the role of past Caribbean peoples in trophic cascades, is especially relevant today because of the obvious implications for present conditions. We continue to seek a better under-standing of the human decision-making process with respect to natural resources and the varied influences of human culture on the region’s natural and agricul-tural biodiversity. EA is a vibrant and active area of re-search in the Caribbean and will continue to be so for years to come.

Further Reading

Bullen, A. K. 1970. “Case Study of an Amerindian Burial with Grave Goods from Grande Anse, Saint Lucia.” In Proceed-ings of the Third International Congress for the Study of Pre-Columbian Cultures of the Lesser Antilles, 1969, 45–60. St.

George: Grenada National Museum with the International Association of Caribbean Archaeology.

Fewkes, J. W. 1914. “Relations of Aboriginal Culture and En-vironment in the Lesser Antilles.” Bulletin of the American Geographical Society 46 (9): 662–78.

Fitzpatrick, S. M., and A. H. Ross, eds. 2010. Distant Shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Approaches to the Pre-Columbian Settlement of the Caribbean. Gainesville:

University Press of Florida.

Hofman, C. L., M. L. P. Hoogland, and A. L. van Gijn, eds. 2008.

Crossing the Borders: New Methods and Techniques in the Study of Archaeological Materials from the Caribbean. Tus-caloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Hoogland, M. L. P., C. L. Hofman, and R. G. A. M. Panhuysen.

2010. “Interisland Dynamics: Evidence for Human Mobil-ity at the Site of Anse à la Gourde, Guadeloupe.” In Island Shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Ap-proaches to the Pre-Columbian Settlement of the Caribbean, ed. S. M. Fitzpatrick and A. H. Ross, 148–62. Gainesville:

University Press of Florida.

Keegan, W. F. 1985. Dynamic Horticulturalists: Population

Ex-pansion in the Prehistoric Bahamas. PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles.

Martínez-Cruzado, J. C. 2010. “The History of Amerindian Mi-tochondrial DNA Lineages in Puerto Rico.” In Island Shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Approaches to the Pre-Columbian Settlement of the Caribbean, ed. S. M.

Fitzpatrick and A. H. Ross, 54–80. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Newsom, L. A. 1993. “Native West Indian Plant Use.” PhD diss.

University of Florida, Gainesville.

Newsom, L. A., and D. A. Trieu. 2011. “Fusion Gardens: Native North America and the Columbian Exchange.” In Subsis-tence Economies of Indigenous North American Societies: A Handbook, ed. B. D. Smith, 557–76. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Newsom, L. A., and E. S. Wing. 2004. On Land and Sea: Na-tive American Uses of Biological Resources in the West Indies.

Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Ostapkowicz, J. 1997. “To Be Seated ‘with Great Courtesy and Veneration’: Contextual Aspects of the Taíno Duho.” In Taíno: Pre-Columbian Art and Culture from the Caribbean, ed. F. Brecht, E. Brodsky, J. A. Farmer, and D. Taylor, 55–67.

New York: Monacelli Press and Museo del Barrio.

———. 1998. “Taíno Wooden Sculpture: Duhos, Rulership and the Visual Arts in the 12th–16th Century Caribbean.” PhD thesis, Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich.

Pagán-Jiménez, J. R. 2009. “Recientes avances de los estudios paleoetnobotánicos en Puerto Rico: Nueva información obtenida desde la perspectiva del estudio de almidones antiguos.” In Encuentro de Investigadores de Arqueología y Etnohistoria, no. 7, ed. Carlos A. Pérez Merced, 78–94. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.

Pearsall, D. M. 1989. “Plant Utilization at the Krum Bay Site, St. Thomas U.S.V.I.” In Preceramic Procurement Patterns at Krum Bay, Virgin Islands by E. R. Lundberg (Appendix C), PhD dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.

Peros, M. C., E. G. Reinhardt, A. M. Davis. 2007. “A 6000-Year Record of Ecological and Hydrological Changes from Laguna de la Leche, North Coastal Cuba.” Quaternary Re-search 67 (1): 69–82.

Rainey, F. G. 1940. Porto Rican Archaeology. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.

Reber, Eleanora A. 2012. “Absorbed Residue Analysis of 21 Sherds from the El Chorro de Maita Site, Holguin, Cuba.”

Papers of the UNCW Residue Lab 16, UNCW Anthropo-logical Papers 21. Wilmington, NC.

Reitz, E. J., C. M. Scarry, and S. J. Scudder, eds. 2008. Case Studies in Environmental Archaeology. 2nd ed. New York:

Springer.

Rouse, I. 1941. Culture of the Ft. Liberté Region, Haiti. New Ha-ven, CT: Yale University Press.

———. 1986. Migrations in Prehistory: Inferring Population Movement from Cultural Remains. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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———. 1992. The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Ross, A. H., and D. H. Ubelaker. 2010. “A Morphometric Ap-proach to Taíno Biological Distance in the Caribbean.” In Island Shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Approaches to the Pre-Columbian Settlement of the Carib-bean, ed. S. M. Fitzpatrick and A. H. Ross, 108–26. Gaines-ville: University Press of Florida.

Schurr, T. G. 2010. “Coastal Waves and Island Hopping: A Ge-netic View of Caribbean Prehistory and New World Colo-nization.” In Island Shores, Distant Pasts: Archaeological and Biological Approaches to the Pre-Columbian Settlement of the Caribbean, ed. S. M. Fitzpatrick and A. H. Ross, 177–97.

Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Scudder, S. J. 2001. “Soil Resources and Anthropogenic Changes at the Tibes Site, Ponce, Puerto Rico.” Caribbean Journal of Science 37 (1–2): 30–40.

Waters, M., J. R. Giardino, D. W. Ryter, and J. M. Parrent.

1993. “Geoarchaeological Investigations of St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica: The Search for the Columbus Caravels and an

As-sessment of 1000 Years of Human Land Use.” Geoarchaeol-ogy 8 (4): 259–79.

Wilkie, L. A., and P. Farnsworth. 2005. Sampling Many Pots: An Archaeology of Memory and Tradition at a Bahamian Plan-tation. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Wing, E. S. 1969. “Vertebrate Remains Excavated from San Salvador Island, Bahamas.” Caribbean Journal of Science 9 (1–2): 25–29.

———. 1989. “Human Exploitation of Animal Resources in the Caribbean.” In Biogeography of the West Indies, ed. C. A.

Woods, 137–52. Gainesville, FL: Sandhill Crane Press.

———. 2008. “Pets and Camp Followers in the West Indies.” In Case Studies in Environmental Archaeology, 2nd ed., ed. E.

J. Reitz, C. M. Scarry, and S. J. Scudder, 405–25. New York:

Springer.

See also Crab/Shell Dichotomy; DNA and Caribbean Archaeology; The Florida Museum of Natural History;

Loyola (French Guiana).

Environmental Archaeology

F

Falmouth (Jamaica)

Patricia E. Green

Introduction

Historical archaeology draws upon research from many disciplines, including anthropology, history, geography, and folklore, to understand and interpret physical re-mains. Historical archaeologists consult both the his-torical record and the physical record in their efforts to discover the fabric of common everyday life in the past and seek to understand the broader historical develop-ment of their own and other societies. This approach has made possible fresh interpretations of the history and architecture of Falmouth, most notably through the Fal-mouth Façade Improvement Programme (FFIP) of the 1990s. This initiative helped define Falmouth as a Cre-ole town, particularly because of the development of a residential architectural type there termed the Falmouth house, which evolved in the late eighteenth century and continues to be a part of Falmouth’s townscape. Using

historic illustrations of the town, atlases, and maps, the FFIP delineated the boundaries of Falmouth’s historic district and established the district as a priority area for the purposes of grants and awards.

In 1795, the port of Falmouth was declared the capital town of the parish of Trelawny, replacing the inland capi-tal of Martha Brae. The parish vestry minutes state that it was the best-laid-out town on the island (Falmouth Res-toration Company n.d.). The town was comprised of ar-tisans and seafarers, freed people of color, freed Africans, and members of the plantocracy. By the early nineteenth century, it was a bourgeoning cosmopolitan port town and commercial center. Its harbor teemed with slaving

In 1795, the port of Falmouth was declared the capital town of the parish of Trelawny, replacing the inland capi-tal of Martha Brae. The parish vestry minutes state that it was the best-laid-out town on the island (Falmouth Res-toration Company n.d.). The town was comprised of ar-tisans and seafarers, freed people of color, freed Africans, and members of the plantocracy. By the early nineteenth century, it was a bourgeoning cosmopolitan port town and commercial center. Its harbor teemed with slaving