Preceramic Faunal Exploitation at the Las Obas Site, Cuba (original) (raw)
FAUNAL REMAINS FROM THE ARCHAIC AND ARCHAIC CERAMIC SITE OF VEGA DEL PALMAR, CUBA
The earliest occupants of Cuba were hunter-gatherers that arrived from Central America approximately 5,000 years ago. While the broad outlines of Cuban prehistory are known, a lack of quantified faunal data and a limited number of radiocarbon dates hinder our ability to describe the subsistence economy in local and regional contexts. In this paper we present new vertebrate faunal data and radiocarbon dates from the pre-ceramic and early ceramic site of Vega del Palmar which is located near Cienfuegos on the south coast of Cuba, comparing the Archaic occupation with ceramics to the Archaic occupation that lacks ceramics.
Faunal Remains from the Archaic and Archaic with Ceramic Site of Vega del Palmar, Cuba.
Journal of Caribbean Archaeology, 2014
The earliest occupants of Cuba were hunter-gatherers that arrived from Central America approximately 5,000 years ago. While the broad outlines of Cuban prehistory are known, a lack of quantified faunal data and a limited number of radiocarbon dates hinder our ability to describe the subsistence economy in local and regional contexts. In this paper we present new vertebrate faunal data and radiocarbon dates from the pre-ceramic and early ceramic site of Vega del Palmar which is located near Cienfuegos on the south coast of Cuba, comparing the Archaic occupation with ceramics to the Archaic occupation that lacks ceramics.
Papers from the Institute of Archaeology. University College London, 2004
Report of a coastal survey conducted around the pre-Hispanic site of Los Buchillones located on the north coast of the Ciego de Avila province, in Cuba. The primary objective of the survey was to identify the extent of the Los Buchillones settlement site and investigate whether there were more pre-Hispanic occupation sites further along the coast. The secondary objective was to test different survey strategies and examine their suitability for the local wetland environment. Although there is no doubt that environmental conditions greatly affect the visibility of the archaeological evidence, this survey has shown that it is possible to conduct a useful archaeological survey in a mangrove swamp environment. This research presents an opportunity to investigate the inter-island and coastal networks of pre-Hispanic indigenous communities in this region by exploiting the great archaeological potential of the Cuban wetland environment.
Geological development of Cuba
Zeitschrift für …, 2000
The geology of Cuba is a record of the Late Cretaceous to Paleogene collision between a northeastward-moving Cretaceous island are and the heterogeneous, serrated continental margin of North America. A stack of nappes composed of typical passive margin sediments from the Yucatan Peninsula is exposed in Western Cuba. Central Cuba contains the suture zone between the island are and associated ophiolites to the south with the carbonate-dominated margin of the Bahamas platform to the north. lsolated metamorphic complexes with high-pressure rocks are exposed south of the suture in tectonic windows, in which ages of 140 Ma have been obtained for high-pressure metamorphism in eclogites and blueschists. A younger, Paleogene island are is exposed in the Sierra Maestra of Eastern Cuba. The collision first involved oblique interaction with the NE-trending Yucatan margin, perhaps as early as the Cenomanian, before direct docking on the NW-trending margin of the Bahamas platform occurred. We suggest that the younger Paleogene are was initiated by polarity reversa! after docking of the north-facing Cretaceous are. The 140 Ma age from the high-pressure rocks indicates that the Cretaceous island are may have incorporated rocks originally metamorphosed a long the western margin of the Americas. SH 1 (2000) 1 Sonderl1eft ZAG
The geology of Cuba: A brief overview and synthesis
GSA today, 2016
Cuba is the largest island in the Greater Antilles, and its geology records three important episodes: (1) the Jurassic breakup of North and South America (Pangea) and associated passive margin and oceanic sedimentary and magmatic evolution; (2) the sedimentary, magmatic, and metamorphic evolution of an intra-oceanic Cretaceous-Paleogene ophiolite-arc complex; and (3) the Paleogene "soft collision" and transfer of the NW Caribbean plate (and Cuba) to the North American plate. Thick sequences of Jurassic-Cretaceous strata (conglomerates, sandstones, limestones, dolostones, shales) and interlayered basaltic rocks characterize passive margin sequences preserved in the Guaniguanico terrane (western Cuba, related to the Mayan passive margin and the Gulf of Mexico) and the Bahamas Platform borderlands (north of Cuba). Passive margin deposition ceased in latest Cretaceous time, when increasing relief of accreted (overriding) oceanic arc and ophiolite complexes shed coarse sediments (olistostrome and flysch), followed by carbonate deposition. Fragments of the intervening oceanic lithosphere (Proto-Caribbean, connected to the Central Atlantic) and fore-and back-arc oceanic lithosphere (Caribbean, of Pacific origin) occur as tectonic fragments detached from the ophiolitic units, including serpentinized harzburgites and dunites, banded and isotropic gabbros, basalts (tholeiitic and fore-arc basalts, locally with boninites) and Late Jurassic (Tithonian) through Late Cretaceous (Coniacian and younger) oceanic sediments. Arc activity in the Cuban segment of the Greater Antilles produced sedimentary, volcanic, and plutonic rocks during Cretaceous times (ca. 135-70 Ma). A new arc developed in eastern Cuba during Paleocene-middle Eocene times. Cuban arc sequences include island-arc tholeiitic, calcalkaline, and alkaline bimodal suites of volcanic and plutonic rocks. Remnants of Proto-Caribbean oceanic lithosphere occur as exhumed mélangebearing eclogite-, blueschist-, and garnet-amphibolite-facies tectonic blocks (oldest age ca. 120 Ma) within a serpentinite matrix intercalated with, or at the base of, the overthrusted ophiolitic bodies. Cuban Cretaceous arc magmatic activity ended due The geology of Cuba: A brief overview and synthesis to the subduction of Proto-Caribbean passive margin sequences of the Caribeana terrane, an offshore protuberance of Yucatan. This event formed strongly deformed high-pressure metasedimentary and metaigneous rocks at ca. 70 Ma, when the Caribbean plate began to collide with North America. The collision, which included overriding of the ophiolitic and arc units over both subducted and unsubducted passive margin sequences, also produced synorogenic basins and filled them, a process that continued until ca. 40 Ma. This foldbelt was succeeded by local uplift and subsidence to form late Eocene-Recent unconformable post-orogenic continental basins.
Levisa 1. Studying the earliest indigenous peoples of Cuba in multicomponent archaeological sites
Early Settlers of the INSULAR CARIBBEAN Dearchaizing the Archaic, 2019
The archaeological site Levisa 1, in northeast Cuba, possesses one of the earlier radiocarbon dates for the so called ¨archaic¨ communities in this Island and one of the earliest one from the Caribbean region. For this reason that place is a basic reference for the study of the archaic groups. Also due to its location and potential link with other important archaic sites, and because possesses contexts that reflect diverse types and moments of pre-Arawak’s occupations, and even ceramic use. This paper revises the archaeological data of Levisa 1, the history of its investigation and its implications in the knowledge of the archaic societies in Cuba and the Caribbean. We discusses how the methodological and theoretical changes more than the incorporation of new data or a detailed and deep analysis of the available information have determined the understanding of that space.
Stratigraphic investigations at Los Buchillones, a coastal Taino site in north-central Cuba
Geoarchaeology, 2006
The authors present stratigraphic data from Los Buchillones, a now submerged Taino village on the north coast of central Cuba that was occupied from some time prior to A.D. 1220 until 1640 or later. Los Buchillones is one of the best-preserved sites in the Caribbean, with material culture remains that include palm thatch and wooden structural elements from some of the more than 40 collapsed structures. The purpose of this study was to investigate the environment and site-formation processes of the Taino settlement. Sediment cores were sampled from the site and its vicinity to permit integration of the geological and archaeological stratigraphies. The cores were analyzed for color, texture, mollusk content, elemental geochemistry, and mineralogy. The results of the stratigraphic work are consistent with regional sealevel data that shows relative sea level has risen gradually during the late Holocene, but has remained relatively stable since the time the Taino first occupied Los Buchillones. Of the two structures partially cleared, at least one appears to have been built over the water, supported on pilings. Site selection is likely to have resulted from a consideration of environmental factors, such as access to marine, terrestrial, and lagoonal resources, and proximity to freshwater springs.
A Geographic Perspective of Cuba’s Changing Landscapes
Springer eBooks, 2022
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Weston, D. and R. Valcárcel Rojas 2016 Communities in Contact: Health and Paleodemography at El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba. In Cuban Archaeology in the Caribbean, edited by I. Roksandic, pp. 83-105. Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series. University Press of Florida, Gainesville , 2016
The site of El Chorro de Maíta contains the remains of indigenous peoples who were among the first to interact with Europeans in the New World. By reading the population history of these people, as written in their bones and teeth, we can achieve an understanding of their lives under the Spanish colonial encomienda system of forced labor—a system that by 1540 had reduced the indig-enous population of Cuba to only 2,000, from what may have once been between 225,000 and 553,000.