Renewing the House: Trajectories of Social Life in the Yucayeque (Community) of El Cabo, Higuey, Dominican Republic

enewing 

the house h 

Trajectories of social life in the yucayeque 

(community) of El Cabo, Higüey, Dominican 

Republic, AD 800 to 1504 

Alice V.M. Samson


the house 

Sidestone Press

© 2010 A.V.M. Samson 

Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden 

www.sidestone.com 

Sidestone registration number: SSP58050001 

ISBN 978-90-8890-045-7 

Illustrations cover: 

Cover design: K. Wentink, Sidestone Press / A.V.M. Samson 

Lay-out: P.C. van Woerdekom, Sidestone Press / A.V.M. Samson

Renewing the house 

TRAJECTORIES OF SOCIAL LIFE IN THE yucayeque (COMMUNITY) OF EL 

CABO, HIGÜEY, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, AD 800 TO 1504 

proefschrift 

ter verkrijging van 

de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, 

op gezag van Rector Magnificus prof. mr. P.F. van der Heijden, 

volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties 

te verdedigen op donderdag 22 april 2010 

klokke 13.45 uur 

door 

Alice Victoria Maud Samson 

geboren te Dover, Great Britain 

in 1977

Promotiecommissie 

Promotor: Prof. Dr. Corinne L. Hofman 

Co-promotor: Dr. Menno L. P. Hoogland 

Overige leden: Prof. Dr. Maarten E. R. G. N. Jansen, Universiteit Leiden 

Prof. Dr. Harry Fokkens, Universiteit Leiden 

Prof. Dr. Peter J. Pels, Universiteit Leiden 

Dr. Arie Boomert, Universiteit Leiden 

Dr. Stéphen Rostain, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 

Nanterre, Frankrijk 

To my grandparents, Lillian Samson, Richard Samson and Fay Collister, with love.

Contents 

Preface 11 

Houses for the living and the dead 12 

Scope of the research 14 

Dissertation structure and chapter outline 14 

1 Introduction 17 

1.1 Positioning the El Cabo research within the Greater Antillean 

archaeological tradition 18 

1.2 Overview of structure excavations in the Greater Antilles 19 

1.2.1 Summary of Greater Antillean structure characteristics 23 

1.3 Positioning the El Cabo research within the archaeological research 

history of the Dominican Republic 26 

1.3.1 The early phase 27 

1.3.2 A national Dominican archaeology 28 

1.3.3 The Dominican Golden Age 29 

1.3.4 The current state of affairs 30 

1.4 Positioning the El Cabo research locally 31 

1.4.1 Threats to the Dominican heritage 31 

1.4.2 Large-scale destruction 32 

1.4.3 The relevance of El Cabo to local history and vice versa 33 

1.5 Discussion 34 

2 Trajectories of social life 37 

2.1 Household archaeologies 37 

2.1.1 Methodology in household archaeology 38 

2.1.2 House theories in archaeology 39 

2.1.3 Definitions and approach used in the dissertation 41 

2.2 The house as a unit of analysis in the archaeology of the indigenous 

Greater Antilles 43 

2.2.1 The material house 44 

2.2.2 Houses and kinship 44 

2.2.3 House temporalities 46 

2.2.4 Houses, identity and personhood 47 

2.2.5 Houses, hierarchy and social complexity 48 

2.3 Two sources of analogy as reference points in the study of El Cabo 50 

2.3.1 The house and Amazonian sociality: Aesthetics, morals and socialisation 

50 

2.3.2 Present day El Cabo 52 

2.4 Review of data in early colonial sources 53 

2.4.1 Physical descriptions of houses 54 

2.4.2 House layout, furnishings and activities 57 

2.4.3 Settlement layout 58 

2.4.4 Household organization 58

2.4.5 Conceptualization and cultural status of house 60 

2.4.6 Discussion 62 

2.5 Review of house as research focus in Greater Antillean archaeology 62 

2.5.1 Discussion of the different approaches 66 


3 Regional and local setting of El Cabo 67 

3.1 Research history in the eastern region 67 

3.1.1 Previous investigations 68 

3.2 El Cabo: Site setting 70 

3.3 Geological setting: Dissolving worlds 72 

3.3.1 The eastern coastal plains 73 

3.3.2 Summary 77 

3.4 Ecology and palaeoecology 77 

3.4.1 Current ecology of the eastern Dominican Republic 78 

3.4.2 Palaeoecology of El Cabo 81 

3.5 Land use history 84 

3.5.1 Material history 84 

3.5.2 Census data and reconstructed history 84 

3.5.3 Oral history 85 

3.5.4 Summary and discussion 86 

3.6 Regional setting: Pre-Columbian and colonial Higüey 86 

3.6.1 The archaeology of the eastern region, post-AD 600 86 

3.6.2 Settlement patterns 89 


3.6.4 Higüey: The last cacicazgo and the pacification of the east 94 

3.7 El Cabo archaeological research history 97 

3.7.1 El Cabo in 1978 98 

3.7.2 El Cabo in 2000 99 

3.7.3 El Cabo in recent fieldwork and historical reports 102 


4 Current research in El Cabo 107 

4.1 Introduction: the processes of discovery or rediscubrimiento 

in El Cabo 107 

4.1.1 Summary of 2005 fieldwork 107 




4.2 Fieldwork procedures 112 

4.2.1 The site grid 113 

4.2.2 The find layer 114 

4.2.3 The feature layer 115 

4.2.4 Soil descriptions 115 

4.2.5 Drawings 115 

4.3.6 Off-site processing of find material 116 

4.2.7 Coring programme and mapping of site elevations 118

4.2.9 Small unit excavations 124 

4.2.10 Main unit excavation methodology and features 134 

4.2.11 Surface survey methodology 147 


5 Reconstructions of the built environment in El Cabo 151 

5.1 Methodology of reconstruction 151 

5.1.1 Desk-based analysis 152 

5.1.2 Confidence classes 153 

5.1.3 Presentation of the structure interpretations 155 

5.2 Structure interpretations 156 

5.2 Remaining features 237 

5.4 Structure typology 238 

5.4.1 Type 1 239 

5.4.2 Type 2 240 

5.4.3 Type 3 241 

5.4.4 Type 4 242 

5.4.5 Type 5 242 

5.4.6 Type 6 243 

5.4.7 Type 7 243 

5.4.8 Type 8 244 

5.4.9 Unassigned structures 244 


6 The house that Higuanamá inherited: Trajectories of social life 

in El Cabo 245 

6.1 Dating and chronology of built structures 245 

Phases 247 

6.1.1 Phase a 248 

6.1.2 Phase b 251 

6.1.3 Phase c 252 

6.1.4 Phase d 254 

6.1.5 Phase e 255 

6.1.6 Discussion of phases 256 

6.2 Longevity of the estate: House Trajectories in a diachronic perspective 257 

6.2.1 House Trajectory 1 258 






6.3 The development of estates and their interaction 260 

6.3.1 Trajectories of renewal: The life cycle of the House Trajectory 262 

6.3.2 Summary of renewal 267 

6.4 House aesthetics and “the beauty of the everyday” 268 

6.4.1 Entrances 269 

6.4.2 Orientation 270

6.4.3 Regularity 270 

6.4.4 Circular arguments and asymmetry 270 

6.4.5 Depositions: Dressing the house in closing rituals 271 


6.5 Daily life and the temporalities of the domestic realm in El Cabo 273 

6.5.1 Ceramic distribution 273 

6.5.2 Griddle distribution 276 

6.5.3 Marine shell distribution 277 

6.5.4 Bodily adornments, community regalia and cemí items 279 

6.5.5 Tools 281 

6.5.6 Colonial material 282 


6.6 The yucayeque (survey results) 291 

6.6.1 Ceramic distribution 293 

6.6.2 Griddle distribution 293 


6.6.4 Paraphernalia distribution 294 

6.6.5 Discussion of distributions 295 

6.6.6 Features and artefact distributions across the site 297 

6.7 The house within the yucayeque community setting 298 

6.8 House and community demography and kinship 300 

6.8.1 House and site population estimates 301 

6.8.2 El Cabo house and community estimates 302 

6.8.3 Social composition of houses 303 

6.8.4 The dimensions and manifestations of kinship in El Cabo 304 


7 House Trajectories, the constitution of culture, and social 

complexity in Higüey 307 

7.1 Summary of results 307 

7.2 Implications of a house perspective for Late Ceramic Age 

culture and social complexity 311 

Glossary 313 

References 317 

Appendix 1: Field forms 347 

Appendix 2: Overview of attributes per structure 356 

Appendix 3: Features per structure 358 

Summary 359 

Resumen 361 

Samenvatting 363 

Acknowledgements 365 

Curriculum vitae 369

Preface 

No house plans have been published for precolonial Hispaniola. Dwellings are 

generally presumed to have stood in the gaps between burial mounds and plazas, 

or wherever midden residues accumulated at these sites. Indeed, we have very 

little idea from archaeology what actual houses may have looked like, or more 

importantly, how they functioned, or what their significance and role was in 

pre-Columbian Hispaniolan society. In other words, we know very little about 

the physical and lived characteristics of precolonial daily life in the island’s domestic 

setting. Enthusiasts, physicians and speleologists with their interest in 

indigenous art, petroglyphs and burials have dominated the archaeological history 

of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Houses are absent, even though 

sometimes invoked as factors in models of culture change. The data from the site 

of El Cabo in the Dominican Republic, presented here, tips the scales the other 

way, contributing to a household archaeology in the Caribbean and a history of 

indigenous life in eastern Hispaniola, through the study of a significant native 

institution. 

This dissertation concerns seven centuries in the history of the precolonial 

and post-contact community, or yucayeque 1 , of El Cabo San Rafael, a settlement 

site on the east coast of the Dominican Republic (Fig. 1). El Cabo was inhabited 

for almost a millennium, from AD 600 to the first decades of European contact 

in the 16 th century. The current research (re-) constructs the domestic structures 

at the site and interprets their associated artefact assemblages and the site organization 

from the latest phase of precolonial habitation, between ca. AD 800 

and 1504. 

 

Caribbean Sea 

Figure 1. Hispaniola and its 

location within the Caribbean 

region (inset). The El Cabo 

archaeological site is marked 

with black dot. 

0 100 200 

kilometres 

1 Yucayeque is an indigenous term meaning “the people, or we people from this place” in the majority 

language (Taíno) of Hispaniola. The use of this term in this dissertation will be discussed 

in Chapter 2. 

Preface 

11

Data recovered in four fieldwork seasons from 2005 to 2008 provide insight 

into the house as a material, aesthetic, historical and social institution in the 

precolonial Caribbean. This is apparent in the details of architectural and settlement 

layout, both from a synchronic and diachronic perspective, and from 

the scale of the single house to the whole late settlement. A history emerges of 

indigenous life anchored in the historical province of Higüey in the centuries 

when demographic growth and socio-political complexity was at its height in 

the precolonial Greater Antilles. This we know from regional settlement studies, 

the presence of plaza and ceremonial complexes, demographic growth, agricultural 

intensification, high status artefacts and early colonial documents. A 

house-based perspective aims to complement these data. 

Houses for the living and the dead 

The present dissertation is the result of a sub-project forming part of the larger 

multi-disciplinary research design Houses for the Living and the Dead, 2 a 5-year 

project funded by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO, 

grant number 360-62-030), under the direction of Dr Menno L. P. Hoogland. 

The sub-project, “Reading the features: A (re)construction of Taíno house structures 

at El Cabo 3 in the eastern Dominican Republic”, represents the archaeological 

section of a multidisciplinary project which also combines the study 

of colonial document and bioarchaeological research. Colleagues Dr Adriana 

I. Churampi Ramírez and Dr Raphaël Panhuysen fulfil the historic document 

and bioarchaeological components. 4 The project has so far generated a number 

of reports, conference papers, undergraduate and graduate theses, and journal 

articles, and will be the subject of a forthcoming monograph. 5 

Overall aims of the research were to study the organisation of settlement 

space and residence rules in a Late Ceramic Age community in the Greater 

Antilles. Specific research questions related to the dissertation sub-project were 

the following: 

(1) What do the house structures at El Cabo look like? 

(2) What is the relation between the house structures and other features (burials, 

hearths, middens, artefact distributions, etc.)? 

(3) Is it possible to (re)construct different households or household clusters? 

(4) Are there marked differences of organisation and socio-economic status between 

different sets of households, as can be inferred from the early historic 

sources? 

2 Full title “Houses for the Living and the Dead: Organisation of settlement space and residence rules 

among the Taíno, the indigenous people of the Caribbean encountered by Columbus.”Principal 

applicant Dr Menno L. P. Hoogland, co-applicant Prof. Dr Maarten E. R. G. N. Jansen, Leiden 

University. 

3 In 2004 sites in the Anamuya River area and Punta Cana were reconnoitred for suitability (see 

Hofman et al. 2004, unpublished report). Due to access issues, the location of El Cabo was subsequently 

preferred for this research. El Cabo was therefore not named in the original funding 

proposal. 

4 The lack of a significant human burial assemblage meant that El Cabo was not appropriate for 

addressing the archaeometric dimensions of the project. Additional data are used to supplement 

the available collection. 

5 MA theses and published articles on El Cabo as a result of the project include: van As et al 2008; 

Churampi Ramírez 2007; Hofman et al. 2006, 2008; Johnson 2009, forthcoming; Oudhuis 

2008; Samson forthcoming; Samson and Hoogland 2007; St Jean 2008a, 2008b. A site monograph 

edited by Menno L.P. Hoogland, C.L. Hofman and the present author is forthcoming. 

12 renewing the house

(5) What picture emerges regarding the general organisation of space in a 

“Taíno” 6 community? 

These questions were posed by the principal investigator, Dr Hoogland, and 

aimed to pinpoint an archaeological, rather than an ethnohistoric definition of 

an indigenous house within a settlement context. Reliance on the early colonial 

sources has led to the emergence of a general picture of the house and the structure 

of settlements in the Greater Antilles before contact. However, in order to 

make interpretations on the intra-site (household) level and to get an insight 

into the spatial organisation and internal structure of the settlement, research on 

individual house plans and related features should be conducted. This level of 

research has, as yet, not been fully exploited in Hispaniola. I was extremely privileged 

to be a member of the field team throughout the research in El Cabo and 

this dissertation is written with the data recovered there. The chapters to come 

will attempt to answer the above questions, principally by a detailed presentation 

of archaeological plans. However, it also goes beyond these descriptive aims, 

resulting in the characterization of an indigenous community within its regional 

context and throughout a long period of its history, through the examination of 

the role of the house as a meaningful spatio-temporal unit of indigenous culture 

and unit of cultural transmission. This study will not only contribute regional 

data, but also present methodological and theoretical opportunities for archaeological 

research in the Caribbean, as well as contribute more widely to archaeological 

discussions of the house. 

The site of El Cabo was more than ideally suited to address house-related 

questions. The foundations of dwellings and other domestic structures were dug 

down into the bedrock leaving indelible impressions. In turn, an artefact assemblage 

originating from both features and the find layer could be related to these 

architectural features. The high-resolution data from excavation units, combined 

with the lower-resolution, but spatially more extensive data from the collection 

of surface materials and smaller excavation units across the entire late settlement, 

led to reconstructions of houses, house groups and settlement layout over a centuries 

time span. 

Such research at the individual house and settlement level acts as a foil to 

set off grander narratives engendered in the culture history of the period. The 

broad lines of this grand narrative, though still very much alive with competing 

claims between archaeologists, ethnohistorians and scholars from different 

national and political backgrounds, have been well established (Allaire 1999; 

Bercht et al. eds.,1997; Keegan 2000; Lovén 1935; Rouse 1948, 1992; Sauer 

1966; Veloz Maggiolo 1991; Wilson, ed. 1997; Wilson 2007 (general); Moscoso 

1978; Ortega 2005; Rouse 1939; Veloz Maggiolo 1972, 1993 (Dominican 

Republic); Cosculluela 1946; Curet et al. eds., 2005; Dacal Moure and Rivero 

de la Calle 1984, 1996; Domínguez et al. 1994; Guarch Delmonte 1973, 1974, 

1994; Moreira de Lima 1999; Tabío and Rey 1979, 1989 (Cuba); Allsworth- 

Jones 2008; Atkinson 2006 (Jamaica); Keegan 1992 (The Bahamas); Curet 

2005; Fewkes 1907; Oliver 2009; Rainey 1940; Rouse 1952; Siegel, ed. 2005; 

6 “Taíno” is the much-debated, but almost universally applied shorthand denomination used to refer 

to the archaeological and historical populations of Hispaniola, eastern Cuba, Puerto Rico and 

the Virgin Islands, Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas from ca. AD 1000 to 

European colonisation. These peoples were ethnically, linguistically and socio-politically diverse 

yet nevertheless shared certain material culture traits which demonstrate cosmological underpinnings. 

Given such diversity, various alternatives have been suggested to the termí “Taíno”, such 

as it’s use to refer to an interaction sphere (Boomert 2001) or its more active form “Taínoness” to 

refer to networks of elite relations (Oliver 2009; Rodríguez Ramos 2007). It’s use will be further 

qualified in this dissertation, and local terms preferably used. 

Preface 

13

(Puerto Rico)). The traditional concerns of this culture history have been with 

origins, migrations, issues of complexity and adaptation to island environments, 

and specifically for the later period, the formation and consolidation of complex, 

hierarchical society. The details of daily life, however, have been neglected from 

an archaeological perspective and largely filled in by extrapolating backwards 

from historic texts. This research, by taking as a starting point the house, rather 

than a culture, and the archaeological record, rather than Oviedo’s sketchbook 7 , 

will add another narrative strand to the picture. 

It is shown that the house, and its long term expression, the House Trajectory, 

was a major identifiable and relevant category and constituent of Late Ceramic 

Age culture and society, and that these institutions were themselves participant 

in the reproduction of culture. Without this grassroots picture of cultural transmission, 

the larger picture will always remain detached from indigenous social 

reality. 

Scope of the research 

The study of houses per se cannot be isolated from the regional context. Neither 

can every settlement-scale excavation supply information on all topics relevant 

to a full picture of social life, either due to issues of preservation, or the 

focus and duration of the research project. This is certainly the case with El 

Cabo. There are a great number of topics which cannot be discussed under the 

scope of this dissertation, or for which only tentative suggestions may be made, 

and which await the publication of a site monograph and additional research 

(Hoogland et al. eds., forthcoming). These are for example detailed pictures 

of household subsistence, production and consumption. Such economic questions 

demand in-depth studies of faunal remains and technological studies of 

tools and raw materials. Moreover, local and long-distance networks are best 

addressed through provenance studies and stylistic analyses of such artefacts as 

pottery and crafted items. Rather, the approach here combines qualitative, spatial 

and quantitative data systematically related to site features, architecture and 

artefact distributions, and more opportunistically to other lines of evidence. It 

also relies on the rich, but fragmentary, history of research in the eastern region 

of the Dominican Republic, and more detailed studies of the immediate site surroundings 

for context. 

Dissertation structure and chapter outline 

Chapter 1 deals with the history and current state of affairs of the archaeology of 

domestic structures in the Caribbean, with particular emphasis on the research 

in the Greater Antilles. A summary of published archaeological plans reveals 

some common features of the indigenous structures excavated across the Greater 

Antilles, but more data collection is needed before archaeological interpretations 

of indigenous domestic life can compete with those drawn from the European 

chronicles. Thereafter, the current archaeological project in El Cabo is positioned 

within the history of archaeological research in the Dominican Republic, 

and more locally, with respect to the threats to the archaeological heritage of the 

eastern region. Lastly, the research is positioned with respect to the collaborative 

relationship between local people from El Cabo and us as archaeologists. 

7 The only firsthand sketches of indigenous houses from the Greater Antilles were made in the 

1540s by Fernández de Oviedo (1851: bk 1, lamina 1, figs 9-10). 


Chapter 2 presents the methodological and theoretical framework of the dissertation, 

including a discussion of the empirical methods and theoretical positions 

of household archaeology. The house is offered as a unit of analysis which 

can offer insights into and new perspectives on current and perennial research 

concerns in Greater Antillean precolonial archaeology. Definitions used in the 

dissertation are discussed. A review of the oft-cited early colonial sources on 

houses, as well as from archaeological research in Hispaniola is set out in order to 

situate current knowledge on pre-Columbian houses and settlement dynamics. 

Chapter 3 places El Cabo in its regional and local setting. Previous archaeological 

investigations in the eastern region are described as well as the geological, 

ecological, palaeoecological, and landscape history of the site. The culturalhistorical 

setting of pre-Columbian and post-contact Higüey is described with 

reference to local archaeology and historical documents relating to the region. 

Finally, forty years of archaeological research in and around El Cabo itself is 

described. The picture that emerges is that of a historically, ecologically, and archaeologically 

distinct region. 

Chapter 4 introduces the current archaeological research in El Cabo by 

Leiden University. This presents the fieldwork methodology and results, including 

the first phase of research, site chronology, and a description of excavated 

and surveyed areas. The diachronic development of the site is discussed and a 

detailed description of the features from the main unit in the Chicoid habitation 

area is given as a basis for the reconstructions in the ensuing Chapter 5. 

Chapter 5 presents the reconstructions of the built structures from the main 

unit. The reconstruction methodology as well as confidence criteria are outlined. 

Structures are described one-by-one in terms of their spatial and physical characteristics, 

based mainly on feature patterning. Details of feature fills, associated 

finds, abandonment, dating and their relation to other structures are additionally 

described. Lastly, a typology of structures is distilled from the reconstructions 

in which the house emerges as the most conspicuous built element. 

Chapter 6 presents an interpretation of the chronology of site structures and 

a diachronic perspective on late settlement development through the combined 

interpretation of structures, artefact distributions from the main unit, data from 

excavated areas outside the main unit and data from surface survey. A picture 

is built up of the relationship between individual houses, house groups, House 

Trajectories and the community (yucayeque) between AD 800 and ca. 1504. 

Lastly, the houses are populated, and an interpretation of house and community 

demographics is presented. 

Chapter 7 summarises the results of the dissertation research, characterising 

the indigenous house of El Cabo in terms of its identity as an architectural 

and socio-cultural unit. Finally, the implications of the house and its long-lived 

manifestation, the House Trajectory, are discussed in terms of Late Ceramic Age 

culture. 

Preface 

15

Chapter 1 

Introduction 

“In terms of the gathering of basic data I never really emphasized the excavation of sites. 

That didn’t interest me all that much.” 

(Rouse, in Siegel 1996:686) 

“The depths to which these posts were buried, six to nine feet, is surprising. The workmen 

said that they plant their houseposts at present to no more than four feet. These houses may 

have been larger than modern ones, or especial strength desired to withstand hurricanes.” 

(Mason (1941:239) on wooden posts at Capá, Utuado, Puerto Rico) 

In the Caribbean interest in the horizontal excavation of sites to recover features 

has grown since the 1990s due to a small number of pioneering excavations 

including the ongoing projects of the Leiden School of Caribbean archaeology 

and rescue excavations ahead of builder development in the French West 

Indies, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (Carlson 2007; Curet 1992a; 

Delpuech et al. 1997; Goodwin et al. eds., 2003; Hofman and Hoogland eds., 

1999; Hoogland and Hofman 1993; Hoogland 1996; Kaplan 2009; Meléndez 

Maíz 1996; Righter ed. 2002; Rivera and Pérez 1997; Rivera and Rodríguez 

1991; Schinkel 1992; Siegel 1989, 1992; Versteeg and Rostain eds., 1997, 1999; 

Walker 2005). Nevertheless, there is still a severe shortage of basic data on precolonial 

domestic structures and settlement configurations. Whereas house plans 

in other areas of the world are used to identify archaeological cultures (e.g. the 

Linear Bandkeramik houses in western and central Europe, or Bronze and Iron 

Age roundhouses from Great Britain), the Caribbean lacks any kind of regional, 

temporal or functional typology of domestic architectural forms. The only basic 

pattern to have emerged in twenty years of research is an apparent trend noted 

for eastern Puerto Rico in which house size decreases from the Early to the Late 

Ceramic Age (Curet 1992a). Whereas this means that settlement research is an 

area of great potential, it also means that there are few guidelines or type sites for 

reference or comparison, making an archaeologically complex site extremely taxing 

to interpret in terms of its structures. Hence clusters of postholes are often 

designated domestic areas without further investigation. 

Nevertheless, there have been some moments of clarity: The excavations at 

the Golden Rock site, St Eustatius, produced the first detailed publication and 

discussion of domestic architecture and household reconstructions. These structures, 

six maloca (multi-family) houses, two activity huts and six storage/drying 

racks, impressed Caribbean archaeologists, without really having had a huge 

impact on research agendas. However, the methodological legacy of excavating 

non-midden contexts was felt in a number of other publications. This can 

be seen from the excavations carried out at Tutu, St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. (Righter 

ed. 2002), Tanki Flip, Aruba (Versteeg and Rostain, eds. 1997), Heywoods, 

Barbados (Drewett and Bennell 2000), San 1, Manzanilla, Trinidad (Jansen and 

Dorst 2007) and the research at the sites of Anse à la Gourde, Guadeloupe 

(Delpuech et al. 1999) and Kelbey’s Ridge, Saba, conducted by Hoogland and 

Introduction 

17

Hofman between 1987 and 2000, and the outstanding recovery of waterlogged 

wooden structures at Los Buchillones, Cuba (Jardines Macías and Calvera Rosés 

1999; Pendergast et al. 2002, 2003; Valcárcel Rojas et al. 2006). 

1.1 Positioning the El Cabo research within the Greater 

Antillean archaeological tradition 

By and large, however, if postholes turn up in excavation trenches, they are 

treated as exotic artefacts, rather than prompting a different field strategy. Often, 

there is an uncritical acceptance that single postholes or posthole clusters represent 

domestic structures or the house area, and these are extrapolated according 

to the descriptions in historic documents, what Rivera and Rodríguez (1991) 

have termed a “fundamental dependency” of archaeology on text. In total, only 

structure plans from a handful of sites in the Greater Antilles, mostly Puerto 

Rico, have ever been published (see Table 1). Many more sites in Puerto Rico exist 

in the form of unpublished reports or secondary publications (Carlson 2007; 

Espenshade 1987 in Curet 1992a; Goodwin et al. eds., 2003; Meléndez Maíz 

1996; Ramcharan 2004; Robinson 1983, 1985 in Curet 1992a), or are in the 

process of excavation or interpretation (Kaplan 2009; Roe and Ortíz Montáñez 

2009; Walker 2005). 8 The presence of domestic structures from other sites, reiterated 

in published literature become fact (i.e. Curet 1992a), whereas the originals 

lack detail or are only partial. This is the case for En Bas Saline, Haiti 

(Deagan 2004), Maisabel, Puerto Rico (Siegel 1989, 1992), PO-21, Puerto Rico 

(Espenshade 1987, cit. Curet 2002), MC-12, Middle Caicos, Turks and Caicos 

Islands (Keegan 2007). 

Table 1. Sites in the Greater 

Antilles with published archaeological 

structure plans. 

This is not an indication of 

reliability. 

Cuba 

Site Occupation No. structures Shape Construction Diameter (m) Area (m2) References 

Los 

Buchillones 

El Morrillo 

AD 

1295-1690 

Late Ceramic 

Age 

3 (of at least 

5) 

Puerto Rico Maisabel AD 600-1200 1 (and up 

to 3) 

U.S. Virgin 

Islands 

Turks and 

Caicos 

Jamaica 

El Bronce AD 900-1200 

and AD 

1200-1500 

circular and 

rectangular 

post-built 8, 14, 26 45, ?, 530 Jardines and Calvera 1999; 

Pendergast et al. 2002, 2003; 

Valcárcel Rojas 2005; Valcárcel 

Rojas et al. 2006 

1 circular? post-built 8.5 57 Hernández and Tápanes 2008 

(at least) 3 

Luján I AD 900-1200 8 (10 inc. 

mortuary 

structures) 

Río Tanamá 

(AR-38 and 

AR-39) 

Playa Blanca 5 

rectangular post-built 52x14 576 Siegel 1989, 1992; Curet 1992a 

oval and 

circular 

AD 980-1490 7 oval and 

circular 

AD 

1200-1500 

post-built 5, 5.5, 7.6x4 20, 23, 24 Robinson et al. 1983, 1985; 

Curet 1992a 

circular post-built 2 to 30 13 to 346 Rivera and Pérez 1997 

post-built 5 to 8 20 to 50 Carlson 2007 

1 circular-oval post-built 16 or 6.6×7.1 200 or 37 Rivera and Rodríguez 1991; 

Curet 1992a 

Río Cocal-1 AD 890-1450 4 or more circular post-built 3.5 to 6 10, 16, 17, 

24 

Tutu 

MC-6 

Bellevue- 

Mannings Hill 

AD 

65-950 and 

1150-1500 

AD 

1400-1500 

8 oval and 

circular 

8 circular stone lined 

pit structures 

post-built 3.6 to 12.5 12, 30, 30, 

34, 37, 42, 

29, 90, 91 

Goodwin et al. eds., 2003, 

Oliver 2003 

Righter 2002a 

5 20 Sullivan 1981 in Keegan 2007 

AD 900-1500 1 circular post-built 3.5 10 Medhurst 1976, 1977; 

Allsworth-Jones 2008 

8 The author is aware that there may be more reports of sites with domestic structures excavated 

in Puerto Rico, but has not been able to consult these. 


A critical synthesis of existing reports and the publication of the structure 

plans would invaluably aid research of domestic structures in the Caribbean. The 

sites listed in Table 1 are those for which some kind of plan has been published 

or was available to the author. 9 This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of data on 

structures. Contract excavations in Puerto Rico in particular have produced and 

are producing a wealth of settlement and house data. Yet after twenty years of 

excavation of domestic areas in the Greater Antilles, we have no clear picture of 

the precolonial house, not even simply as a physical structure. What follows is 

a brief description of the characteristics of the published plans in the Greater 

Antilles and a summary of this data. 

1.2 Overview of structure excavations in the Greater Antilles 

Since the 1980s, excavations at the site of Los Buchillones, in a shallow coastal 

lagoon on the north-central coast of Cuba, have revealed the most spectacular 

evidence of precolonial and colonial indigenous structures in the Antilles. Here, 

instead of postholes, upright and collapsed waterlogged posts and superstructural 

organic materials were very well preserved. 10 So far, three of five wooden 

structures, which may or may not have been raised pile dwellings, have been 

excavated and described: a circular structure 26m in diameter (Casa No. 1), a 

rectangular structure 14m in diameter (Casa No. 2), and an oval structure (D2- 

6) 8m in diameter (Jardines and Calvera 1999; Pendergast et al. 2002, 2003; 

Valcárcel Rojas 2005; Valcárcel Rojas et al. 2006). Casa No. 1 consists of an 

outer post circle with two central posts, 7m long and forked at the top, which 

would have supported a roof beam. A collapsed, conical roof with rafters of decreasing 

size was recovered in position between the posts. Dates from individual 

elements of the structure span 360 years, leading investigators to propose indigenous 

conservation of important structural elements and modifications prolonging 

the structure’s life over a considerable period. Casa No. 2 was rectangular 

with a two-slope gable-roof with posts, rafters and palm thatch intact. Again, 

dated samples from different structural elements spanned a considerable period, 

AD 1435 to 1655. The final structure, D2-6, was excavated and documented in 

its entirety, and consisted of an internal and external post ring and no central 

post. What was remarkable about these excavations was the extent to which details 

of indigenous material selection, woodworking, and construction choices 

were visible in the archaeological record. Especially in the case of the latter structure, 

the selection and preparation of posts, the selection of a good matrix into 

which to dig the foundations, and the use of supporting posts to stabilize larger 

trunks all showed a high degree of expertise and organisation (Valcárcel Rojas 

et al. 2006). 

The site of El Morrillo, on the northwest coast of Cuba, known since the 

1960s, but more recently investigated in 2004 and 2005, merits mention here, 

not because it revealed a complete or near-complete structure plan, but because 

of the resemblance of the features to the postholes excavated in El Cabo. In a 

unit of 16m², five postholes were revealed, three of which form an arc interpreted 

as a possible outer wall of a structure. These features were all circular and 

9 This selection is based on reports and publications to which the author had access. Even when 

his selection is based on reports and publications to which the author had access. Even when 

data is minimal, publications which include plan drawings are included as this is the most effective 

way of presenting structures. 

10 In addition to the architectural remains, hundreds of wooden items including duhos, cemí statuary, 

pins, hooks, dishes, handles for axes and chisels (some with these former still attached), were 

recovered (Pendergast et al. 2002). 

Introduction 

19

egular postholes cut into the bedrock (Hernández and Tápanes 2008). The excavators’ 

reconstruction extrapolates this to a circular structure, 8.5m in diameter, 

although only further excavation will bear out this interpretation. 

Six sites from Puerto Rico merit mention in terms of their structures. Firstly, 

the site of Maisabel, on the north central coast of Puerto Rico, with a history of 

occupation which spans fourteen centuries, from the 2 nd century BC to around 

AD 1000. Only the later period, from AD 600, is relevant to the discussion of 

structures. The site comprises a central burial ground, ringed by at least five 

mounded middens, between which the domestic structures are presumed to have 

stood. A “macroblock” (32 2×2m units, most contiguous) excavated between 

two of the largest midden mounds revealed part of a linear feature interpreted 

as a drainage ditch, which led to the reconstruction of a rectangular structure 

52×14m, interpreted as an Ostionoid house (Curet 1992a:168; Siegel 1992:58; 

126; 164-177; 245; 266-326). Based on artefact styles and one radiocarbon date 

from the ditch fill, the structure is dated between AD 685 and 1155, although 

Siegel prefers an occupation in the 8 th and 9 th centuries (Siegel 1992:172). Ten 

burials were excavated from within the purported structure, although the real 

number was expected to be higher. The palimpsest nature of the features in 

the unit, and the partial excavation of the ditch feature mean confidence in 

this reconstruction is weak. Neither does it bear any resemblance to the only 

other early Ostionoid structure to be excavated from the Greater Antilles, that 

of Structure 5, Tutu, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (Righter 2002a:318-320; 

see below). 

The site of El Bronce in south-central Puerto Rico, 13km from the coast, 

consists of several clusters of postholes arranged around a central plaza (Curet 

1992a). 11 The site was inhabited between AD 900 and 1500 and bore hundreds 

of posthole features. Curet’s analysis (1992a) is based on a selection of two feature 

clusters, from which he distils three structures. The first of these is an oval/ 

rectangular structure 7.6×4m, the second a circular structure 5m in diameter, 

and the third a circular structure roughly 5.5m in diameter. The latter two circular 

structures are interpreted as having a square frame and central posts, something 

also seen at the site of Playa Blanca 5 (below). Curet suggests a chronology 

of structures based on morphology which places the oval structure as the earliest 

in the sequence. 

The site of Luján I is located on a promontory on the south-central coast 

of the island of Vieques, east of Puerto Rico. The major occupation occurred 

between AD 900 and 1200 (Rivera and Pérez 1997). Both in terms of the research 

design and excavation strategy, as well as the site characteristics and the 

details of the built structures, Luján I has much in common with El Cabo. The 

author regrets that more results were not available for comparison. A rectangular 

unit, 90×70m 12 was excavated in which over one thousand features, including 

twenty-six burials were encountered. The burials were located in several clusters, 

most outside house structures, and the majority of the rest of the features were 

interpreted as structural elements of houses. Features, like in El Cabo, were 

dug into the bedrock. Altogether ten structures were identified, forming a large 

semicircle. The excavators took at least two charcoal samples from each structure 

indicating that the houses were burnt on abandonment. Two specialist mortuary 

structures, 2 and 3m in diameter are identified, as well as eight other circular and 

11 The author did not consult the original excavation reports (Robinson et al. 1983, 1985 cit., 

Curet 1992a). Site descriptions and feature analysis is based on Curet 1992a. 

12 Although this is labelled 50×50 in the publication despite being rectangular in shape. The current 

author uses dimensions extrapolated from the descriptions in the text and the plan drawing. 


oval structures, of which Structures 1 and 6 are identifiable from the published 

plan and descriptions (Rivera and Pérez 1997). Structure 1 is 21m in diameter 

with some doubling of postholes representing re-building of the outer wall, an 

entrance in the southwest, and four internal posts in the centre. 13 Structure 6 is 

circular, 9m in diameter, and with a central post supported by rocks. 14 The remaining 

structures are largely circular and range from 4 to 11m in diameter. This 

is with the exception of a further large circular structure, Structure 10 which is 

reportedly 30m in diameter. Structures at Luján, even though in a preliminary 

phase of publication, appear to be well-defined, convincing and merit further 

analysis. 

The site of Río Tanamá, on the floodplain of the Lower Tanamá River, Puerto 

Rico was the subject of recent excavations in which two find spots, AR-38 (AD 

980-1490) and AR-39 (AD 350-890) were documented (Carlson 2007). 15 

Features were only identified at AR-38, where seven round to oval structures 

in the “macroblock” (1000m²), 5-8m diameter, were reconstructed from five 

feature clusters (ibid.). Three structures had no apparent internal supports, one, 

Structure 6, had a four-post central configuration. In general, although the excavated 

area was relatively large, only four of the structures are fully within the 

excavation unit, and of these, Structure 6 appears the most credible reconstruction, 

at least in terms of its internal four-post configuration (similar to structure 

2 in Tutu; see below). Irregular spacing of the posthole features of other structures, 

and the general lack of patterning in terms of depth and diameter, except 

for the case of partial Structure 2, does not inspire high levels of confidence. 

Structure 2, despite being partial, has a very regular spacing of postholes and 

moreover, the dimensions and spacing of two large features to the east (F128 

and F129) may represent an entrance feature, an interpretation based on parallels 

with entrance features in El Cabo (see Chapter 5 this volume). Four out of 

nine excavated burials occur inside structures. In at least two cases, intentional 

foundation deposits of pottery were placed in postholes. Three structures were 

burnt down. Additional structures such as cooking tripods, mortuary structures, 

and windbreaks were proposed. The settlement extents were not reached in the 

excavated units and the density of features led Carlson to the opinion that the 

structures were rebuilt on numerous occasions. Features in the north of the unit 

date earlier than those in the south, indicating a general southern shift, following 

the displacement of the river, over time. 

The site of Playa Blanca 5 is situated on a 50m high knoll in eastern Puerto 

Rico overlooking the Vieques Sound. Occupation dates between AD 1200 and 

1500 are based on the almost exclusive presence of Chicoid pottery. This small 

site covers approximately 1000m², of which 406m² were excavated. The house 

area is located in a clearing between midden deposits, where a floor had been prepared 

by the indigenous occupants by removing rocks from the soft bedrock. A 

well-defined area of 54 postholes encircling a hearth, a collection of fire-cracked 

rocks and eight burial features were excavated. Two alternative reconstructions 

have been envisaged, both using most of the postholes to reconstruct one dwelling: 

firstly that of a 16m diameter circular house structure with three concentric 

post rings, the innermost five postholes around the hearth feature (Rivera 

and Rodríguez 1991). An alternative reconstruction of a smaller oval house 

13 The current author prefers another interpretation: an entrance in the southeast aligning on the 

central configuration. 

14 The current author questions the presence of a central post, and suggests there may be an entrance 

in the west, which aligns on two back posts in the perimeter wall and other larger postholes 

in the perimeter to provide roof support. 

15 I am grateful to Betsy Carlson for a copy of the Río Tanamá report. 

Introduction 

21

(6.64×7.14m) has been proposed by Curet (1989 cit., Rivera and Rodríguez 

1991; Curet 1992a). Both Curet and the excavators interpret the house as having 

a square frame (i.e. four main roof supports) and a circular plan. 

The site of Río Cocal-1, situated on the northeastern coastal plain of Puerto 

Rico, revealed four clusters of features in the largest excavated unit (1000m²), 

comprising postholes, pits, hearths and a discrete burial cluster, leading to the 

minimal reconstruction of four structures (Goodwin et al. eds., 2003). 16 Other 

unreconstructed feature clusters are thought to have been sheds, cooking huts 

and ancillary structures. Structure A consists of a single ring of postholes 4.7m 

in diameter. Structure B is a round structure 3.5m in diameter. Structure C consists 

of a single roughly circular post ring 5×6m in which four heavier-set postholes 

are interpreted as forming the roof-supports. Structure D, roughly circular, 

is similar in size to Structure C, but hypothesized on the basis of unexcavated 

features. Due to the small size of the structures, and the lack of hearth features 

or other distinct features in all but Structure C (in which there was a hearth), 

the undifferentiated artefact assemblage and the lack of any paraphernalia, these 

structures are interpreted as sleeping structures for nuclear families, with work 

and cooking areas located in separate, adjacent structures (Oliver 2003). Similar 

to the Río Tanamá and Maisabel sites, these structures are not convincing by 

dint of their floor plans alone, which leave a lot to be desired. Site context and 

artefactual assemblages bolster and compensate the interpretations. 

The multi-phase settlement site of Tutu, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, has 

some of the most fully-published descriptions of site structures in the Greater 

Antilles. Over one thousand features were excavated from half the site, of which 

over half were postholes (Righter ed., 2002). Eight structures, one from the 

early Ostionoid occupation, and seven from the late Ostionoid occupation were 

reconstructed in a village plan which retained roughly the same circular shape 

throughout its history. Structures are round, with and without interior/central 

posthole(s), and oval, with interior postholes. The early structure (Structure 5) is 

dated to the 8 th century by three of its posts and is a round structure, 7×6.75m 

in diameter with a deep external post ring, and shallower posts in no particular 

pattern in its interior. Reconstructions of structures 1 and 2 are the most detailed 

and reliable. Structure 1 is a small circular structure 4.15×3.6m with a 

portico entrance and no central configuration. Structure 2 is a circular structure 

with dimensions of 6.75×6.4m and four large internal posts and an entrance 

portico. Other structures range between 5 to 12m in diameter, with structures 

at the larger end of the scale (Structures 7 and 8) with multiple or special-treatment 

burials, being credited as higher status dwellings. Additional site features 

include linear posthole alignments, discrete burial clusters related to houses and 

open spaces around structures. 

There is one site in the Turks and Caicos Islands with published structures: 

the site of MC-6, situated on a tidal flat on the south coast of Middle Caicos 

(Keegan 2007). The site is deemed to have had a short occupation between AD 

1400 and 1500. Two adjacent plazas are delimited by raised middens, of which 

plaza I has eight stone-lined, semi-pit circular structures with low limestone 

rock walls dug into the top (Keegan 2007:142-154; Fig. 5.5). A larger structure 

was identified at the juncture of the two plazas which had a two-chambered 

floor plan. Structures average 5m in diameter and are interpreted as houses. 

16 Feature analysis and reconstructions were undertaken by L. Antonio Curet in Chapter V of the 

eature analysis and reconstructions were undertaken by L. Antonio Curet in Chapter V of the 

edited volume. Unfortunately the present author did not consult this analysis, but relied on 

the interpretive discussion by José R. Oliver in the same volume. The author is grateful to José 

Oliver for his report. 


Reappraisal of Sullivan’s (1981) original data from the site and further investigation 

led Keegan to the conclusion that the smaller plaza II was not likely a habitation 

area, but possibly used for conucos, or home gardens (Keegan 2007:174). 

In terms of the artefact assemblage, there appeared to be no significant difference 

between the structures, not even in the case of the two-chambered structure. 

Turning lastly to Jamaica, the site of Bellvue-Mannings Hill (K13) furnishes 

the only published structure, out of the 271 sites inventoried for the island. The 

site is 8km from the sea in the greater Kingston area. Bellevue-Mannings Hill, 

which belongs to the White Marl ceramic tradition (AD 950-1550), revealed a 

structure which consisted of a circular arrangement of postholes, interpreted by 

excavators (C.W. Medhurst and J. Wilman) as a house foundation. Excavated in 

the 1970s, the structure was published in Archaeology Jamaica and reproduced in 

Allsworth-Jones (2008: Appendix 9). From the reproduced figures, the excavated 

area appears to be a small 30m². The single-ringed circular arrangement of postholes 

within this comprises 33 features published as a schematic plan drawing 

suggesting the structure was not much more than 3.5m in diameter. The features 

appear to cluster in pairs or threes, suggesting possible re-building on the same 

spot. Internal features are generally absent. It is not known whether other features 

or stains have been eliminated for clarity. I was not able to consult the text 

of the original publication which accompanied the figures, but given the lack of 

additional information, this reconstruction must remain rather insecure. 

1.2.1 Summary of Greater Antillean structure characteristics 

One can summarise some of the general characteristics of these plans as small, 

circular and oval post-built structures ranging between 10 to over 500m², but 

most credibly and on average within the range of 20 to 50m². This size variation 

occurs within and between sites. There are numerous architectural solutions for 

roof-supports, ranging from internal post rings, a central post(s) to the weight 

being taken by the external wall with no internal support at all (perfectly plausible 

given their small dimensions). Many of the house plans have internal features 

such as hearths and burials, but others do not. Features exterior to the structures 

include pathways, fences, and small ancillary buildings interpreted as kitchens, 

windbreaks, mortuary structures and domestic tools. 

There is simply not enough evidence to identify any patterns in terms of 

changes in house size over time, even for eastern Puerto Rico (contra Curet 

1992a). There are no reliable Early Ceramic Age plans for comparison, only two 

early Ostionoid plans, and the chronological control, and reconstructions are 

not reliable enough to attempt this. This is not a criticism of the reconstructive 

attempts or methodologies: many authors state the tentative and experimental 

nature of their reconstructions and make the best of the data. It is a comment on 

research design, and the small size of the excavation units which has a deleterious 

impact on the quality of the data. Moreover, the above summary judges the 

reconstructions on the basis of their architectural features alone without taking 

into account the other lines of evidence put into service by the investigators. The 

presence of hundreds, if not thousands of predominantly posthole features in an 

excavation trench is too valuable a dataset not to try to interpret. However, this 

becomes problematic when weaker interpretations are reiterated in the literature. 

One should question why at certain sites, identification of structures is not 

a very satisfactory exercise, whereas at other sites the plans are very striking (e.g. 

Luján I, Los Buchillones, Tutu). This distinction between sites with clear structures 

and those without may be related three factors: either post depositional 

processes obscure posthole patterning at certain sites, but not at others; or the 

Introduction 

23

positioning of excavation units is either not sufficiently guided by the location 

of archaeological features or the units are excavated in a manner which does not 

permit an overview of features in one level (i.e. they are excavated in small, adjacent 

units at different times); or postholes in domestic contexts are not always 

related to built structures, but to other activities occurring in the settlement. 

These are issues which a full synthesis and assessment of available or published 

plans would clarify considerably. 

Nevertheless, after this cursory summary and in anticipation of a future full 

synthesis of structures from these and other sites, some tentative general observations 

can be made. Firstly, there is an indication that structures from multiple 

sites share the same four-post framework of heavier posts incorporated into 

the outer wall. This is especially the case in structures from Puerto Rico (Playa 

Blanca 5, El Bronce, Río Cocal-1). Four-post central configurations are also not 

uncommon, such as for example structures at the site of Río Tanamá (Structure 

6), Luján I and Tutu (Structures 2 and 7). A centre post(s) however is very rare 

across all sites. 

In terms of other recognizable and shared structural features, there is an 

indication that structure entrances may have been emphasized or marked by a 

doubling, or enlargement of entrance features. This is documented for example 

for Structures 1, 2 and 6 at Tutu. Although not made explicit by the authors 

for other sites, it appears from the published plans that certain structures at the 

sites of Luján I (Structures 1 and 6) and Río Tanamá (Structure 2) may also have 

had entrance features consisting of a pair of heavy-set posts, which in the case of 

Luján I also appear to align on internal configurations and open onto a central 

clearing. As presented later in Chapter 5, contemporaneous structures from El 

Cabo share this type of entrance feature with the sites of Luján, Río Tanamá and 

Tutu. 

Lastly, there is an indication that temporalities of domestic sites are complex 

and that structures lasted a considerable length of time, either through re-building 

or the replacement of various elements. This is the case with most sites and 

especially Los Buchillones, Rio Tanamá, Luján I and Maisabel. Contrary to what 

is suggested by the feature density at many sites, and the longevity of occupation, 

this does not necessarily equate to a dense or intensive palimpsest of occupation. 

Although the occupation of multiple sites spans many centuries, the number 

and spatial distribution of features appears to witness no more than two or three, 

probably related (i.e. the same community within contiguous decades) building 

phases. This is indicated by the clear empty spaces between feature clusters at 

sites such as Tanamá, Luján I, Maisabel, Río Cocal-1, El Bronce, and Tutu. 

Leaving aside archaeological plans, there is quite a body of research which has 

identified houses by indirect means such as the topography of a site, the number 

and spacing of midden or house mounds (Guarch Delmonte 1974; Keegan 1992; 

Valcárcel Rojas 2002; Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1976; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 

1986), the presence of cleared areas between middens and the plaza (Keegan 

2007; Keegan et al. 2008; Torres Etayo 2006a), site size (Curet 1992a), house 

floors identified in archaeological deposits (Calderón 1996; Jardines Macías and 

Calvera Roses 1999; Tabío and Rey 1979), the presence of one or more postholes 

(Allsworth-Jones 2008:14; Espenshade 1987, cit. Curet 1992a; Hernández and 

Tápanes 2008; Jardines and Calvera 1999; Mason 1941; Sullivan cit., Keegan 

2007:140; Tabío and Rey 1979), or the reconstruction of artefact assemblages 

(Espenshade 2000). 


All these studies indicate that houses and households in Greater Antillean 

archaeology are considered identifiable and archaeologically retrievable units. 

However, they are very rarely treated as analytical units. The reasons for this are 

historical, logistical and epistemological. As has been remarked many times before, 

Caribbean archaeology is an archaeology of pottery whose methods include 

excavation of small scale “telephone booth” (Flannery 1976:3) units or surface 

surveys (Keegan 2000). This is as a result of the historical development of certain 

units and scales of analysis inherent in the classification and chronological 

schemes of the discipline, or what Curet calls “the tyranny of culture history and 

migration” (Curet 2003). The strengths of this scheme and the resultant categories, 

developed by Rouse (1964, 1986, 1992) for the purpose of tracking migrations 

and reconstructing cultural sequences are not appropriate for the analysis 

of lower levels of analysis, such as social processes like exchange, social networks, 

competition and household dynamics. Researchers who have wanted to pioneer 

new methodologies, have also had to look elsewhere for analytical and theoretical 

frameworks, and it has been no surprise that those engaged in horizontal 

excavation have come from traditions of settlement or historical archaeology 

elsewhere (Deagan 2004; Drewett and Bennell 2000; Hoogland 1996; Versteeg 

and Schinkel 1992). 

The lack of research-driven excavation of house plans or extensive units in 

domestic areas is also understandable due to economic and time constraints. 

The recognition of structures is dependent on the simultaneous exposure of sufficient 

surface area, and consistent mapping; generally necessitating fieldwork 

which can be carried out with a large field team over multiple seasons. The 

amount of work required for post-excavation analysis of site features is enormous. 

Moreover, the task is made especially challenging given the fact that there 

are no typologies to aid interpretation. This is of course a circular situation in 

which the lack of research impedes research itself. 

There are three additional reasons for the reluctance to excavate houses. The 

first relates to what has been numerously termed the “tyranny of ethnohistory” 

(Curet 2005; Keegan 1991). This refers to the ways scholars use and abuse colonial 

documents to supplement archaeological data without taking sufficient notice 

of the historical and regional specificity of the text. Although there is a more 

outspoken consciousness of this in recent literature, the seductiveness of text 

can still be a double-edged sword. One example is the way in which it influences 

research agendas. The sketches and descriptions of Hispaniolan house structures 

by Oviedo and Las Casas contribute to the reluctance to do household studies 

in the Caribbean. There is an assumption that we know more or less what they 

were like – post-and-thatch roundhouses of sweet-smelling materials with size 

differences between those of high- and low-status families. Burials, monumental 

architecture and exotic artefacts are the stuff on which theories of socio-cultural 

change and the development of hierarchies are based! This overlooks the fact 

that there is much more to be learnt from houses than simply what they looked 

like, their dimensions and how they were built, which is an erroneous conflation 

of the domestic with the ethnographic. Seeing as the historic documents are 

thought to provide the best details on daily life, structures and house-related assemblages 

are not, in the majority of cases, (satisfactorily) described. Household 

archaeology, as we shall see in more detail in Chapter 2, is more than just house 

plans. 

The second reason for reluctance to excavate house plans is the presence 

of analogies with the dwellings of the Tropical Forest cultures of the South 

American mainland, whose ecology, cosmology and settlement patterns have 

Introduction 

25

acted as supplements and substitutes for archaeological research in the Antilles. 

This has led to a very rich anthropological/archaeological research tradition in 

the Caribbean. One example of this is the use of the maloca model as a template 

for Saladoid houses. The maloca, a large, single-celled communal dwelling of the 

tropical lowlands, was deemed to provide the most acceptable vernacular model 

for conceptualising house form and domestic space in the precolonial insular 

Caribbean, especially during the Early Ceramic Age (Heckenberger and Petersen 

1995; Schinkel 1992; Siegel 1992, 1996, 2007). However, several recent syntheses 

and discussions of Caribbean data (Boomert 2000; Bright 2003; Duin 1998; 

Morsink 2006; Ramcharan 2004) have shown that the maloca was only one of 

the architectural solutions used in the Caribbean, and it may have been in the 

minority. Excavations have produced a much larger array of round, oval, square, 

irregular, large and small structures indicating that, as on the mainland, insular 

traditions were diverse (Kaplan 2009). Bright (2003:61) for example proposes 

that house design within one period and location may have been flexible (in 

contrast to a more conservative burial tradition). Moreover, the maloca village is 

a particular historical development in Amazonia, rather than an ahistorical template 

(Heckenberger 2002:112-113). 

Finally, the perishable nature of precolonial architecture and the destructive 

actions of especially (tourist) development are seen as barriers to the recovery of 

settlement features (Curet 1992a:161). This is despite early investigations which 

made evident that some sites in the Greater Antilles represented potentially excellent 

opportunities for excavation of post-built structures. As early as the start 

of the 20 th century, Mason (1941:233-247 and pl.12) recovered burnt posts over 

two metres deep at Capá (Caguana), Utuado, Puerto Rico, and interpreted these 

as parts of aboriginal ceremonial houses. Later investigators seemed to forget 

this (see Rouse quotation at the start of the chapter). 17 Large scale excavations 

were common in the Dominican Republic, especially during the 1970s; however, 

these were aimed at documenting burials, stratigraphy and general settlement 

layout, not houses. 

1.3 Positioning the El Cabo research within the 

archaeological research history of the Dominican Republic 

“De esta área indígena [Juandolio-Guayacanes] se reportaron los mejores collares y 

amuletos líticos, cuya belleza y terminado asombran a los mas entendidos conocedores de 

la cultura taína. Hasta la fecha niungún otro lugar ha arrojado mayor de número de 

abalorios y microcuentas. Ademas la frecuencia de cemies de piedra en posición acucillada. 

Algunos de estos valiosos amuletos y pendientes se encuentran en el Museo Nacional y el 

resto en colecciones privadas.” 

(Mañón Arredondo et al. 1971:94-95) 

 

even the most experienced experts of Taíno culture, have been reported 

from the Juandolio-Guayacanes area. To this day, no other place has revealed 

a greater number of beads. The same is true of crouched stone cemís. A 

few of these precious amulets and pendants can be found in the National 

Museum, and the rest in private collections.” Author’s translation] 

17 But because of the primacy of the monumental architecture of the ballcourts, Mason (1941:238) 

notes that “their [i.e. the features] publication here would have only nuisance value.” 


If there are few houseplans in the Greater Antilles, there are none at all on 

Hispaniola. 18 Even moreso than in the rest of the Greater Antilles, this may 

have to do with the submission to the supremacy of text and the fact that the 

early descriptions of houses refer to Hispaniola. Combined with the fact that 

Dominican archaeology, as a reflection of both the United States Boasian tradition 

and Latin American Social Archaeology, is characterized by a keen interest 

in the current day populations of the island, whose rural subsistence strategies 

and ecology are deemed analogous to precolonial lifeways, and their houses built 

similarly (Fewkes 1907:41; Herrera Fritot 1946:16; Ortega 2005; Prieto Vicioso 

2009; Vega 1981; Veloz Maggiolo 2004). This adds up to lethargy in the excavation 

of houses. 

This charge would be denied by Dominican archaeologists who argue that 

the excavation of postholes and mapping of house mounds in many sites show a 

marked presence of houses of which the size and form can be known (“la marcada 

presencia de viviendas nucleares”; Veloz Maggiolo (1984:13) on Atajadizo). 

But without more data these remain assumptions. Moreover, basic data such 

as the presence, size and form of structures are just the starting point of house 

analysis. 

Fuller historiographies of Dominican archaeological research history can be 

found in Veloz Maggiolo (1972) and Ulloa Hung (2006). I shall limit myself 

here to the main trends and information relevant to research in the eastern region, 

the study of houses and the creation of a dominant narrative of the archaeological 

past with regard to domestic life. 

1.3.1 The early phase 

Although the 17 th and 18 th centuries saw an interest in the history of Caribbean 

populations, these were ethnographic and historical texts mainly by European 

authors (Ulloa Hung 2006a:9-22; Veloz Maggiolo 1972:2-20). There are occasional 

references to early collecting of archaeological artefacts, such as the various 

stone cemís found in the caves of Santa Ana, Santo Domingo, in 1808 by the 

traveller (“el viajero”) Walton (Mañón Arredondo et al. 1971:108). However, it 

was not until the mid-nineteenth century that we hear of archaeological remains 

provoking interest, usually among foreign dilettantes, who were generally “solo 

de paso” (Mañón Arredondo et al. 1971:106), such as the British scientific traveller 

and consul to Santo Domingo, Sir Robert H. Schomburgk, posted just after 

the Dominican Republic gained independence from Haiti (1844). Schomburgk 

collected everything from animals and plants to social and economic statistics 

and ethnographic and archaeological objects (Rivière 2006:210-215). He journeyed 

on horseback, mapping some of the most renowned sites in the Dominican 

Republic such as the ceremonial plaza of San Juan de la Maguana (Rivière 2006; 

Ulloa Hung 2006a). Relevant to this dissertation, in 1850 he made forays into 

the east of the Dominican Republic, visiting Hato Mayor, El Seibo, Higüey and 

Macao and publishing articles on shell heaps in Cabo Engaño and on the tides 

and currents of the Mona Passage (Rivière 2006; Schomburgk 1854). 

The Frenchman Louis Alphonse Pinart is credited with the production of the 

first official document on the archaeology of the Dominican Republic, published 

in the Gaceta Oficial in Santo Domingo in 1881 (Veloz Maggiolo 1972:7). He 

reports on indigenous burials and rock art from the coast of Los Haitises and 

the Bay of Samaná (ibid. 1972:7-8; Ulloa Hung 2006a:13). However, the start 

18 En Bas Saline is included in this statement because although the site has produced evidence for 

three structures, the specifics of none have been published. 

Introduction 

27

of systematic study of aboriginal material culture is attributed to the anthropologist 

Jesse Walter Fewkes (1891 et passim; Veloz Maggiolo 1972:9-11) whose 

articles on especially cemí artefacts of the islands of the Greater Antilles and 

elsewhere in the West Indies testify to the number of collections of indigenous 

pieces by private individuals already existing at that time in the Caribbean and 

outside. His rigorous methods are seen as the precursors of the Boasian historical 

particularism of the American school of anthropology, heralded by American 

imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean (Ulloa Hung 2006a:15). This 

tradition was inherited by later scholars such as Irving Rouse (starting with his 

work on Haiti in 1939). 

Other foreigners, mostly North Americans such as the Dutch emigré 

Theodoor de Booy, who was also active in the eastern part of the Dominican 

Republic after Schomburgk, followed suit (de Booy 1915; Mañón Arredondo 

et al 1971:105-6), as did Gudmund Hatt, Mark Harrington and in the 1930s 

Herbert W. Krieger whose publications and collections, along with those of 

Fewkes, inspired the classic study which popularized “Taíno” culture by Sven 

Lovén (1935; Krieger 1930, 1931; Veloz Maggiolo 1972). They also collected 

avidly for export to the United States and other private and public collections 

outside the Dominican Republic (Mañón Arredondo et al. 1971:95; Ulloa Hung 

2006a:15; Weeks et al. 1994). 

1.3.2 A national Dominican archaeology 

The first systematic archaeological work undertaken by a Dominican was by 

Narciso Alberti Bosch between 1908 and 1932. Bosch’s output was enormous 

and included the first publications on the extensive archaeological area of Andres 

and Boca Chica, the latter of which became the type site for one of the most 

flamboyant styles of Chicoid pottery; Boca Chica (Mañón Arredondo et al. 

1971; Veloz Maggiolo 1972:12). Another Caribbean caribbeanist, the Cuban 

René Herrera Fritot, who published among other things a work on the cemetery 

at La Caleta and excavated at La Cucama (without publishing), is credited in the 

1940s with beginning the first Antillean archaeological school in the Institute of 

Anthropology at the University of Santo Domingo. His students included Luis 

Chanlatte Baik and the later director of the Museo del Hombre Dominicano (The 

Museum of Dominican Man) Emile de Boyrie Moya. 

In the era of the 1950s many Cuban, Puerto Rican, Haitian and Dominican 

archaeologists were collaborating and excavating in the Antilles. From the 

Dominican Republic they include Emile de Boyrie Moya, Fernando Morbán 

Laucer, Manuel de Jesús, Manuel Mañón Arredondo, and Rafael Kasse Acta, who 

embarked on many field projects with the Instituto Dominicano de Investigaciones 

Antropológicas at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (Mañón Arredondo 

et al. 1971; Veloz Maggiolo 1972:19-20). 

Meanwhile, the works of the North American Irving Rouse were creating 

a new systematizing nomenclature which went beyond individual islands and 

encompassed the whole insular Caribbean from Venezuela to Cuba, in a culturehistorical 

scheme. The conflicts between Rouse’s (descriptive) view of culture, 

resulting in typo-chronologies, and later Dominican (explanatory) views (typified 

by the post- and late-1970s works of Veloz Maggiolo), expressed in modos 

de vida, not only embody the tensions of colonial and national politics but still 

represent the main cleavages (and productive collaborations) in contemporary 

Caribbean archaeology (with reference to the current debates on La Hueca and 

Taíno, i.e. origins and social processes). 


Thus, the early days of national Dominican archaeology, from the 1920s to 

the 1960s, saw the excavation of many of the most iconic Dominican sites like 

Andrés de Boca Chica, La Caleta, La Cucama, and Juandolio-Guayacanes. Many 

of these had been investigated, and their pieces shipped abroad by the time the 

Institute got involved, as lamented by its members (Mañón Arredondo et al. 

1971:94). For example, La Caleta, the joy of Antillean archaeology (as Herrera 

Fritot described it), had disappeared without a trace by the 1960s (Mañón 

Arredondo et al. 1971). It was also during the 1950s that the huge collection of 

Samuel Pión, now in the Museo de Altos de Chavón, was amassed from around 

la Romana and the Chavón River (Bluhdorn and Kaplan eds., 1992; Mañón 

Arredondo et al. 1971:107). These are not only key sites for defining cultural 

horizons, but also allegedly provide the only archaeological support for evidence 

of “Taíno chiefdoms” in the Greater Antilles. These sites along the south coast 

are the cacical (chiefly) centres with the clearest examples of “Taíno” high culture 

and artistic florescence (see above quotation). 

1.3.3 The Dominican Golden Age 

The Golden Age of Dominican archaeology was in the 1970s, when not only 

were investigations in full swing, but the Museo del Hombre Dominicano was 

founded and sites which had been combed by visitors to the island were investigated 

by its own researchers with the full backing of the Dominican government 

in post-Trujillo nation building (Ortega, 2005:56). In 1972 the first number of 

the Boletín del Museo del Hombre appeared. The museum and the anthropological 

society of the UASD (Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo) carried out 

many excavations in the 1970s and 1980s, and in collaboration with other Latin 

American colleagues, notably Iraida Vargas Arenas and Mario Obediente Sanoja 

from the Universidad Central de Caracas, Venezuela. These activities marked a 

theoretical departure from the North American trends characterizing the previous 

decades, and a pursuit of archaeology as the science of social and historical 

reconstruction with contemporary social relevance. Although old sites, such as 

La Cucama, were reappraised and excavated in this era, attention now turned 

to new sites which would form the basis of alternative, regional, narratives of 

precolonial history such as Atajadizo, the Punta Cana sites of El Barrio and Sitio 

de Pepe, Cueva de Berna, El Caimito, Juan Pedro, Punta Macao, and Boca del 

Soco, to name a few in the east (Calderón 1973, 1976, 1996; Mañón Arredondo 

et al. 1971; Ortega 1978a; Rímoli 1996; Veloz Maggiolo 1976; Veloz Maggiolo 

and Ortega 1972, 1986, 1996; Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 

1991). Researchers attached to the museum and the Academy of Sciences and 

active in publishing at the time were Manuel García Arévalo, Bernardo Vega, 

Plinio Pina, physical anthropologist Fernando Luna Calderón, palaeobotanist 

Renato Rímoli and Marcio Veloz Maggiolo. 

The latter, Veloz Maggiolo, is the scientist who above all dominated archaeology 

in the Dominican Republic for 40 years, from the 1970s to his most recent 

post (2007/8) as the director of the Museo del Hombre (only major syntheses 

or monographs listed: Veloz Maggiolo 1972, 1976, 1977, 1984, 1991, 1993; 

Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1974, 1977, 1981; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1986). 

His new approach, together with other Latin American “social” archaeologists 

and Dominican historians such as Francisco Moscoso, was a reaction against 

North American intellectual hegemony which did not chime with neo-Marxist 

paradigms. He developed a specifically Antillean vision, with the rigour of processual 

archeology and theoretical roots in Marxist historical materialism which 

focused on: (1) social relations between people as embodied in the organization 

Introduction 

29

of labour and production, (2) the hybrid origins, and (3) diversity of aboriginal 

cultures, (4) the importance of ecology, and (5) the importance of viewing the 

pre-Columbian past as part of a historical trajectory connecting with the present 

(Keegan and Rodríguez Ramos 2004; Ulloa Hung 2008; Vargas Arenas 1996). 

This was opposed to a unilineal culture history vision which saw for example the 

“Taínos” as an evolutionary end product of mainland colonization and as the 

majority and dominant group in the Greater Antilles in the final centuries before 

contact (Ulloa Hung 2008). Other major hypotheses such as the Ostionoid 

expansion and the introduction of ceramic technology were also challenged by 

the Antillean approach of Veloz Maggiolo. 

The historical materialist approach is not without criticism, however, and 

principally from Cuban researchers who broke early with Dominican Marxism, 

which in its classification of modos de vida creates an evolutionary hierarchy of 

sites (Keegan and Rodríguez 2004; Tabío and Rey 1979; Torres Etayo 2005, 

2006b; Ulloa Hung 2006b). Moreover, this is still an archaeology which focuses 

heavily on pottery, using the presence/absence, increase/decrease of ceramic 

griddles (an indicator of staple food production, especially cassava bread) to 

infer relations of labour and production. Many of the sites investigated in this 

era are relevant to the subject of El Cabo. Excavations at and site monographs of 

early pottery sites in the east formed a critical mass of new information which 

criticized Rouse’s homogenous scheme of Ostionoid and eventually Chicoid evolution 

from Saladoid ancestry, instead arguing for early, diverse influences from 

within and outside Hispaniola resulting in various forms of ethnogenesis (Veloz 

Maggiolo 1991). 

Moreover, the extensive excavations at the settlement sites of Atajadizo 

and Juan Pedro, both published as monographs (Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1976; 

Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1986), and to a lesser extent at Boca del Soco and 

Punta Macao (lesser because they are not fully published, Andújar Persinal et al. 

2004:171; Ulloa Hung 2008; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1972; Veloz Maggiolo 

1972, 1992 for aspects of these sites) yielded evidence for house features. 

Interpretations and reconstructions of houses have been made at these sites on 

the basis of the spacing of posts and the topographic and spatial characteristics 

of house mounds (pers. comm. Veloz Maggiolo 2008). 

1.3.4 The current state of affairs 

Nowadays, Dominican archaeologists form a small active network involved in 

campaigning for and preserving the national heritage, as well as being involved 

in international collaboration. 19 Unfortunately, despite the fact that the general 

public takes a keen interest in their culture and history, the absence of university 

level courses in archaeology and an economic and political agenda which is at 

odds with the interests of cultural heritage means that there are few Dominican 

archaeologists, and little continuity in terms of personnel or training. The Museo 

del Hombre, resilient in the face of budget cuts and political changes, continues 

to house and make available a world class collection, maintains the national site 

inventory, welcomes researchers to its library and archives, and regularly produces 

one of the longest-running scientific publications devoted to archaeology, 

anthropology and history in the Caribbean - the Boletín del Museo del Hombre 

19 Those of my direct acquaintance are Harold Olsen Bogaert, Jorge Ulloa Hung, Marcio Veloz 

Maggiolo, Elpidio Ortega, Glenis María Tavárez, and Gabriel Atiles. I am indebted to them all 

for their enthusiasm and readiness in helping me understand Dominican history and archaeology 

and the exchange of ideas we have had from the beginning about El Cabo. 


Dominicano. Museum personnel also carry out impact assessments ahead of 

development or mineral extraction, the results of which are published in the 

Boletín. 

Recently, research-driven excavation in the Dominican Republic, like this 

dissertation project, has been carried out in partnership with foreign institutions 

(Indiana University, Leiden University, Sapienza Università di Roma, University 

of Wisconsin-Madison, Florida Museum of Natural History, etc.). To prevent 

these from being “solo de paso” visits, the Museo has taken the initiative in requiring 

formal bilateral agreements between foreign and host institutions (i.e. 

the Museo del Hombre). This is a positive move fostering more enduring international 

relationships which will result in better collaboration with local partners. 

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, the lack of university level courses in 

archaeological subjects risks these developments only having limited impact in 

the long term (Ulloa Hung 2009:8). 

1.4 Positioning the El Cabo research locally 

“The earthly paradise glimpsed by Columbus was to be perpetuated, and at the same time 

debased, in a gracious life-style reserved solely for the rich.” 

(Claude Lévi-Strauss (1955/73:74), Tristes Tropiques) 

1.4.1 Threats to the Dominican heritage 

One of the tasks of the Museo del Hombre is protecting the archaeological heritage 

of the Dominican Republic. A national site record is kept to assess the damage 

done by destruction of archaeological sites. Ironically, a site often only comes 

to the knowledge of the authorities because of the attention it receives from 

saqueadores or huaqueros (looters), or more fatally and commonly when it has already 

been erased by large-scale development activities. Consequently, one often 

comes across references to destruction by looting in Dominican archaeological 

literature and in the national press (Olsen 2001b:84; Listín Diario) 20 . However, 

in practice, the distinction between collectors, looters and archaeologists is ambiguous. 

Mainly this is a distinction of money, class and education. Moreover, 

the “looter” is always the local man with the shovel, or the local middle-man 

with friends or family in rural villages with “restos de indios” (Indian remains), 

rather than those members of the wealthy elite, foreign and Dominican, official 

and respectable who commission the pieces. Many of the latter are famed for 

their collections of indigenous pieces and are champions of Dominican heritage. 

Local people know their illegal digging will go unnoticed but do not know how 

inflated the prices of objects become once they have left the country. One short 

example suffices: 

A local man from Higüey, who we saw on site and was referred to as “Hector 

the Detector”, regularly comes with friends for a weekend fishing and digging 

near El Cabo for archaeological pieces to sell to collectors. Hector was proud of 

his aptitude for recovering top quality pieces. He was also proud of his extensive 

network of buyers, many of whom he claimed were archaeologists, who valued 

his skills. He (almost certainly correctly) asserted that he knew more about the 

location of indigenous sites than professional archaeologists. The pieces he offered 

to us were very convincing and came from a variety of local provenances. 

20 Recent examples: “Peligro: El patrimonio arqueológico es destruido por los saqueadores”, 

12/1/2008, “Las que salen de República Dominicana se venden en cantidades exorbitantes”, 

12/2/2008, reporter Javier Valdivia. 

Introduction 

31

It was difficult to tell how many were genuinely precolonial. He was very unwilling 

to tell us the origin of these pieces even though we offered to acquire them 

for the Museo (after consultation with the director) if he did so. He claimed the 

site was very nearby, although we were unable to verify his account with enough 

certainty, and declined. 

Hector is just one type of “looter” we encountered whilst we were working 

in El Cabo. Other people who make money from archaeological pieces are local 

inhabitants who over the years sold pieces they came across in their day-to-day 

work farming gardens and tending sheep. Economic incentives are the reasons 

why local children know how to identify indigenous pottery quicker than us. 

This is a national informal economic activity. 

1.4.2 Large-scale destruction 

The damage caused to archaeological sites by unofficial digging is only a drop in 

the ocean compared to their destruction by development. Unrestrained building 

projects, beachfront urbanisation and the laying of golf courses across huge 

swathes of Dominican territory irrevocably re-shape and destroy its past human 

landscape (Olsen 2001b). A similar picture is seen all over the Dominican 

Republic, particularly in coastal zones (Gregory 2007). 

To keep this discussion locally relevant, I will concentrate on examples of this 

which we directly witnessed throughout fieldwork in the eastern region. This 

puts the research carried out under Houses for the living and the dead into the 

context of local archaeology. 

The eastern Dominican Republic has been seen as the gateway for the expansion 

of Arawak-speaking peoples from Puerto Rico into the rest of the Greater 

Antilles. When pottery-producing horticulturalists crossed the Mona Passage 

around AD 600, they were thought to be forerunners of the historic “Taíno”, 

gradually replacing the Casimiroid fisher-gatherer populations of Hispaniola, 

Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamas (Rouse 1992). However, evidence from sites in 

the Punta Cana area suggest that 

people in Hispaniola may have 

been making and using pottery 

up to 1000 years earlier than 

this standard model indicates. 

This calls into question not only 

the chronology for the spread 

of pottery technology, but the 

origins of the Neolithic way 

of life and the culture-history 

of the Caribbean (Rímoli and 

Nadal 1983 21 ; Rodríguez Ramos 

et al. 2008; Veloz Maggiolo et 

al. 1991; Veloz Maggiolo and 

Ortega 1996). 

Punta Macao, Sitio de Pepe 

and El Barrio are three sites 

which between them represent a 

long historical sequence (Ulloa 

Hung 2008; Veloz Maggiolo et 

0 10 20 

kilometres 

Figure 2. Approximate area 

(grey) of privately owned 

property in the Altagracia 

coastal area (2006), and 

consequently the area of 

destruction of archaeological 

sites. Dot shows location of 

El Cabo site. 

21 The author has not been able to consult this publication, but has learnt of its relevance to the 

matter in question from secondary publications. 


al. 1977, 1991; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1996). Dates published for the early 

use of pottery come from El Barrio, and Punta Macao may have been continuously 

inhabited up to colonial times. These sites thus potentially enable the tracing 

of this long historical trajectory and, consequently, are seen as key sites in 

Dominican and Greater Antillean archaeology. Investigations in the 1970s and 

1990s were the tip of the iceberg, and unfortunately these sites and those in the 

eastern coastal region in general are threatened or have already been destroyed 

by development of the beachfront zone in the last decades (Fig. 2). They are no 

longer available for excavation. The same goes for the hundreds of unknown sites 

on the combined private estates along the east coast. 

One of the ways in which sites are destroyed in these areas is through the 

large-scale mining of pits for sand and gravel and the dynamiting of Pleistocene 

cliffs, caves and beaches for landscaping. Material is commonly transported from 

one location to another throughout properties. Due to the density of past habitation 

in the area, material from archaeological sites can be found at a distance 

from its source incorporated in roads and other manmade landscape features 

across private terrains. Examples of “site relocation” are common. Although pri- 

vate developers occasionally acknowledge the ecological value of their property 

(to sell the idea of a sustainable tourism), this is usually in the form of the biodiversity 

of plant and animal life, and never in terms of human history. In effect 

a narrative of a tabula rasa, in which there is no human history, is created. 22 This 

erasure flies in the face of the fact that the area was far more densely populated 

throughout centuries of precolonial history than today. 23 

1.4.3 The relevance of El Cabo to local history and vice versa 

The point of this gloomy preamble is to indicate the importance of extensive 

research in El Cabo, which so far has not been encroached upon. It thus offers 

one of the only remaining opportunities for settlement research, focusing on 

the house, in the eastern part of the Dominican Republic. Such research is no 

longer possible in the majority of areas of the east, with the exception of areas in 

the better protected Parque del Este (Atiles and Ortega 2001; Conrad et al 2001, 

2008; Guerrero 1981; Ortega and Atiles 2003; Vega and Calderón 2004). 

It is not only precolonial history which is being erased by developments in 

the area. The contemporary inhabitants are also threatened by the process of 

development. In the approximately 50-year history of the village of El Cabo, 

the quality of life for local people has diminished considerably. The inhabitants, 

who arrived before the foundation of big resorts further north along the coast, 

did not envisage the lightning encroachment of these private domains, which 

eventually choked access and opportunity, and turned El Cabo from a relatively 

dynamic rural hub, tied into a network of similar villages and farmsteads, into a 

dying community. 24 The displacement of local people by private landowners is a 

22 This chimes with the rugged individualism of capitalist adventure which can be found in the 

publicity literature: “In 1969, a group of American investors acquired a 58-million square meter 

lot, equivalent to 48 square kilometers of pure jungle…” From the official history of a local 

resort. 

23 An exception is the collaboration between the Museo, the Leiden University Caribbean research 

group and Punta Cana estate who are currently developing plans to research the still intact El 

Barrio site. A longstanding relation between Punta Cana and the Museo has led to a mutually 

beneficial recognition and appreciation of the archaeological heritage by the landowner (Veloz 

Maggiolo and Ortega 1996). 

24 There is a horrible irony in what Benitez-Rojo (1989) calls this rediscubrimiento whereby in an 

analogous situation to precolonial indigenous uprooting, the natural resources (i.e. prime coastal 

real estate) of the present-day inhabitants are also being exploited to their disadvantage. 

Introduction 

33

common theme in coastal areas (Gregory 2007). Coastal communities are very 

precarious and local interests completely marginalized in the land grab of the 

rich and powerful. Life in marginalized communities such as El Cabo is now far 

from idyllic, but very representative of a type of rural existence in the Dominican 

Republic which is being denied and degraded by certain priority forms of economic 

development. Often archaeological sites and rural settlements occur together 

as not only are these long-lastingly attractive places to live, but presentday 

farmers are apt to re-occupy the fertile, midden soils of former habitation 

areas. 25 Such landscapes are often not dissimilar to precolonial landscapes. The 

people who live in the surroundings of El Cabo now are the last surviving inhabitants 

of the contemporary and precolonial landscape. This is said guardedly not 

to imply that the inhabitants are frozen in time. Quite the contrary, the current 

marginalization of rural communities in the east is the result of their refusal to 

face the modernity of urban deprivation, but instead to enjoy a semi-autonomous 

existence from state control in what is seen as a historically unproductive 

zone. This means that the current population have become the stewards and inheritors 

of the precolonial landscape which has remained in many ways similar 

to how it was. Local inhabitants are now the custodians of the archaeological site 

of El Cabo, as their minimal-impact presence preserves the site. 

Several field seasons over four years of working in El Cabo with local people 

has led to mutually beneficial relationships and experiences which influence the 

interpretations in this dissertation in more ways than one. Apart from the logistical 

benefits (to us) and the economic benefits (to the local workers and the 

village), one of the advantages enjoyed by all parties was the dialogue created 

between locals and non-locals, between the present and the past. Local people 

regularly did paid work alongside the archaeological team, performing many 

of the same tasks, and almost everyone in the village was informed about the 

work and visited the site. The work in El Cabo was joint research. One of the 

repercussions of this is not that locals suddenly stopped looting the site 26 , but 

that there was a marked mutual appreciation and satisfaction in our exchange of 

information about the precolonial inhabitants and about how things were now. 

An interest in the past and present of El Cabo established lasting relationships 

between us and local people, which continue today. This was the most fruitful 

area of archaeological collaboration I experienced in the Dominican Republic. 

The cooperation and exchange between researchers and local people should be 

acknowledged in this dissertation. 

The development of the Dominican Republic does not only threaten cultural 

heritage, but more importantly people’s livelihoods. Research in El Cabo 

is extremely valuable because it is one of the only intact sites in the eastern 

Dominican Republic. Documentation of precolonial and contact-period lifeways 

here is only possible because the area has not yet been subject to developer 

destruction. 

1.5 Discussion 

This chapter has provided an introduction to the research aims and historical 

background of archaeological research on settlement structures in the Greater 

Antilles. In summary, the Greater Antillean research tradition has not lent itself 

25 The frequency with which this occurs can be seen in Ortega’s (2005) site compendium. See also 

Veloz Maggiolo’s La Mosca Soldado. 

26 In any case informal digging does not occur much any more and our role is not to prevent local 

people supplementing their income. 


to the dedicated recovery of settlement features. The unprepossessingly small, 

single-roomed round houses sometimes isolated in excavation units are not as 

exciting as the descriptions of houses by Spanish colonists. The house as an 

analytical unit is therefore an underdeveloped topic. This is largely due to the 

historical research paradigms within Caribbean archaeology itself. Several extensive 

excavations, especially in Puerto Rico, have shown that there is potential to 

develop this area. A far more critical approach is needed for the identification of 

structures, and this should be applied to already excavated house plans. In addition, 

research designs are needed which specifically target the recovery of intrasite 

domestic settings. 

The situation described in general for the Greater Antilles is even more pronounced 

in the Dominican Republic. The early history of research developed 

culture-chronological schemes on the basis of pottery and identified the presence 

of elaborate material culture in some sites. These same sites, denominated as cacical 

centres, and now destroyed, have achieved anecdotal recognition which remains 

influential in archaeological narratives. Later excavations in the 1970s and 

1980s established alternative chronological schemes and classifying traits (modos 

de vida) for sites, but still generated few data on intra-site dynamics. Altogether 

there is a general lack of data synthesis from excavations which prevents the construction 

of an archaeological picture of indigenous settlement structures or the 

dynamics of settled life, and this is even more so the case in Hispaniola. Threats 

posed to the cultural heritage of the island, especially in coastal regions, are particularly 

pressing, and compound this problem further. 

Introduction 

35

Chapter 2 

Trajectories of social life 

The main purpose of this chapter is to situate the archaeological approach taken 

here by a discussion of “house-centred” 27 research in archaeology. The theoretical 

and methodological relevance of this type of research in the Caribbean will 

be outlined and a definition given of the terms house, House Trajectory, and yucayeque 

which will be used in the interpretive chapters of this dissertation. 

The end contention is that the house, as an indigenously constructed and 

archaeologically retrievable unit, offers avenues of understanding into the precolonial 

and post-contact society of the Greater Antilles through themes such as 

materiality and aesthetics, the temporalities of social life, social complexity and 

social transformation and domestic identity. This approach is informed by archaeological 

discussions on the house, an empirical grounding in the methodology 

of household archaeology and the specific qualities of the El Cabo data, and 

influenced by ethnographic literature on Amazonian sociality and grounded in 

the contemporary village of El Cabo. 

2.1 Household archaeologies 

There are no household archaeologists, just household archaeologies. The research 

designs of household archaeologies focus on (usually commoner, majority) social 

dynamics, the small scale, indigenous social units and identities, and not necessarily 

on houses per se. The social entities archaeologists wish to explore are not 

always coterminous with a house. Or as Hendon puts it: “Although not always 

named as such, a concern with household production and social relations has 

informed archaeological research of different theoretical orientations and operating 

under various paradigms” (Hendon 2004:272). One such theoretical orientation 

which has parallels with practice-based perspectives by a shared focus 

on daily life (la vida cotidiana) is Latin American Social Archaeology. According 

to this approach, the house and especially household organisation are an inherent, 

though not explicit part of research (Ensor 2000; Politis 2004; Sanoja 1995; 

Ulloa Hung 2009; Vargas Arenas 1996; Veloz Maggiolo 1984). Very often, however, 

houses in settlement contexts are identified as the material conjunction of 

research interests. This is the case in this dissertation where the house is the main 

subject. 

The study of houses and households has followed the major trends in archaeology 

over the last half century. Especially within the last decade, household 

archaeology has developed into one of the most socially oriented forms of 

archaeology. Its main strength is empirical research of complex societies at the 

small scale, strongly informed by cross-cultural studies, both complementing 

and challenging dominant narratives focused at “culture” on the larger scale, 

adding a bottom-up perspective and bringing the credibility of background 

27 Used by Gillespie (2007) to denote approaches built on various disciplinary foundations deal- 

Gillespie (2007) to denote approaches built on various disciplinary foundations dealing 

with the house as a social, political, economic, kinship, residential, ritual, or other kind of 

corporate identity. 


37

knowledge into question (Ames 2006; Robin 2003:309; Wylie 2007). This was 

as much the case at its processual beginnings, when the archaeology of households 

consciously operated as “middle-range theory” (Wilk and Rathje 1982), as 

later interpretive approaches in which houses reflected cognitive schemes or were 

social settings for the practices of agents (Hendon 2004). Nowadays household 

archaeology can best be defined as a scale of analysis whose practitioners deal 

with complex, usually sedentary societies, and whose focus are the social dynamics 

and material setting of the house and settlement. Household archaeology has 

moved from the study of the house as a unit of economic analysis, or the ethnography-envious 

container of elusive households, to a branch of archaeology 

which tackles anthropological themes from a historical, material- and practicebased 

perspective. 

There have been a series of in-depth critical discussions and reviews in the 

literature, plotting the intellectual and methodological history of household archaeology 

and its current contributions which makes the sub-branch of household 

archaeology one of the most diverse, engaged and productive fields of archaeological 

research (Allison ed. 1999; Ames 2006; Beck ed. 2007; Carsten and 

Hugh-Jones ed. 1995; Gillespie 2000a, 2000b; Hendon 1996, 2004; Joyce and 

Gillespie eds. 2000; Nash 2009; Robin 2003). 

2.1.1 Methodology in household archaeology 

Empirical methods are important in the definition of household archaeology. 

Field methodology follows an explicit research design which focuses on the recovery 

of social constructions relevant to past cultures whose material correlates 

can be found contextualized in the worlds of the everyday – domestic, mortuary, 

military, occupational, etc. The terminology “household”, which implies a social 

group, rather than a material object, does not require a house (Allison 2006; 

Rossenberg 2005; Voss 2008 on households in military/colonial or mortuary 

contexts, or Levi-Strauss’ concept of house extending to shrines, clan boats or 

shields, Gillespie 2000b:48), and can extend beyond the spatial boundary of 

the dwelling structure and incorporate membership within different social parameters. 

This often implies extensive, multi-season excavation, or if not, extensive 

synthesis of published material. Robin (2003:312) cites this as one of the 

strengths of household archaeology which is both strongly dependent on empirical 

data sets and connected to theoretical developments. 

One of the early explicit attempts to define a methodology of household 

archaeology appeared in the edited volume The archeology of household activities 

(Allison ed. 1999) which brought together case studies, particularly from 

the Mediterranean, in a self-proclaimed “largely processual approach” in which 

household archaeology is defined as the relationship between the spatial patterning 

of architectural features and artefact distributions (Allison 1999:1-18). As 

simple as this may sound now, this correlation has seldom been expressly sought 

in Caribbean excavation history. With regard to the Maya commoner house, 

which has been one of the most productive realms in household archaeology, 

Robin (2003) cites recent methodological developments as: (1) the expansion of 

the domain of household studies into outside spaces, (2) new scientific analyses, 

particularly in soil chemistry, bone chemistry, and paleoethnobotany, and (3) 

the intensive study of uniquely preserved households. 

Some of these advancements also hold true for Caribbean archaeology which 

in the extensive excavations at Golden Rock, Anse à la Gourde, Kelbey’s Ridge 

2, En Bas Saline, Tanki Flip, Tutu and El Cabo have also focused on research 

of domestic areas outside midden deposits, as well as inside and outside houses 


(Deagan 2004; Delpuech et al. 1997, 1999; Hofman et al. 2001, 2006, 2008; 

Hoogland and Hofman 1993; Morsink 2006; Righter ed. 2002; Samson forthcoming; 

Samson and Hoogland 2007; Versteeg and Rostain ed. 1997; Versteeg 

and Schinkel 1992). Moreover, Caribbean archaeology is increasingly pioneering 

new techniques such as research into isotopes and ceramic and clay provenancing, 

revealing more about prehistoric patterns of mobility and exchange (see 

contributions in Hofman et al. eds., 2008). What I would however disagree with 

is the premise that household archaeology functions better under conditions of 

good preservation or rapid abandonment. The “Pompeii premise” (Ascher 1961 

cit. Binford 198l), that artefact assemblages are direct reflections of human actions 

frozen in a snapshot of time, still lingers in the definitions of Robin and 

the case-studies of Allison, and this is probably as a reflection of their very well 

preserved remains. One of the key strengths of archaeology in general, is its ability 

to access deep time, and gain the historical perspective missing in ethnographies 

and access phenomena not visible at human lifescales. The properties and 

characteristics of the house through time, and this temporal emphasis is a theme 

addressed in The durable house (Beck ed. 2007, and see also Ames 2006; Gillespie 

2007; Marshall 2006), but is generally more explicit in other archaeologies focused 

outside the domestic arena in cult places and monuments (see contributions 

in Mills and Walker eds. 2008, especially Gillespie 2008). The emphasis 

on good preservation in household archaeology is rather like chasing an ethnographic 

chimera and does not play to archaeology’s strengths. 

2.1.2 House theories in archaeology 

Early archaeological household studies were descriptive and functionalist in nature. 

They looked at the house as the smallest identifiable economic and political 

unit, socially expressed as the household (defined by economic function) or corporate 

group (defined by the property-holding function) depending on research 

emphasis (Marshall 2006:38-39). These groups were seen as the building blocks 

of society, materializing microcosms of production, distribution, transmission 

and reproduction (Blanton 1994; Hayden and Cannon 1982; Netting et al. 

1984; Wilk and Rathje 1982, see discussion in Hendon 2004; Robin 2003). 

Such studies established the house as a valid unit of archaeological analysis, 

which Hendon characterizes as the U.S. approach (2004). Anthropologists 

were already interested in the possibilities of the category of the house from the 

1970s as an alternative analytical and organizational system to kinship (Gillespie 

2000a; Stone 2004). At this stage, however, archaeology did not engage with 

those anthropological themes. 

This is contrasted to a European cognitive approach, which was influenced 

by the structuralist anthropologies of Lévi-Strauss and Bourdieu, and which saw 

the material culture of domestic life in terms of meanings and symbols (Hendon 

2004; Hodder 1990; Pope 2007). Case studies such as that of the Bororo village 

and Berber house (Bourdieu 1973; Lévi-Strauss 1963) were popular in archaeology 

because binary oppositions were often materially encoded in domestic 

buildings and settlements (inside : outside, front : back, etc.). Later, the focus 

of analogy moved to Southeast Asia and body symbolism (Carsten and Hugh- 

Jones 1995; Fox ed.1993; Schefold et al. eds., 2003, 2008; Waterson 1991). The 

impact of cross-cultural ethnography on house studies in archaeology was extremely 

influential, especially studies which discussed the symbolic ordering of 

the house and settlement so that the domestic environment was conceptualized 

as a microcosm of the larger cosmos, or as metaphorically related to the human 

body. Indeed anthropomorphism was seen as one of architecture’s universals 


39

(Preston Blier 1987, cit. Brück 1999; Duly 1979). These studies had a great 

impact on British prehistoric roundhouse studies, often peppered with analogies 

from North Africa, South America or Southeast Asia (Brück 1999; Parker 

Pearson and Richards 1994; Pope 2007; Richards 1990, 1996). 

Importantly, from the 1990s onwards, on both sides of the Atlantic, and 

partly as a critical reaction to the androcentric bias of structuralist approaches 

(associating women : domestic : inside as opposed to men : public : outside), and 

also to address the shortcomings of both U.S. and European traditions which 

excluded real people (expressed as social agents and gendered bodies), feminist 

archaeologies embraced the house as a focus of study. These studies embodied 

diversity, practices of individuals and the interrelatedness of social and political 

relationships which converged on the house to break down the separate 

spheres of structuralist boundaries (Brück 1999, 2005; Gero and Conkey 1991; 

Gilchrist 1999; Hays-Gilpin and Whitley 1998; Hendon 1996; Claassen and 

Joyce 1997). Such archaeologies deconstructed “domestic” activities such as eating 

and sleeping exposing the power and discourse of their political dimensions. 

The house was cast as the key social component in the constitution of 

culture, as distinctively political entities through which productive and ritual 

activities were organized and performed. “The household is, in effect, politicized 

in that its internal relations are inextricable from the larger economic and political 

structure of society” (Hendon 1996). It is this third wave feminist archaeological 

research which paved the way for the agent-focussed archaeologies of social life. 

Elements of which are apparent in Marxist (Latin American Social Archaeology) 

approaches in which domestic relations, as the major structuring factors in society, 

determine modes of production and organization of labour. These approaches 

can generally be classed as practice-based because they are concerned with 

the process of the production and reproduction of culture by social agents in 

the spaces in which they live (Hendon 2004; Lopiparo 2007; Robin 2002, following 

Bourdieu 1977; Dobres 2000; Giddens 1979, 1984. Recent case-studies 

in archaeology being: Brück 2005; Deagan 2004; Flannery and Marcus 2005; 

Rodning 2007; Scattolin et al. 2009; Voss 2008). 

Lévi-Strauss’ definition of the house in house societies, i.e. a social entity 

attached to an estate, within a hierarchical structure which embodied the ideal 

of continuity, engaged in the transmission of valued property and strategically 

exploited language of kinship 28 , received widespread critical attention from anthropologists 

in the 1990s (Carsten and Hugh-Jones ed.1995; Waterson 1991), 

but it was only with Joyce and Gillespie’s edited volume Beyond Kinship (2000), 

a collection of ethnographic and archaeological papers, that the essence of the 

Lévi-Straussian definition, relevance and applicability was debated from an archaeological 

perspective as well. A number of these essays explicitly addressed 

the diachronic perspective of house histories, the materialization of continuity 

in architecture and burial practices, hierarchical relationships between houses 

and the circulation of heirlooms (Gillespie 2000c; Joyce 2000; Tringham 2000). 

Nevertheless, contexts in which the recent historical past is extendable through 

archaeology were seen as the most appropriate contexts for interpretations of 

house societies (Gillespie 2000a:14). Archaeology was thus still seen as some- 

28 [“a moral person holding an estate made up of material and immaterial wealth which perpetuates 

itself through the transmission of its name down a real or imaginary line, considered legitimate 

as long as this continuity can express itself in the language of kinship or of affinity, and, most 

often, of both” (Lévi-Strauss 1979/Eng. trans.1983:174, cited in Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995; 

see Gillespie 2000b)]. 


what supplementary to the ethnographic cause, whereby the cultural, immaterial 

and contextual richness is supplied by the latter, and the physical details and 

time depth supplied by the former (ibid.,:14). 

Recent discussions on the house have become more materialist over time, 

from Carsten and Hugh-Jones eds. (1995), to Joyce and Gillespie eds. (2000) 

to Beck ed. (2007). This can be seen in the latest archaeological literature on 

the house (Ames 2006; Beck ed. 2007; Hendon 2004; Marshall 2006; Rodning 

2007; Scattolin et al. 2009; Sobel et al. eds. 2006) which has identified a set of 

themes dealing variously with social organization, cultural and social change, 

daily practice, social memory, symbolic behaviour, status inequalities, the construction 

of time and space, and the production of identities through the material 

realm of the house. These “enhanced” house models are distinctly archaeological, 

contributing valuable insights into how house-related practices are integral 

to an understanding of past societies; a post-processual reformulation of the position 

that houses (rather than households, sensu Wilk and Rathje 1982) are the 

building blocks of society. However, a proliferation of terms (“H/house” (capitalized 

and lower case), “household”, “maison”, “société à maisons”, “house societies”, 

“social house”) and their common application in the analysis of complex, 

middle-range societies, especially in cases where archaeologists have evidence 

for continuity in built structures, indications that these buildings held meaning 

for their inhabitants and where there is differential access to valuables or differences 

in house size (Düring 2006:44) is seen by some as risking the creation 

of another generic, empty term (Gillespie 2007). Similar concerns have been 

expressed by Keegan with respect to Caribbean archaeology, which he terms 

“jumping on the house bandwagon” (2007). This frustration may be related to 

the fact that many discussions Lévi-Straussian definitions are invoked although 

he never made any reference to a physical structure in his discussion of house 

societies (Gillespie 2007:34). Archaeologists, however, are confronted with the 

physical reality of past structures which they interpret as houses! Whilst I acknowledge 

the legacy of Lévi-Strauss in many house-centred discussions, I am 

in agreement with Rivière (2004:106) that such discussions are useful for their 

heuristic, or expository value, and would not argue for a stricter application of 

the terms (contra Gillespie 2007), I do believe there is a necessity to define one’s 

own terms to a come to a context sensitive and historically specific characterisation 

of a particular past. 

2.1.3 Definitions and approach used in the dissertation 

The house is a term which attempts to approximate past categories. The archaeological 

house is nevertheless a constructed unit (sensu Ramenofsky and Steffen 

“the packages we create to measure the world”, 1998:3). The extent to which these 

archaeological constructs are meaningful expressions of the lives of past people 

is dependent on how we collect and interpret data. Three main terms specific to 

the interpretation of the domestic context in El Cabo will be used in this dissertation, 

house, House Trajectory and yucayeque. These take physical structures 

and material contexts as their starting points. They are defined in the following 

ways: 

2.1.3.1 House 

A house is a dwelling structure. The morphology of the architectural plan, characteristics 

of the life history of the building, and the character and range of functions 

and practices, both ritual and quotidian associated with the structure are 


41

distinct from other structures in the domestic area or non-domestic contexts. 

These characteristics, functions and practices are described and assessed with 

respect to how they relate to a social entity, or the household (one-to-one, oneto-many, 

many-to-one). To what extent houses represent “home, the inside, the 

Us, and the here-and-now” (Helms 1998:19) should be assessed on the basis of 

the material remains of and related to the structure/s. 

2.1.3.2 House Trajectory 

A House Trajectory explicitly refers to the material pathways houses form and 

how they reproduce themselves. The House Trajectory is a spatio-temporal unit 

made up of a sequence of houses reproduced over time with express reference 

to the first house. The House Trajectory is not only more durable than its inhabitants 

but encompasses their concern with social and cultural reproduction 

through the formal, structured and explicit renewal of house architecture and 

house practices. Each renewal is a successful reproduction of the house. 

2.1.3.3 Yucayeque 

Yucayeque is the settlement community. The term yucayeque (Wesch 1993; or 

phonetic form “inkayeke”, Granberry and Vescelius 2004:122) is an indigenous 

Taíno word which appears in the Hieronymite Interrogatory (Interrogatorio 

Jeronimiano), written in April 1517 by fourteen Hieronymite priests resident in 

Hispaniola and charged with advising on improving the encomienda system to 

save the indigenous population from extinction (Anderson Córdova 1990:122- 

126; Wesch 1993). Their mission explicitly focussed on under what conditions 

and how indigenous communities could be integrated into the colonial system. 

Higüey and La Vega were chosen as places to begin this experiment as the 

only areas with significant populations of native people still in existence. This 

document refers several times to “yucayeques e asyentos”, which implies that the 

Spanish concept of asyento, or settlement, was not sufficient to describe the indigenous 

concept of yucayeque. Similar to hamaca (hammock), huracán (hurricane), 

areyto (ritual song/dance), and cohoba (ritual drug ingestion), there was 

something distinctive and untranslatable about the native concept of yucayeque. 

The question arises why it was not used in the earlier chronicles by Pané or by 

those who were in Hispaniola from an early date such as Las Casas. This may 

have something to do with the fact that it was precisely the otherness of the native 

community structure which was the focus of the Hieronymite Interrogatory, 

whereas early accounts focused on the desire to find trade partners and valuable 

exotics (not the mundane domestic). The term yucayeque is thus preferred when 

referring to the Late Ceramic Age community of El Cabo (see Guarch Delmonte 

1994). 29,30 

29 I am grateful to Adriana Churampi for discussions on this and her location of the term in the 

Hieronymite Interrogatory. 

30 The use of an indigenous term also avoids certain connotations of the term “village”, used often 

in Caribbean archaeology (Righter 2002; also see Carlson ed. 2007; Keegan 1992:74; Keegan et 

al. 2007; Rouse and Alegría 1990; Siegel 2007). “Village”, with its long association with the beginnings 

of household archaeology (Flannery 1976), and expression of real social groups rather 

than imposed archaeological units might seem an appropriate term. However, “village” places 

a site within a scheme of settlement hierarchy before establishing whether this was the case. In 

Dominican archaeology, in which settlements are classed according to their modo de vida, i.e. 

the particular niches they occupy (Ortega 2005; Veloz Maggiolo 1993), a “village” would be 

the equivalent of the modo de vida aldeana, which would fit El Cabo into a very specific role 


2.2 The house as a unit of analysis in the archaeology of the 

indigenous Greater Antilles 

“Necesitamos reorientar nuestros esfuerzos para abarcar la diversidad y comenzara desarrollar 

modelos históricos que hagan énfasis en la singularidad de la existencia humana en las 

Antillas antes de la llegada de los europeos.” 

(Keegan and Rodríguez Ramos 2004:12) 

[“We need to redirect our efforts to incorporate diversity and start to develop 

historical models which put the emphasis on the singularity of human 

existence in the Antilles before the arrival of the Europeans.” Author’s 

translation] 

One way of heeding this cry to focus on the singularity of human existence in 

the Antilles before the arrival of the Europeans is to focus on the house. A concern 

with daily life and domestic relations has always been inherent in Marxist 

approaches, but these have not identified the house as an explicit analytical unit 

of study. 

In the Late Ceramic Age in the Greater Antilles, there are nevertheless two 

main assumptions at play: (1) that Caribbean houses represented households (i.e. 

discrete co-residential groups, acting as corporate groups (in terms of economic 

activities and identity affiliations) (Curet 1992a), and (2) that the indigenous 

social unit was the family. Both are nevertheless established with respect to colonial 

sources and ethnographic analogy, and not with respect to archaeology. 

What is the relationship between the physical house and the social unit which 

inhabits it? Cross-cultural studies have demonstrated from early on that there is 

nothing natural about seeing the house as synonymous with the co-residential 

group. Social groups do not respect the boundaries of physical buildings and 

houses generally out-live their inhabitants. This forces us to address the relationship 

between the material domain of the house, and its inhabitants. This must 

be done for every context. 

The first observation is axiomatic and used as the departure point for discussion. 

This is shown in Curet’s statement on house structure and cultural change: 

“If it is assumed that in Caribbean prehistory houses represented households, 

then it is probable that these changes included modifications in the nature, size, 

and form of indigenous domestic groups” (Curet 1992a:161). This one-to-one 

relationship between the physical dwelling and the social unit comes from crosscultural 

observations about social organization in small-scale societies, anthropological 

kinship theory and lowland South American ethnography. In mainland 

ethnography, there is an explicit emphasis on the primacy of the house 

as a discrete social and architectural unit (Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995:35; 

Heckenberger 2005; Lea 1995; Rivière 1995, 2004). This model is used for the 

conceptualization of Saladoid social organization within houses, so that single 

large roundhouse dwellings house a whole community (Oliver 1997; Versteeg 

and Schinkel 1992; Rivière 1995), but is not appropriate for the Late Ceramic 

Age Greater Antilles, where houses are small, individuated, and hypothetically 

(on a par with Juan Pedro or La Union, but not equal to cacical sites like Punta Macao or 

Atajadizo). Although this might be a more appropriate comparison, again, this particular scenario 

should be addressed before using the term. Lastly, the term “village” seems to be almost a 

dismissive term in the Anglophone Caribbean literature, meaning lacking ballcourts, monumental 

architecture or elaborate paraphernalia (see for example Righter 2002:353; Oliver 2003 on 

Río Cocal-1; or Conrad et al. 2008 on La Cangrejera in relation to La Aleta multi-plaza site). 


43

arranged in hierarchical relationships with each other (Curet and Oliver 1998). 

Moreover, settlements come in different shapes and sizes and range from single 

houses to towns of hundreds of dwellings. It therefore remains to be investigated 

what kind of social entity claims membership of a house, and whether single 

structures distinguish themselves from each other or act communally in clusters 

or as whole settlements. It is through the materiality of the house and interhouse 

relationships that we can gain insight into this issue. 

2.2.1 The material house 

The house is a material entity. This does not mean it is simply a shell, a container 

of social life, or a static symbol or microcosm, but it is a physical construction, 

generated by the cultural schemes, history and practices of its inhabitants 

(Bourdieu 1977; Glørstad 2000; Knapp and van Dommelen 2008; Miller 2005; 

Meskell 2005). It has become a bit of a cliché, though nevertheless heuristically 

valuable, to state that houses and households are mutually constitutive (Gillespie 

2007; Hendon 2004; Lopiparo 2007; Voss 2008:174). That is the house, including 

its architecture, the arrangement of its posts, its size and elaborateness; 

its ephemerality or fixedness, the patterning of related artefacts and structures, 

and its biography are the product of the social relations, iterative behaviours 

and moral and cultural dispositions of its inhabitants. Similarly, the house is 

the location of society and constrains, facilitates and defines the limits and possibilities 

of institutions such as kinship and the daily and longer term rhythms 

of social and cultural life. The relationships we create and maintain through the 

material world are not universals, as Meskell says: “it is surely necessary to undertake 

study of particular cultural moments to understand particular contextual 

notions of the material world” (2005:6). Late Ceramic Age houses are such 

particular cultural moments. 

An archaeological examination of the house, with its focus on domestic structures 

and related artefact assemblages, examines a specific historical and located 

materiality. The data discussed in the following chapters are used to address issues 

pertaining especially to the material domain and reproduction of the house 

and late-phase community in El Cabo. Some of the material aspects of focusing 

on the house as an analytical unit are the reconstruction of architectural characteristics, 

deposition of a range of objects and human remains, house lifecycles 

and the repeated renewal of the house, the temporal and spatial relationships 

between houses and between house groups across the site, the chronological development 

of the community, and the patterning of domestic refuse, personal 

items, social valuables, and colonial goods across houses. 

2.2.2 Houses and kinship 

Kinship debates have played a large role in Caribbean archaeology of the Greater 

Antilles (Curet 2002, 2006; Helms 1980; Keegan and Machlachlan 1989; 

Keegan 1997, 2006, 2007, 2009). This is due to the fact that within the development 

of anthropological theory, kinship and the particular classificatory systems 

defined within kinship, were seen as the major constitutive element of social organization 

(Parkin and Stone 2004:1). And archaeological theory, especially in 

the United States, follows anthropological theory. 

Most writers assume that the indigenous social unit was the biological family. 

In the Early Ceramic Age this was the large extended family. In the Late Ceramic 

Age this was a small extended or nuclear family (Cassá 1974; Curet 1992a; Veloz 

Maggiolo 1991, Wilson 2007). Some authors are explicit about membership of 


this family: “el núcleo central es el padre, madre, hijos y a lo sumo abuelo” (Veloz 

Maggiolo 1991:179), whereas others, such as Keegan describe a more complex 

scenario in which the “family” was the matri-clan spread throughout different 

households in different village locations (1997:114-115; Keegan et al. 1998). 

Nevertheless, there is still a general belief that the house is the fitting container 

for a nuclear family. 

Evidence for specific forms of early historical Hispaniolan kinship is largely 

based on historic documents of Oviedo, Martir de Angleria and Las Casas, with 

indications of mythical kinship from Pané. Interpretations of these statements 

are divided between those who take a literal view that the historic (Taíno) population 

was matrilineal and matrilocal, i.e. they traced descent and inheritance 

through the female line (Cassá 1974; Fewkes 1907; Keegan 1991, 1997, 2006; 

Lovén 1935; Moscoso 1983; Rouse 1948; Sued Badillo 1979; Tabío and Rey 

1989; Wilson 2007) and those who take more interpretive or minimal views of 

the historic evidence that rules were flexible and made to be broken and that any 

rules the chroniclers did refer to were relevant only for elite Hispaniolan households 

(Curet 2002; Helms 1980). 

Whether or not we are justified in calling Taíno society matrilineal, most 

scholars agree that elite office was probably kept within the matriline in 

Hispaniola (Keegan 2006 contra Curet 2002; Curet 2006 contra Keegan 2006). 

The implication of this descent mode for the characterization of society is not 

straightforward, however. There are many different types of matrilineal society 

and assumptions that they are inherently unstable, associated with certain 

forms of horticulture, or increase the power of women are unfounded (Parkin 

2004:30). 

So what can a house perspective contribute to this debate? Because the study 

of houses was developed as an alternative to kinship, some researchers have seen 

household studies as the enemy of kinship, or in other words “the household has 

achieved the status of an ontological category in anthropology that stands in contrast 

to the family” (Hendon 2004:272; see especially Keegan 2007:94-95, who calls 

this a “conspiracy”). This is despite the fact that, as Helms points out (1998, 

2007), the house as the locus of “us” and of lived kinship, fictional or real, is 

the place where kin relations are played out. Anthropologists have long been 

busy with a process-based view of kinship, closer to an archaeological or material 

perspective. This is for example the case in Carsten’s account of Malay kinship 

(or “relatedness”) which operates though food, acts of feeding, and sharing 

of house and hearth, or Meigs’ definition of Hua (Eastern Highlands of Papua 

New Guinea) kin as persons who share the transfer of vital substances (called 

“nu”) (Carsten 1997, 2004 and Meigs 1984, 1989, cit. Stone 2004:248, 252). 

Moreover, Lévi-Strauss is very explicit that house relationships are expressed in 

the language of kinship or of affinity (1983). It is thus assumed that co-residents 

who express membership of a house are or consider themselves cognatic (kin 

and affines), and that houses have a key role in integrating tensions inherent in 

kin/affine relations (Gerritsen 2007; Hugh-Jones 1995). It is simply that archaeologists 

are more interested in what kinship does, in those practices to which we 

have most direct access, not the intricacies of its terminology or specific forms 

to which we have no access (Hendon 2007). Or, as Gillespie says, the focus of 

archaeologists should be how people conceive or enact “kin-like” relationships 

in joint localization to a “house” (2000a). 

Before going more deeply into kinship with reference to Caribbean archaeology, 

it is worth reiterating some more of Helms’ statements on kinship with relation 

to the house in which she confronts what she also perceives as a misplaced 


45

animosity to kinship among some scholars. “Just as ichthyologists must, at some 

point and in some way, take water into account when they study fish, so anthropologists, 

including archaeologists, must, at some point and in some way, be prepared to 

take kinship into account as they study traditional human societies” (2007:491). 

Helms makes the point that although “kinship systems have always been entirely 

cultural constructs”, the ethos and morality of kinship “provided a basic social 

foundation and legitimizing ideology for the activities and identities of the house” 

(ibid.). She goes on to say that the materiality of the house “does not negate kinship 

but illustrates some of the dimensions and manifestations of a particular type 

of kinship-defined and kinship-legitimated life” (ibid.). In fact the most recent 

archaeological literature on the social house has been anything but hostile towards 

the role of kinship (see contributions to Beck ed. 2007; especially Hendon 

2007:293), but actively seeks to incorporate and acknowledge it. 

The problem of discussion of kinship in the Caribbean is that it is restricted 

to the elite and positions of high office. If we know little about how elites transferred 

property, office and traced their descent, then we know next to nothing 

about how the majority did this. This is not an isolated phenomenon – elites 

are usually more interested in kinship than commoners as there is more at stake 

(Curet 2005). Moreover, kinship debates are rather synchronic discussions, pertaining 

to a short era of colonial history, and so the characterization of Late 

Ceramic Age society in terms of a particular kinship system fossilizes it within 

certain anthropological categories. As noted by Marshall (2006:38) in relation 

to a study of Northwest Coast households spanning 2000 years, “membership in 

a social group is never finally resolved”, which is why too heavy a focus on kinship 

issues is not an archaeological pursuit. Instead we should take seriously the 

material consequences of kinship as a flexible and constructed category and turn 

attention to how relevant social groups within Late Ceramic Age Hispaniola 

expressed themselves through time. Can one define characteristics (size, activities, 

significance with respect to other institutions) of indigenous social groups 

within the settlement? Were these stable or instable configurations (variability 

between houses and house assemblages) or durable entities manifested in transmission 

of the same? As summed up by Marshall (2000:74-75), “…the core of 

a house is argued to be a physical dwelling and the people who choose to occupy it, 

rather than an abstract set of social connections or positions based on descent, because 

the corporate identity of a house must be performed into existence by a dwelling’s inhabitants 

through their actions as co-residents.” When this is put into a diachronic 

trajectory of centuries, it is then that the dimensions and manifestations of kinship 

come into tight focus. How residence located in a house constructs kin is 

something which will be addressed in Chapter 6. 

2.2.3 House temporalities 

Generally speaking, within archaeology, there is a logical relationship which proceeds 

between units of time and space, and a belief that certain time-scales go 

with certain spatial units (Harding 2005). The mismatching of units of time and 

space has justifiably been blamed for shortcomings in theorizing in Caribbean archaeology 

(Curet 2003), as is the case in many regional archaeologies (Rossenberg 

2005). In particular small-scale contexts and shorter time-scales have been neglected 

and the details of these scales substituted by the synchronic detail of historic 

sources. This makes intra-site studies, in which domestic temporalities are 

elucidated desirable in a Caribbean context. However, it should not be thought 

that these only express short time-scales. This is a bias of our understanding of 

domestic, rather than how domestic temporalities are expressed. 


This dissertation is concerned with the house and its place in a community 

(i.e. the house and its immediate social context). The domestic context is traditionally 

seen as representing the smallest of the nested levels of space and time. 

And indeed, the house is materialized through an aggregate of multiple quotidian 

events (eating, sleeping, raising children, consulting cemís) and the structuring 

of the domestic environment (house lifecycles, transmission and domestic 

rituals) (Grier 2006). But household contexts also reveal much longer trajectories, 

usually of the scale discussed for ceremonial contexts. Cross-cultural, housecentred 

studies have repeatedly emphasized continuity in building practices, and 

house and burial locations (Düring 2006, 2007; Gillespie 2007; Hodder 1990; 

Pauketat and Alt 2005; Rodning 2007; Tringham 2000). Such continuity and 

longevity are often discussed in terms of elite power strategies of legitimization, 

or in terms of the creation of place and anchoring of a community history. One 

example of this which will be described at length in the following chapters is 

the biography and material longevity of the house. In the precolonial Greater 

Antilles, people maintained ongoing ties with places in the landscape through 

mortuary practices, such as the repeated burials of people in certain places, the 

use of certain caves, petroglyphs or the use of ballcourts and plazas as places of 

aggregation. How this was done with relation to the built architecture of the 

house will be discussed in Chapter 6. 

2.2.4 Houses, identity and personhood 

The principle identity which emerges from the chronicles is that of the cacique, 

the usually male actor, representing the village or polity and interlocutor of the 

Spanish colonial agent. This would have been one aspect of a cacique’s identity, 

and only one indigenous identity, the only one accessible to the Spanish. 

Interestingly enough, dominant on the page, the cacique is nevertheless one of 

the most elusive characters in Caribbean archaeology. In fact no caciques have 

been excavated in the Caribbean (Curet 1992b:326-327; Oliver 2009) 31 . The 

majority of the rest of the general populous are relegated as marginal subjects. 

This is also the case in recent discussions of “Taínoness” (Taínidad in Spanish) 

referring to the way certain material culture styles were actively and strategically 

employed as an elite ritual, material strategy (Oliver 2008, 2009:29; Rodríguez 

Ramos 2007:311-13). 32 One way to recover other social identities is through 

consideration of the house. 

A study of the house reveals a different image of indigenous personhood. 

This is an “us” identity, not that of individuals, but of the house as a social actor 

most similar to Lévi-Strauss’ personne morale. As Gillespie points out this 

expresses two salient qualities, “morality” and “personhood” (2007:33). These 

are qualities which can be expressed deliberately and strategically by generations 

of inhabitants through the aesthetics of the physical house and socialization 

31 Here Curet refers again to the possible exception of a chief buried with his (still living) wife 

from La Cucama, Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic. This should now be dismissed from 

archaeological narratives as fantasy. See also Oliver 2009 with respect to this. 

32 Although not explicitly confined to elites in Rodríguez Ramos’ (2007) original discussion which 

was more concerned with finding an al;ternitive to the monolithic cultural label “Taíno”, Oliver’s 

definition (2008, 2009:29) is explicit that expression of Taínoness is confined to the cemís (the 

three-pointers, stone collars) and cemíism of the elite (i.e. networks of caciques). Moreover, although 

he refers to other Greater Antillean regions, it is clear that Taínoness is really confined 

to the Mona Passage area – the Classic Taíno culture area of Rouse (1992). Taínoness can thus 

be ranked (Mona more than the Windward Passage). Moreover, it is still very much defined in 

accordance with the early colonial documents. The embodiment of Taínoness is thus the most 

active of agents, the cacique. 


47

as seen through household behaviours (Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995:2). This 

is the concentration and materialization of aggregate persons on multi-generational 

time-spans in the setting of the house. Personhood in this respect does not 

relate to the scale of individuals, it is the house which is the recoverable social 

agent (see Heckenberger 2005). In such a way the house becomes a repository or 

concentration of values which stabilize and institutionalize over time (Carsten 

and Hugh-Jones 1995:13; Gillespie 2000a:12-13). One thus gains an image of 

indigenous personhood expressed through the domestic domain, different from 

that expressed in the historic documents, or elite culture. 

Domestic identities, formulated as “us”, are different from external identities 

expressed outside the household, or village, or at the regional level. As Hugh- 

Jones has made clear for Tukano houses, ritual and mythology express clan hierarchy 

and autonomy, whereas daily life and food sharing represent equality and 

consanguinity (Hugh-Jones 1995). Helms explicitly links this “us” identity and 

the house: 

“Considered overall, the house may be regarded generically as a fundamental social, political, 

ideological, and moral domain that in many ways functions as a distinctive entity 

 

The house may be taken to represent in various ways home, the inside, the Us, and the 

here-and-now” 

(Helms 1998:19). 

The material domain of the house represents opportunities to explore house 

identities and values. These can be expressed publicly in the architecture, rituals 

and physical reproduction of the house, and expressed daily through the practices 

and private rituals of the house. Different values are expressed in different 

contexts, and represent different sides of house identity. One of the principle 

aspects through which indigenous morals, values and domestic social persona 

will be addressed is through the aesthetics of the house. The extent to which aesthetics 

and indigenous sociality are interrelated will be discussed in the following 

section on Amazonian sociality as a source of analogy for El Cabo. 

The consideration of the house can thus provide a historically situated picture 

of a local Taíno identity and expressions of lived Taínoness. However, due to 

the historical and exclusionary nature of the terms, they are avoided in preference 

of more local and specific denominations such as “indigenous inhabitants 

of the Higüey region” (for post-1492) or “indigenous inhabitants of the eastern 

region” (for pre-1492, see Chapter 3). 

2.2.5 Houses, hierarchy and social complexity 

In the contact period Hispaniolan societies had a hierarchical social organisation. 

Despite acknowledging the mosaic of diversity in levels of complexity and 

the heterarchical differences between regional communities across the Greater 

Antilles, at contact Hispaniola was divided into hierarchically arranged macropolities 

known as cacicazgos (Vega 1990). This may not have been the case in 

all regions, as in Puerto Rico where cacicazgos were less well defined, or other 

areas such as western Cuba inhabited by people with a radically different culture 

and lifeways (Guanahatabeys) (Wilson 1990). Most of the information on 

these indigenous regional formations comes from Hispaniola where the Spanish 

recognized, especially in the north and west, well-defined areas with a pyramid 

political structure. The extent, nature and basis of power in Greater Antillean society 

has long been debated, with respect to the roles of economic, demographic 

and ideological factors (Curet 1992b, 1996; Moscoso 1983; Oliver 2005, 2009; 


Keegan et al. 1998; Keegan and Machlachlan 1998; Siegel 1992, 1999, 2004; 

Veloz Maggiolo 1993). Moreover, the origin of the emergence of an aristocratic 

class has been sought with respect to these factors. 

Crucially, although we have evidence for historical inequality and status differences, 

there is almost nothing in the archaeological record to suggest how this 

worked, among whom and the dimensions of this inequality. As Oliver states: 

“It is a well known fact among Caribbean archaeologists of all theoretical persuasions 

ported 

by archaeological data. Among other things, this is because there is severe paucity of 

 

practices, of evidence of differential accumulation of prestige and wealth items throughout 

a site (much less groups of sites), and of differential control over the distribution and 

redistribution of commodities and other resources. This paucity of archaeological data conspires 

against resolving pressing questions about the emergence and functioning of Greater 

Antillean chiefdoms, or even of what kind of chiefdom were the cacicazgos of the so-called 

Taínos.” 

(Oliver 2009:254) 

Houses are implicated in both the development and expression of this social 

inequality (Curet and Oliver 1998; Veloz Maggiolo 1976, 1984; Veloz Maggiolo 

and Ortega 1986). Houses therefore are seen as co-actors in the evolution of 

social inequality and one of the mechanisms in the maintenance and further 

institutionalization of social inequality. This role of houses in the establishment 

of inequality is a common feature of house-centred discussions cross-culturally. 

Indeed hierarchy is one of the common themes addressed in many house-centred 

studies (Ames 2006; Gillespie 2000b, 2007). This is partly due to the fact that 

house studies are most common among “middle-range” societies with evolved or 

evolving class divisions, rather than a consequence of the fact that societies in 

which houses are key institutions are necessarily ranked (Ames 2006). Societies 

considered true house societies (in the Levi-Straussian sense) evolved in both 

egalitarian and ranked systems (Gillespie 2007:29). Nevertheless, in societies in 

which houses are ranked, this is usually only the case in the higher ranks of these 

societies (Ames 2006:18). 

Due to the fact that cacicazgos are multi-community phenomena, it is assumed 

that the appropriate level analysis of power relationships within a cacicazgo 

is regional (Curet 1992b). Regionally differentiated settlement systems 

with multiple tiers may have existed in some areas (Curet 1992b). Regional 

centres, presumed to be the seat of paramount chiefs may have been surrounded 

by smaller satellite towns and villages with functionally different roles (marine, 

trade, agriculture oriented, etc.) and their respective lower ranking elites. So 

large sites such as Caguana, Tibes, Maguana, Punta Macao, and En Bas Saline 

are identified as regional centres, and other smaller settlements integrated within 

their networks. In other areas (Banes, see Valcárcel Rojas 1999, 2002; Río Cocal 

region, see Oliver 2003) no such hierarchical ranking is proposed between sites 

within a region per se, although community elites may have formal networks of 

interaction through exchange and intercommunity rituals. 

Hierarchical ordering of social institutions was encoded on many different, 

lower levels than the regional polity, however, including at smaller scales 

of analysis such as the settlement. Regardless as to how any particular site, large 

or small, may have operated or stood within a region, other hierarchies existed 

within the settlement, within the individual house, within the individual family. 

The question is: can we see status differentiation at the intra-settlement level? 

On the village level, if houses were hierarchically arranged, we would expect 


49

this to be visible through a number of variables. From colonial documents Late 

Ceramic Age societies at contact materially expressed status differences between 

commoner and elite classes through differences in food choices, access or stewardship 

of craft items and socially valuable cemí items, mortuary treatment, residence 

and household size, and residential location. On a few occasions such differences 

have been identified: differences in burial practices, house size, location 

of high status artefacts and faunal and artefact assemblages have been interpreted 

as indicating commoner/elite statuses in sites in the Virgin Islands, Bahamas, 

Cuba, and Hispaniola, although in many cases this is rather tentative and open 

to discussion (Deagan 2004; Righter 2002b; Sullivan 1981 in Keegan 2007; 

Valcárcel Rojas and Rodríguez Arce 2002). Other sites have not presented any 

evidence for intra-site status differentiation (Río Cocal, Oliver 2003). 

Therefore, the role the house played in relationships of inequality at the site 

level has still not been extensively investigated. Assumptions that households 

should manipulate certain conditions to promote their own line is based on 

descriptions of inequality in textual sources relating to certain Hispaniolan regions. 

If households were doing this, then data on the house should elucidate 

the ways this happened, and whether this was the case in all settlements, or only 

in large towns considered regional centres. Smaller social formations within one 

settlement may not necessarily have assumed hierarchical relations with each 

other. This is not to say that all relationships were equal, as there may have been 

significant qualitative difference, as suggested by the number of diverse secondary 

ranks referred to (nitaínos, behiques, etc.), but this need not necessarily be 

expressed in terms of unequal power structures. On the other hand, a diachronic 

view might reveal equality in one phase and unequal relationships in another. 

Only more detailed scrutiny of social reproduction in the domestic realm can 

elucidate this. It is also a question in how far the nested hierarchies of social life 

(house, village, local community, region) are reflections of each other. That is, in 

how far does the organization of the house reproduce and get reproduced in the 

broader structures of the village, local community and region? 

2.3 Two sources of analogy as reference points in the study of 

El Cabo 

As well as the themes discussed above relating more generally to archaeological 

considerations of the house and domestic realm, two sources of analogy should 

be acknowledged as having direct consequences for the interpretations of the El 

Cabo data. These are anthropological discussions of Amazonian sociality and especially 

aesthetics, and the fieldwork experience of working in the contemporary 

setting of El Cabo village alongside local people. 

2.3.1 The house and Amazonian sociality: Aesthetics, morals and 

socialisation 

The representation of the Caribbean archaeological past is strongly formed with 

reference to mainland ethnography. Analogies with lowland South America 

are second nature to Caribbean archaeologists (Boomert 2000; García Arévalo 

2001; Hoogland and Duin 2002; Petersen 1997; Roe 1993, 1995, 1997; Siegel 

1990, 1992, 1996; Versteeg and Schinkel 1992). This is particularly the case for 

Saladoid archaeological cultures which originated from the Lower Orinoco river 

area several centuries BC. There is no such a direct historical link between the 

Late Ceramic Age cultures of the Greater Antilles and the mainland, however, 

and the Ostionoid cultures of Hispaniola are (not undisputedly) seen as hybrid 


products of evolution of multiple origins and island ethnogenesis (Allaire 1999; 

Rouse 1992; Veloz Maggiolo 1991; Wilson 2007). Nevertheless, the Antilles’ 

participation in the historical-geographical area of the circum-Caribbean 

(Allaire 1999; Steward 1948), the persistent cultural ties documented with predominantly 

lowland South America (Hofman et al. 2008; especially northeast 

Venezuela, the Guianas and Orinoco Valley), and the wealth of ethnographic 

information on indigenous societies in this area means that this greater region 

in particular is widely accepted as the main frame of analogous reference with 

precolonial society, both in matters physical and metaphysical, throughout the 

insular Caribbean right up to the latest cultures of the Greater Antilles. It is accepted 

that the Arawakan origins of these cultures forms a cultural reservoir with 

respect to subsistence, settlement, mythology, symbolic repertoire and cosmology, 

albeit transformed over centuries of history and insular adaptation. This is 

the case for house and village organization and demography, social organization, 

cosmology, agricultural intensification, the role of shamans, the function of shamanic 

paraphernalia, interpretation of symbolism in monumental and portable 

material culture (Alegría 1978; Boomert 2000; Curet 1998; Lovén 1935; Oliver 

1997; 2000; Roe 1997; Stevens-Arroyo 1988; Veloz Maggiolo 1981). 

Such systematic analogy-making has brought immeasurable benefits both to 

Caribbean archaeology and to historical anthropology of the tropical mainland. 

However, its presence is often hidden, or glossed with the phrase “ethnographic 

analogies with the mainland show…”. If particular ethnographies form one of 

the bases for imaginaries of archaeological pasts this should be openly acknowledged, 

made critically transparent and justified on a case-to-case basis. Later in 

this dissertation some of the specific tensions in the conceptualization of precolonial 

Hispaniolan settlement and house dynamics will be highlighted with 

respect to tropical lowland mainland traditions. Now, however, I draw attention 

to one permeating influence in my image-forming of domestic life in precolonial 

El Cabo; namely the characteristics of Amazonian sociality. 

Stereotypical conceptions of Native Amazonians have been developed through 

the ethnographies of Amazonian anthropologists which have been distilled into 

two main opposed camps, labelled by Santos-Granero as “hawks” and “doves” 

(Santos-Granero 2000; see also Viveiros de Castro 1996 on “the symbolic economy 

of alterity” and “the moral economy of intimacy’), i.e. those scholars who 

emphasize the bellicose character of native peoples and have a research focus on 

(usually male) raiding and predatory activities in the extra-local and political 

sphere (epitomized by Chagnon’s (1977) “fierce” Yanomami), and those who 

emphasize their harmonious relations and reciprocal generosity in the sphere of 

everyday, usually equated with the local and domestic domain (see Overing and 

Passes eds. 2000). In many ways this mirrors the Taíno-Carib dichotomy of the 

Caribbean in which the inhabitants of the Greater Antilles are stereotyped as 

noble, and those of the Lesser Antilles as savage. The construction and essentialising 

of the native character in the Caribbean has a much longer history than in 

Amazonia, however, going back to the first voyage of Columbus (Hulme 1986; 

Hulme and Whitehead eds. 1992; Hofman et al. 2008; for a new perspective on 

the debate Samson and Waller in press). Of course, these two images are different 

sides of the same coin and the face a researcher highlights is dependent on 

her/his research paradigm, locus and scale of research. 

The primary locus and scale of interest in this dissertation is the settlement, 

and in particular the people who live together and claim membership of a house. 

It is therefore concerned with communal living, the daily practice of eating, 

gardening, fishing, working, raising children, learning skills, building houses, 


51

and mourning the dead. These are the priorities of a domestic archaeology of the 

Caribbean, where domestic is political, ritual and quotidian and where the aesthetic 

and moral preoccupations of daily life have material correlates. 

Native Amazonian peoples pride themselves on their skills in congenial social 

interaction and their ability to be social, especially in the domestic realm. This 

is something about which the many contributors in Overing and Passes eds. 

(2000) are in agreement. This includes a tendency to talk at great length about 

how to live well and happily in community with others, how to go about creating 

“good/beautiful” people who can live a tranquil, sociable life together, and 

the difficulties of achieving this task (paraphrasing closely Overing and Passes 

2000:2). The authors continue; “Their [i.e. Native Amazonians, original italics] 

emphasis is upon achieving a comfortable affective life with those with whom 

they live, work, eat and raise children.” The authors emphasise the intensity of 

indigenous “conviviality”, defined as similar to sociality, but with a stress on the 

affective (i.e. relating to emotions) side of sociality, thus giving great importance 

to amiability, intimacy, peace and equality in social life. 

This concentration on the creation of the right conditions for successful social 

life does not just exist in an ideal realm, as an “unattainable utopia”, its setting 

is the local community, village and co-residential group, and it finds its fullest 

expression in the growing settlement in which commonly held ideals are manifest 

(Santos-Granero 2000:283). These principles of domestic sociality within 

the community have implications for indigenous psychology, personhood and 

morality. Overing and Passes (2000) stress how culturally constructed emotion 

is constitutive of indigenous morality (self-control, prohibition of negative emotions/behaviour, 

intense sociality), aesthetics (maintaining a beautiful, ordered 

environment), cosmology (represented in their mythologies) and daily life (communal 

work and socializing) (ibid.). Accordingly, “Amazonian peoples adhere 

to a “virtue-centred ethics” [as opposed to a “rights-centred” moral system of 

the West] that is primarily centred upon the equality of “the good life” which is 

engendered through the artful practices and skills of those who personally and 

intimately interact in everyday life. There is an aesthetics to Amazonian morality, 

which also centres on intent and desire” (Overing and Passes 2000:4). 

As we shall see later on (Chapters 5 and 6), the appearance and treatment of 

the house in El Cabo bears the material imprint of particular aesthetic choices. It 

is with the foregoing discussion in mind that these choices will be interpreted. 

2.3.2 Present day El Cabo 33 

The use of the contemporary village of El Cabo as analogy needs less justification. 

Throughout the total of about seven months we spent altogether in the 

village, our constant point of reference for life and living in El Cabo, was the village. 

Settlement and household archaeology in particular focuses on daily practice 

and the quotidian as important sites of analysis. And the archaeological site 

itself became a setting in which this was encountered and discussed. The villagers 

in El Cabo share similar material constraints and an environmental setting 

and ecology to that of the past inhabitants. As an outsider it seems reasonable to 

privilege the experiences and responses of those who live there now, thus inviting 

comparisons (from members of the fieldschool and the local people) between 

the present-day village and the precolonial village. So, for example, we assume 

and can be fairly sure of a correspondence between such things as water sources, 

33 I am grateful to Jimmy Mans for discussions about how the experience of present day El Cabo 

had an impact in archaeological image-forming. 


hurricane and severe weather crisis management, certain overlap and similarities 

in marine and terrestrial subsistence exploitation 34 and some shared site access 

routes. 35 Similarly, in terms of technical choices such as house construction and 

location of activity areas, the villagers whom we talked to had clear explanations 

and opinions on the range of choices and constraints of the location. 36 

One study directly related to this exchange of information is the MA thesis on 

the local landscape of El Cabo by Erlend Johnson (2009). More extended analogies 

can be drawn in terms of local networks and household dynamics. El Cabo 

village had a former relationship with fishing teams from the nearby village of 

Juanillo 37 , occupying a sandy beach 5km to the north. The same location was 

also the site of a precolonial settlement, Caletón Blanco (Olsen 2001a, 2002). 

Thus this contemporary situation intercalates with a supposed precolonial relationship 

between El Cabo site and its neighbour to the north. 

A second analogy was between the matrifocal and matrilineal households 

of the village, in which Margot Rosario (married to Belto Villa) and Juana (by 

marriage to whom the mayor acquired his position) ran the village shops and 

controlled family labour (especially that of daughters), gardening, and food related 

activities, whilst men were often absent, and the kin dynamics of the Taíno 

domestic realm, in which corporate goods and political office were passed down 

the matriline, and the matri-clan, or one’s mother’s kin were arguably the most 

influential in an individual’s life (Deagan 2004; Keegan 2007; Keegan et al. 

1998; Sued-Badillo 1979). Matrifocality implies households formed by close 

networks of kinswomen, who are the focus of domestic relationships and have 

economic and political power within the kingroup (Blackwood 2006). The ways 

this was manifested in village relationships was a source of analogy for the archaeological 

households. 

These informal ethno-archaeological analogies inevitably feed back into traditional 

archaeological research and have the advantage of providing not only 

place specific information, but historical context and understanding of the development 

of a particular place. Being based in the village and admitting contemporary 

El Cabo as a source of reference leads to a greater appreciation of the 

research location and its development over a longer historical trajectory than the 

700 years of archaeological study. As a result, different perspectives come to light 

on both contemporary and precolonial villages. 

2.4 Review of data in early colonial sources 

Caribbean archaeologists and historians have been outspoken about the way historic 

sources are abused to interpret the archaeological record (Curet 2003:21- 

24; Hulme 1986; Keegan 1992; Sued-Badillo 2003; Veloz Maggiolo 1977:53; 

Whitehead 1999, 2002). Although archaeologists are not ignorant of source 

criticism, and many archaeologists are also very familiar with the colonial documents, 

it is very satisfying to search documents for snippets and excerpts which 

“confirm” or embellish excavated data, without acknowledging the complex con- 

34 On several occasions we ate food together prepared by local people such as Nicolas who cooked 

burgao (Cittarium pica), and Maria, Manolo’s grandmother, who made traditional bread from 

the root of the guáyiga (zamia) plant, nowadays only exploited in times of hardship. 

35 The coastal road was almost certainly also the precolonial road linking up coastal settlements 

now, and in the past. 

36 E.g. the depth of postholes to withstand storm weather and the location of kitchens with respect 

to the wind. 

37 The village of Juanillo has since been forcibly relocated inland with no access to the sea to 

“Nuevo” Juanillo, due to beachfront development. 


53

dition of the document (Anderson Córdova 1990; Churampi Ramírez 2008). 

This means that our conclusions about indigenous culture derived from these 

documents will never be more penetrating than a tourist’s use of a guidebook in 

a foreign land, because it is iterative and anecdotal in nature. These details are 

seductive, but for a better reading, we need to take into account not only the details, 

but also precisely the hyperbole, political rhetoric and complex biography 

of a text and its translations to uncover the misunderstandings and tensions. 

The problems, or tyrannies exercised by selective and iterative use of these 

texts, and re-statement of the same citations to compensate under-researched 

topics (house form and household dynamics) or give shape to certain intangible 

religious and social phenomena (cohoba ritual, areyto) continue. The reverse is 

also true: historians look to archaeological finds to vindicate their readings of 

the text (Arrom 1999). And yet there are many tensions between text and archaeology, 

or questions for which there are no answers in either (why haven’t we 

excavated any famed cacical burials? Why were stone collars not mentioned by 

the chroniclers? Why do chronicles insist on large extended families in houses 

when archaeological house plans seem to accommodate small, nuclear families?). 

And moreover, it is precisely where they do coincide that we should exercise the 

most caution. 

What follows is not a re-reading or re-examination of these sources. That 

is the task of another study. It is a selective reading and attempt to situate our 

present knowledge on the house and household organisation from the colonial 

documents and their reiteration in secondary literature. It is important to summarise 

these sources and related discussions, as they inevitably form an important 

point of reference for scholarship in the area of household studies in the 

Caribbean. 38 For the sake of geographical specificity, descriptions predominantly 

come from Hispaniola (also referred to as Quisqueya and Hayti). 

2.4.1 Physical descriptions of houses 

Both physical and conceptual information can be gleaned about the settlement, 

house and household from the early historic documents. Physical descriptions 

of house structures are well known and often cited in literature. Both Curet and 

Lovén give good overviews of the data concerning number and layout of houses 

per settlement, construction material and techniques, physical appearance 

and size and number of inhabitants (Lovén 1935, Curet 1992a, 1998). These 

are based on descriptions which come mainly from Hispaniola, the Bahamas 

and Cuba, with the earliest accounts from Columbus (Diario de navegación, 

summarized by Las Casas (Columbus 1990) and first published by Navarrete 

1825 ((ed.1922)) and Las Casas (Las Casas 1875, 1992) and later accounts from 

Oviedo (1851, published 1535, written between 1514-1532) and Anghiera (who 

never visited the Americas), including the drawings from Oviedo of houses on 

Hispaniola (Oviedo 1851, bk 1, lamina 1, figs 9-10). 

The composite image of native houses from Hispaniola, Cuba and the 

Bahamas is Las Casas oft repeated “casas de paja”, that is circular houses with 

closed walls and domed or conical roofs thatched with plant fibres. The houses 

had pole frames made of many species of wood, one or two doors, and no windows 

and no or seldom internal partitions. Analogies with conical military tents 

(alfaneque, tienda de campo), bells (campanas), and baldachins or canopies (pa- 

38 I apologise to those archaeologists who have a far better understanding of colonial documents 

than I, and am grateful for the collaboration with Adriana Churampi Ramírez, which aided my 

understanding considerably. 


ellon) are used to describe their exterior forms (Anghiera in Lunardi et al. eds., 

1992:65; Las Casas 1992:524; Las Casas 1875, bk 1:311; Navarrete 1922:88; 

Oviedo 1851:163-165). Las Casas and Columbus especially note aesthetic properties 

such as their loftiness, airiness, the sweet smell of their straw thatch, and 

cleanliness as well as the use of different coloured barks and woven patterns in 

the walls as if they were painted (Las Casas 1875, bk 4:335). Columbus in particular 

was impressed by the swept and clean interiors of houses in the Bahamas 

(Navarrete 1922:37), as well as the beauty and furnishings of a small house in 

Cuba, hung with shells, which he mistook for a temple (Navarrete 1922:88). 

Even Oviedo, generally the most depreciative of the chroniclers, was not immune 

to the aesthetic points of native settlements and houses on Hispaniola, 

commenting several times on the efficacy and variety of their materials, noting 

“un pueblo muy bueno é de muchos é buenos buhios ó casas” (Oviedo 1851, bk V, 

ch. V:143). 

Variation in terms of size and quality of houses as observed by the chroniclers 

is cited in the secondary literature to show that there were considerable 

regional and status-related differences in domestic architecture (Curet 1992a). 

Size difference is mainly attributed to status: i.e. the houses of caciques were multifunctional, 

larger spaces for the consultation of cemís and for the reception of 

people, whereas commoner houses were smaller. Las Casas for example mentions 

a chiefly house on Cuba (Camagüey) which was capable of accommodating 500 

people (1875: bk 3:22). Differences in quality are seen as regional. So for example, 

houses on Cuba were the most beautiful he had seen up to that point (i.e. 

compared to the Bahamas) (Curet 1992a:161, Columbus 1990:80-81). Oviedo’s 

drawings and these general distinctions are often distilled into two standard 

types: a commoner and a cacical house. This hides the considerable variation 

present in the chroniclers’ descriptions. 

Oviedo is the main source quoted on the distinction between commoner and 

elite houses. In reality he describes a much greater diversity, and his distinctions 

are based primarily on what he sees as the quality of the structure, which is not 

necessarily linked to status. It is worth quoting him at length on the construction 

and details of houses and the particulars of the caney, as it is the most detailed 

description we have of Hispaniolan houses. 

cords/bexucos 

posts/postes 

wall/paredes 

roof material 

Figure 3. The caney after 

Oviedo (1851) elaborated with 

construction details. 

canes/cañas 

radial rafters/varas 

ring beam/solera 

tie beam/varaçon 

centre post/mastel 

“These eracras or buhios come in one 

of two forms, and both are built according 

to the preferences of the builder. And one 

form was the following: They set many posts 

of good, round wood, each one an appro- 

 

each post, or however far as was desired in 

a circle. And on top of these, after being 

 

placed the ring beam, and on top of this 

the tie beams (which takes the tension of 

the roof). The radial rafters are placed with 

the thinnest parts uppermost around the 

ring beam, so that they come together in a 

point, like a military tent. And over the 

rafters they put crosswise canes, or laths, a 

palm’s distance [21cm] from each other (or 

less), two by two (or singly), and on top of 

this a covering of long, thin straw. Others 

they covered with bihao leaves, others with 


55

unches of cane, others with palm leaves, and others with other materials. And below 

 

 

one to the other they make a wall, and they tie them very close together with bexucos, 

which are vines or round cords which grow around trees (and also hang from them) like 

bindweed. These bexucos 

 

one piece of wood to another, and to attach canes the same way. The buhio or house 

made in such a fashion they call a caney. They are better and more secure dwellings 

than others and protect against the wind because it does not strike them so harshly. The 

bexucos or ligatures which I referred to, they get in whatever quantities they want and 

as thick or as thin as needed. Sometimes they split them to bind delicate things, like they 

bexucos for 

this purpose, as it is also medicinal. And there are different sorts of bexucos as I will 

discuss later when I discuss grasses and plants and medicinal trees and their properties. 

This type of house or caney, in order that it is made strong and the structure and everything 

properly built, has to have a centre post or mast in the middle, of a convenient thick- 

 

point or capitol of the buhio, to which all the points of the roof rafters are attached. This 

post is like that which military tents have, like they use in armies and camps in Spain and 

 

better understood, I illustrate the caney here.” 

(Oviedo 1851: chapter 1:163-164, translation author, with assistance from 

Adriana Churampi and reference to Pendergast et al. 2002:64-65 and 

Oviedo/Turner 1975). 

The reference to houses being built “segund la voluntad del edificador/built 

according to the preferences of the builder” is not necessarily a comment on the 

ingenuity or freedom of the builder, but reflects a real observed diversity. This 

can be seen in the list of materials which in different circumstances, probably 

according to availability, were used as house thatch. Moreover, the manner, not 

just the materials in which houses could be built, seem endless as indicated by 

the qualifiers between parentheses. It is this diverse type which Oviedo names 

a caney. The defining feature of the caney is its better quality in comparison to 

other eracras. This quality seems to reside in the intricacy and close-weaving of 

the cords (bexucos) of the walls to keep out the wind. Next to this plate in the 

1851 Madrid edition of the Historia General is the “more beautiful and imposing” 

(mejores en la vista, y de mas apossento) house for important people or 

caciques (1851:164). This rectangular structure, with its windows and porch is 

interpreted by many to reflect the colonial rather than indigenous building tradition 

(Curet 1992a; Lovén 1935). 

There is some disagreement in the secondary literature as to the use of the 

term caney, with some reserving it for commoner houses, others for elite houses, 

still others for round houses (Lovén 1935:339) and again others for rectangular 

structures (Granberry and Vescelius 2004: Table 12; et passim., see Prieto 

Vicioso 2008). This probably stems from Las Casas’ use of the term caney to 

refer, non-exclusively, to a cacical house (1875, bk 4:468), and Oviedo’s explicit 

depiction of this as a round structure. Thus Lovén is probably correct in treating 

the term caney as a general word for round house, rather than for a house of 

higher status. 

Columbus notes that houses in the Bahamas had crowns or decorative baubles 

on their pointed apexes (caballetes ó coronas) (Las Casas 1875, bk 1, p.311). 

These are referred to as chimneys (chimeneas) in another account (Navarrete 

1922:37), perhaps because they were smoke hole covers. The spherical objects 


which Oviedo depicts on both the round caney and rectangular house may be 

similar items. Moreover, it is tempting to link these descriptions with Pané’s 

account from northern Hispaniola of a cemí, called Corocote, placed on top of 

a prominent man’s house at construction (1999, ch. XXI). Arrom’s annotation 

states that the name Corocote is similar to Arawakan words for “gold”, “reddish 

metal” or “bronze” which may explain why Columbus refers to these as “crowns” 

(Pané 1999:28, footnote 114). Oviedo (1851) mentions a lifespan of two to 

three years for the perishable roof materials and also the tendency of some posts 

to rot, whereas those built with woods such as corbana and guayacan do not decay 

underground, “por ningun tiempo (p.165).” 

Other structures referred to in the sources include cemí houses and Anacaona’s 

storehouse (Las Casas 1875, vol II: 148). Cemí houses are described as somewhat 

set apart from the other houses in the village and smaller, but otherwise exactly 

the same. The cacica Anacaona kept a storehouse (“recámara”) full of a “thousand 

things of cotton, benches (“sillas”), many bowls and servings vessels for 

the house, made of wood and beautifully worked”. In addition, shelters referred 

to as “atarazanas” or “ramadas”, made with wood and covered with large palm 

leaves are mentioned for protecting canoes from the sun and rain (Navarrete 

1922:83, 86). Columbus also describes huts in association with wide pathways 

and fires near cultivated fields and trees which may have been temporary houses 

near agricultural areas or for the exploitation of timber (Columbus 1990:156). 

In terms of structures associated with settlements, Columbus particularly notes 

the abundant lookout posts (“atalayas”) in Hispaniola to send fire and smoke 

signals (Columbus 1990:149, 157, 167). 

2.4.2 House layout, furnishings and activities 

In addition to these physical descriptions of houses in Hispaniola, we can infer a 

range of activities taking place in and around houses in the settlement from the 

early colonial sources and from the descriptions of the interiors of houses. Lovén 

(1935:455-462) divides house contents into furniture such as duhos and hammocks, 

domestic utensils for food preparation, and storage vessels. This latter include 

wooden plates and bowls, calabashes, baskets and ceramics. Animals such 

as dogs and parrots were also reported inside houses (Columbus 1990:82-83). 

Only occasionally do the chroniclers describe how the interior of houses were 

arranged. Columbus for example mentions the fact that household items were 

neatly laid out (“sus adereços muy compuestos”, 1990:80-81). He also refers to the 

presence of many fireplaces in houses in Cuba, as well as masks and female statues 

in a house in Cuba (ibid.:78-79). There were no room partitions, but there 

may have been cotton drapes and screens. Items were suspended from the roof 

beams, including tools, domestic utensils, fishing equipment, and baskets or calabashes 

containing the bones and skulls of ancestors (Columbus 1990:135; Pané 

1999). Hammocks for sleeping and resting were slung between the posts. The 

centre of the house may have been a cleared area, at least during certain times, 

as is indicated by Pané’s account of a healing taking place in the middle of the 

house (Pané 1999). Houses were the location of daily activities such as sleeping, 

eating, craft production and food preparation (Las Casas 1992: ch II, p.334). 

Exceptionally, the house was a place for the reception of guests, healing, 

storage and consultation of cemís (Pané 1999: chs xvi, xxi and xxii). Specifically 

houses of prominent members of the community could be locations for the performance 

of harvest rites and tribute, and act as meeting places. Columbus notes 

that the inhabitants of Hispaniola hardly had any temples, and that consultation 

and rites involving cemís would take place in houses, usually those of prominent 


57

men in the village. This does not mean that only prominent members of society 

had cemís (as Pané notes that almost everyone had multiple cemís), but that especially 

valued cemís were located in certain houses. Houses were the location of 

cohoba ceremonies (Pané 1999: ch xix). 

The reference to the beauty of some houses, the ordered neatness of the furnishings 

and the highly crafted nature of household possessions indicates that 

house interiors and furnishings were arenas of display. Moreover, houses were 

clearly multifunctional spaces in which the activities of daily life occurred which 

included those things considered political and ritual. 

2.4.3 Settlement layout 

There is a lot of diversity in settlement pattern in the “infinite villages” (infinitos 

pueblos, 1992:524) of the Greater Antilles described by Las Casas. Oviedo 

described settlements in Hispaniola in many different contexts, from coasts 

and riverbanks, to valleys, plains and hills (1851:163), and ranging from single 

houses, to small agglomerations of houses, to villages with a batey or multiple 

plazas (Las Casas 1992:525; Oviedo 1851:163). Columbus only witnessed small 

settlements on the Bahamas, with an upper limit of 12 to 15 houses (Keegan 

1992:166-167; Navarrete 1922:37), but on Cuba single houses, villages of five 

or so houses, and villages of 50 houses (Columbus 1990:95,135, 163). 

Settlements are generally described as informal aggregations of houses with 

pathways and plazas between them. In settlements with one or multiple plazas 

or bateys, the houses of the most prominent persons directly gave onto the swept 

plaza with other houses more informally arranged. The only settlement with a 

more formal street plan is that of town in Higüey, which was reported to have 

been a tree-felled area in the form of cross with the village in the middle (Las 

Casas 1992:299, 525; Lovén 1935:336). 

2.4.4 Household organization 

A discussion of house demography summarizing the information from the chronicles 

is given by Curet (1992:162). On the basis of the chronicles, he and other 

authors (Cassá 1974; Rouse 1948; Wilson 1990) conclude that contact period 

houses were inhabited by extended families. This means multiple generations of 

kin and affines under one roof. This evidence comes principally from a section of 

Las Casas’ Apologetica in which he talks of villages with houses in which diverse 

lineages lived next to each other. And in each house lived “diez y quince vecinos 

con sus mujeres y hijos”. Further down he repeats this again, with a more specific 

example of one house, 9 to 12m in diameter (treinta y cuarenta pies) in which 

again “diez y quince vecinos” lived. This seems relatively explicit and clear, but as 

Curet points out, Las Casas’ reference to vecinos, probably only includes adult 

male members of the household, as this is the way 16 th century Spanish would 

have counted. In this case, the total number of inhabitants would be 30 to 40 

people. That such a high number of people could be accommodated in a house 

64 to 113m² (based on the diameters given) would be highly unlikely – this is 

not a question of cultural sensitivity, there is not enough space! On the other 

hand, 10 to 15 people in a house of this size would be more likely. Therefore, this 

passage of Las Casas is actually highly ambiguous. Either we have to conclude 

that his estimate of the floor diameter was far too low, or give another interpretation 

to the phrase “diez y quince vecinos con sus mujeres e hijos”, in which con 


means including rather than with. In which case the translation would be inclusive 

and read as follows; “10 to 15 citizens, including their wives and children’. 39 

I see this latter as a plausible reading (contra Curet 1992a), for several reasons. 

Firstly because an estimate of 10 to 15 people per house is the general impression 

one gains from other statements in the chronicles. Pané mentions numbers 

slightly higher than this, 16 or 17 people, for the household of a Macorix 

lord, although they may not all have lived in the same house and this number 

includes related members and servants and favourites also (Curet 1992a:162; 

Pané 1999:xxv, xxvi). In another passage from Columbus based on a report from 

two sailors who went to explore the interior in Cuba, they describe a thousand 

“vezinos” living in 50 houses (1990:95). We have no indication of the size of 

the houses in question, and it is likely the sailors just made a rough estimate. 

Nevertheless, the diary entry for this day explicitly refers to men and women, 

so it seems here that vezinos refers to the entire population, leaving the sailors 

with the impression that there were roughly 20 people per house (Columbus 

1990:95), and indicating that vecinos/vezinos could be used flexibly. Elsewhere 

on the north coast of Hispaniola he describes a thousand houses and more than 

three thousand people (“hombres”; 1990:163). In another incident described by 

Columbus (1990:102-105), sailors took seven women, young and old, and three 

young boys captive from one dwelling. Later that evening the husband of one of 

the women and the father of three of the children (a boy and two girls), came to 

beg to be taken along with them. We know that at least ten of these people lived 

in the same dwelling. If we assume that they all did, and that perhaps not all the 

men came along, this is an indication of at least twelve people in one house. In 

the context of these other estimates, ten to fifteen thus seems a considered and 

reasonable number from Las Casas. 

Secondly, this lower number tallies better with the floor sizes of the few excavated 

late period floor plans, which are generally smaller or within the range of 

those mentioned by Las Casas. 

On the other hand, whichever interpretation is more accurate (the higher 

or lower numbers), the most important factor effecting the Spanish estimates is 

their political context. One can attribute a propensity to inflate the numbers in 

all cases. This is particularly the case with the Apologética which was a political 

treatise to prove the humanity of the native population of the Americas, based 

on Aristotelian rhetoric. Las Casas was intent on arguing the capacity of the native 

people to live in peace and harmony and to govern their lives with prudence 

according to this model (Churampi Ramírez 2008). Thus, inflating the number 

of inhabitants would add weight to this argument. Las Casas was not trying to 

convey an ethnographic reality, but the capacity of people to achieve a harmonious 

existence, illustrated by the large number of people within one house. His 

estimates of floor size, a drier fact, were less open to distortion. 

Secondly, inhabitant estimates are notoriously difficult to calculate because 

people move! They move according to diurnal (sleeping, eating, working) and 

periodic (meetings, visits) rhythms and under more exceptional circumstances 

(flight, warfare). Very often in the chronicles the Spanish happen upon empty 

houses because the inhabitants have wisely fled. The assumption is not that nobody 

lived there. Other times chronicles mention large aggregations of people in 

houses, for purposes of meeting and counsel, not because they were inhabitants. 

Therefore, taking inhabitant estimates at face value is a red herring, and perhaps 

one of the typical blind alleys of anecdotal use of historic documents. 

39 I am grateful for discussions with Alex Geurds, Adriana Churampi, Maarten Jansen and Jimmy 

Mans (Leiden University) on this thorny matter. 


59

Nevertheless, if we take a slight general inflation as standard, and ten to fifteen 

as the most common estimate for the average commoner house, then we 

have a picture of a small extended family. That is three generations with senior 

members living with their married and unmarried children and grandchildren. 

Information relating to the organization of the household is scant. There is 

however good evidence in the historic documents that economic, political and 

ritual activities were not highly gender differentiated (Deagan 2004; Domínguez 

2001; Portorreal 2001; Sued-Badillo 1979). This is contrary to a sexually segregated 

division of labour assumed for small-scale societies (Murdock and Provost 

1973). In the contact period both men and women carried out a range of domestic 

tasks. Men and women planted and harvested crops from conucos, and fished. 

One of the few sex specific tasks mentioned by the chroniclers is the clearing 

and preparation of conucos by men. For women this was cotton work (hammocks 

and clothing), basketry and mat-making and the production of some 

ceremonial wooden items. Women may also have cooked the cassava bread (Las 

Casas1992:336). It is unknown how other activities such as pottery and lithic 

production were organised. 

As far as political roles were concerned, both men and women could hold 

political office (as witnessed by both male and female caciques). The example of 

Anacaona amassing, gifting and trading valuable craft items is not matched by 

any male cacique. Women participated in ballgames which shows that it was not 

just high-status women who were involved in public community activities. 

In terms of the settlement, there are indications that this was a matrifocal 

arena. This is indicated by two comments from Michel de Cuneo: “The women 

do all the work. Men concern themselves only with fishing and eating” and 

Columbus: “It appears to me that the women work more than the men.” This 

suggests networks of women carrying out daily tasks were the most visible members 

of society in the domestic setting. Deagan attributes this to the fact that 

intensive manioc cultivation on mounds increased the yields which women had 

to process and simultaneously reduced the labour requirement on men (2004). 

However, the fact that the Spanish accounts list more women’s activities, despite 

the fact that they were primarily interested in the roles of men, suggests that they 

were not just referring to the processing of manioc, but to the general conspicuousness 

of matrifocal households. In the eastern region where zamia cultivation 

was prevalent, the labour burden on women would not necessarily have been as 

high as in areas reliant on cassava (Veloz Maggiolo 1992). 

2.4.5 Conceptualization and cultural status of house 

Houses figure prominently in Pané’s account of indigenous religion and beliefs 

(Pané 1999). One of the earliest texts, written at the time of actually living there 

(1494-98), rather than years afterwards (like the works of Las Casas or Oviedo), 

and by someone who understood and spoke native languages, this is an extremely 

valuable text (Arrom 1999; Stevens-Arroyo 2006). Despite subsequently being 

lost and only known from a poor translation and summaries in other works, 

Pané’s descriptions of indigenous beliefs and myth cycles is extremely insightful 

in terms of information on house symbolism and the conceptualization of houses 

in contact period indigenous society in the village of Guarionex in the north 

of the Dominican Republic, near Concepción de la Vega. 

The house did not just incorporate the dwelling structure. Pané three times 

mentions houses in combination with conucos or land. He, like Oviedo, glosses 

conuco as possessions and inheritance (1999:ch ix; Oviedo 1851:163). This is 

significant because it indicates that the domain of the house included gardens 


and horticultural plots, and that these were part of an estate which could be 

personally inherited (see also Helms 1980). The term house then should invoke 

not just the concept of the dwelling structure, but those areas to which people 

of a certain house also claimed membership, such as their lands. Whether this 

also includes certain other landscape features or significant places such as burial 

places, caves, bathing areas, etc. is unknown, but deemed probable. 

Houses are the proper counterpart to social agents. In other words, to be a 

person, you had to have a house. This can be seen from indigenous mythology 

in which houses were built at the behest or command of cemís (Pané 1999:xix, 

xxiv). Cemís, like people, were animated agents, requiring the same treatment as 

people, such as food, drink and attention. So the proscription here to build the 

cemí a house indicates a more general expectation accorded to all social agents, 

that they needed houses. The need for a house is the same as the need for a proper 

social life. Pané, Las Casas and Columbus all note that cemí houses were like 

other houses but somewhat set apart and smaller (Arrom 1999:43-44, 55; Pané 

1999: ch xix). Cemís also resided together with people in their houses. 

The dead had houses just like the living. Not only was it proper for people to 

have houses, but the dead, who were almost exact copies of the living, had their 

houses in a place called Coaybay (Pané 1999: ch xii). This underlines the similarity 

of the dead to the living: not only did they look almost identical, but they also 

had houses, which was an important part of the social identity of the living. 

The house was conceptualized as the location of socialization, i.e. the proper 

place for the upbringing of children, and the context for managing kin tensions. 

This is seen in two mythic episodes, the first in which the culture hero 

Deminán and his three brothers built a house to raise the tortoise which gestates 

on Deminán’s back and hatches (ibid. ch xi). The second is a more prohibitory 

account of filial disobedience in which the father of Yayael, a man referred to as 

Yaya, banishes his son from the familial house, and later kills him on return. The 

son is reincorporated back into the house by his bones being placed in a gourd 

and hung from the roof (which later, when smashed, is the origin of the sea) 

(Pané 1999: ch. ix and x). In the real, rather than mythic world, Las Casas’ admiration 

that households of extended families in Hispaniola, kin and affines, could 

live their whole lifetimes in one house without separate rooms and without dispute, 

is interesting, not because it should be taken at face value – the Apologética 

is a political treatise in defense of the natives, and moreover, his comprehension 

of indigenous sociality was only superficial – but because it shows there were effective 

social mechanisms in place to manage group tensions and create stable 

co-residential groups (Las Casas 1992:524). 

Houses were not only the location and residence of cemís, they were also 

the setting for the cohoba ceremony and figure in certain stages of the hallucinogenic 

experience. Hence Pané (1999: ch xix) describes how those under the 

influence of cohoba see houses upside down, their foundations in the air, and 

people walking in the sky. This demonstrates that the house was the context for 

ritual and ceremonial practices as well as sleeping and eating, and that, moreover, 

houses as objects were isolated and transformed as markers of stages in the 

cohoba journey. 

All in all, these examples show that houses played a particular role in the cultural, 

social and symbolic repertoire of the indigenous inhabitants of Hispaniola 

at the time of contact. Houses, whose boundaries also encompassed other locales 

such as gardens, stood as signifiers of a proper social identity and the mark of 

a successful social actor. They were also the context for socialization and integration 

of kin tensions (a characteristic of the culture of Arawakan-speaking 


61

peoples, Heckenberger 2002). Houses were a recognized cultural category, and 

existed in other worlds such as the transformed world of the cohoba reality, or 

the world of the dead. The estate was an inheritable composite which included 

house and gardens. The house as a concept therefore was a significant symbol of 

the cultured and social life. 

2.4.6 Discussion 

Although a partial account of houses in contact-period Hispaniola, what the colonial 

sources indicate in terms of physical appearance, interior, furnishings and 

aesthetics, activities, organization and conceptualization, does present a picture 

of a significant indigenous institution. Whether this was the case in the preceding 

centuries and how this evolved will be discussed with relation to data in 

later chapters. First, however, we turn to how the house has been treated as an 

archaeological category in the Greater Antillean region. 

2.5 Review of house as research focus in Greater Antillean 

archaeology 

There have been a few occasions in which the house as a spatio-temporal unit 

(as opposed to the broader “settlement”) has explicitly featured in discussions of 

culture or the dynamics of society in archaeology in the Greater Antilles. When 

this has been the case, the house has been invoked mainly with respect to culture 

change, specifically the transformation from an egalitarian to hierarchical organisation 

(Curet 1992a, Curet and Oliver 1998, Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1976, Veloz 

Maggiolo and Ortega 1986, Righter 2002b), and from pre-contact to colonised 

(Deagan 2004). 

One particularly influential example of this is an economic and political model 

of cultural transformation using a combination of house and mortuary data 

developed in the 1990s by Curet (1992), and Curet and Oliver (1998) which has 

since been accepted as a standard model for Puerto Rico against which to compare 

other settlement data from further afield (Hofman et al. 2001, Righter ed. 

2002, Wild 1999, contributions in Delpuech and Hofman eds. 2004, Wilson 

2007). 

In House structure and cultural change in the Caribbean, Curet (1992) proposes 

a model of evolution in house size for Puerto Rico in which a shift occurs from 

traditionally large communal dwellings in use throughout 300 BC to AD 900, 

to smaller dwellings from AD 900 to 1200, and finally small circular houses in 

the latest Ceramic period between AD 1200 to 1500. Given the assumption of a 

one-to-one relationship between the house and the corporate group (i.e. households) 

this implies economic and political changes in household organisation, 

i.e. from large extended families, to small nuclear families. A decrease in house 

size coincides with the development of social complexity towards a chiefdom 

model. Curet proposes that the changes in households both reflected and played 

a role in the evolution of more complex, hierarchical systems, and thus envisages 

an active role for these social units within precolonial society. The lack of a 

reliable, extensive or detailed data set with good chronological control, however, 

makes this a tentative model, yet one that for the first time isolated the house as 

a Caribbean archaeological concern. 40 

40 Curet uses data from structures from the Puerto Rican sites of El Bronce, Playa Blanca 5 and 

Maisabel. 


This argument is further developed in relation to other forms of archaeological 

evidence with the addition of burial data from Puerto Rico (Curet and Oliver 

1998). The authors highlight changes in mortuary practices from burial in the 

central plaza, to burial in domestic contexts. This transformation occurs sometime 

between AD 600 and 900 and parallels the changes seen in the house data. 

Both are linked by the authors to the same general trend towards greater social 

complexity and the development of chiefdoms. The transition in burial and domestic 

practices are integrated within a larger picture of widespread technological, 

demographic, socio-political and ideological changes the material correlates 

of which are summarised as: (1) changes in ceramic technology, from a reduction 

in the use of paints and slips to more incised decoration, (2) changes in diet 

towards greater specialisation in marine resources, (3) the intensification of agricultural 

production, (4) demographic growth and an increase in site numbers, 

(5) the appearance of functionally specific ballcourts, and (6) the emergence 

of chiefdoms (1998:226-227). The latter is largely, and one could argue solely 

(Oliver 2009:26-27, 254) predicated on the colonial sources, but plays an important 

role in the conceptualisation of changes in the domestic realm. 

The household, as the most important social unit below the level of community, 

is given a prominent role within their model: “the effective social and economic 

unit in the emerging social order was not the community or descent group but 

the household group…” (1998:231, 233). In effect, the corporate kin-group of the 

Saladoid and early Ostionoid, in which everyone had equal access to resources, is 

dismantled and replaced by smaller social institutions, namely the nuclear or extended 

family. The household as the descent group and unit of social reproduction 

manages the redistribution of goods and control of labour and resources. 

The authors see it as a small and logical step from here to propose the development 

of a hierarchy of households in which (ancestor) ideology is manipulated 

to legitimise the cacical line, and to restrict access to resources. Yet despite the 

assumption of an exact correspondence between houses and households (stated 

in the 1992 article), the rejection of the kin-based corporate group in favour 

of alternative social formulations, and the formalisation and definition of the 

household unit, the authors stop short of naming the house as one of the material 

incarnations of this new social order. This is probably due to the insufficient 

quantity and quality (in terms of definable domestic sequences) of the excavated 

data on houses at time of writing. They do however stress the need for household 

research of both elite and commoner contexts, before, during and after the development 

of complexity as an important future research topic. 

The emphasis on daily life (vida cotidiana), organisation of labour and domestic 

relations of production have long made the house an important background 

feature in the narrative of the pre-Columbian past of Hispaniola and 

Cuba due to the Marxist perspective. Like for the Puerto Rican case, one of the 

most oft cited material consequences of socio-economic change is changes in 

house size, signifying changes in relationships of production (Veloz Maggiolo 

1984). In Dominican scholarship, this transition is not inevitable and universal, 

however, but more a result of ecology and historical conditions: sites with different 

levels of organisational complexity co-exist in the same regions. Differences 

are also apparent in the mortuary realm, where opposite to what is reported for 

Puerto Rico, burials in the domestic area are characteristic of the earlier phase, 

and formalised cemeteries occur in late periods (see the sites of La Caleta, La 

Cucama, Macao, Atajadizo). The domestic data sets are not entirely comparable, 

however, due to the fact that no house plans have been published for Hispaniola 

and insufficient data are available to make any substantiated claims about house 


63

size and form. Claims are made on the basis of topographic and spatial characteristics 

of domestic mounds and the spacing of a very few excavated posts (Veloz 

Maggiolo et al. 1976; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1986; Veloz Maggiolo 1984; 

pers. comm. Veloz Maggiolo 2008). 

Two sites which have seen extensive research and illustrate the spectrum of 

diversity in the Dominican data are the archaeological settlements of Atajadizo 

and Juan Pedro, both published as monographs and both seen as key sites and 

used as the basis for house-related discussion in Hispaniola (Calderón 1975, 

1976; Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1976; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1986; Veloz 

Maggiolo 1984, 1991:172-174, 1993:70). 

Occupation of Atajadizo, Altagracia, is divided into two phases: an earlier 

fase Atajadizo (Ostionoid), with habitation sometime after AD 540 until the 

beginning of the 10 th century, and fase Guayabal (Chicoid), from the 10 th century 

until after European contact. The main occupation is interpreted as AD 

1200-1300. 

The first phase houses are interpreted as seasonally occupied, large, extended 

family residences, built at ground level and burnt on abandonment. In the later 

phase, habitation occured in small, circular nuclear family houses concentrically 

arranged around the plaza on top of artificially constructed mounds (Veloz 

Maggiolo et al. 1976:283). 

Between the two phases there is a change in the exploitation of the environment, 

exemplifying the transition between two different modos de vida, from a 

modo de vida aldeana to a modo de vida cacical (village way of life to a cacical way 

of life). In the fase Atajadizo settlement people practised slash-and-burn agriculture 

with minimal marine exploitation, buried their dead under house floors and 

made simple pottery. Settlement layout was informal and undifferentiated. In 

the following fase Guayabal, slash-and-burn agriculture was abandoned in favour 

of intensive agricultural mound construction. People now lived in small (nuclear 

family) round houses in proximity to their mound gardens, while burial had 

shifted to a designated cemetery area and the village was concentrically organised 

round a central plaza. There was an evolution and elaboration in terms of 

material culture. Emerging social stratification is evidenced in the organisation 

of production and labour (increase of griddles, collective building projects, etc.). 

Veloz Maggiolo sees the first phase akin to tropical forest culture, and the second 

to a chiefdom (Veloz Maggiolo 1984:12-13). Significantly, Veloz Maggiolo 

also sees the switch from larger houses with extended families in fase Atajadizo 

to smaller nuclear family dwellings in fase Guayabal as evidence for a cessation 

of semi-nomadism, due to more efficient exploitation of the environment (ibid.: 

13). 41 

The settlement pattern and way of life of the single-phased circular village 

of Juan Pedro, near San Pedro de Macorís stands in contrast to such a developmental 

trajectory common in other sites in the south and east of the Dominican 

Republic. It maintains a village way of life (modo de vida aldeana) throughout 

its entire history, and this is reflected in the reconstruction of the houses. Juan 

Pedro, dating from AD 850 to 1309, consists of a cleared central plaza, surrounded 

by an irregular ring-shaped midden in an area of 100×120m, upon 

which of house floors are concentrically arranged. These are interpreted as ca. 20 

large house mounds with houses inhabited by up to 30-40 people giving an esti- 

41 “La marcada presencia de viviendas nucleares [fase Guayabal], en contraposición a las familias 

extendidas [fase Atajadizo], hace pensar en una casi ausencia de semi-nomadismo que es debida a 

la transformación de la naturaleza en medio productivo más acorde con el propio desarrollo.” Ibid. 

1984:13, emphasis mine. 


mated stable population at its height, in the 13 th century, of 500 people. Burials 

occur in the domestic midden area. Unlike other settlement sites in the south 

such as Atajadizo, Punta Macao and Boca del Soco (the latter two unpublished, 

but also reportedly with small, late-phase Atajadizo type houses, pers. comm. 

Veloz Maggiolo 2008; and see Punta Macao plan drawing reproduced in Prieto 

Vicioso 2008:145; and Punta Macao house reconstruction in Andújar Persinal 

et al. 2004:171), Juan Pedro does not show a transition in domestic organisation 

in the late phase. Its singularity is also attested in the ceramic repertoire in which 

minimal Boca Chica pottery is present with a ceramic assemblage showing more 

of a relationship with sites in the Cibao Valley in the north such as Río Joba. It is 

seen as an archetypal, semi-autonomous village which does not develop a cacical 

way of life, but persists in a mixed spectrum, rather than intense, economy based 

on foraging, fishing and exploitation of undomesticated guáyiga (Zamia). 

The project of En Bas Saline, Haiti, was from the outset designed as a household-scale 

investigation (Deagan 1989, 2004). En Bas Saline was possibly the 

town of cacique Guancanagarí. As discussed, this does not necessarily mean the 

physical house was the main focus of investigation, in this case it was gender and 

class, although residential structures were identified as socio-temporal units of 

analysis, along with a burial and feasting pit (2004). Deagan’s analysis of the site 

assesses the native response to the European encounter through changes in the 

organisation of labour. This is on the basis of the fact that Spanish labour demands 

effected especially non-elite native men (through encomienda and demora; 

ibid.:2004: 608). In a sophisticated argument Deagan (2004:600-601) summarises 

the ethnohistoric information and secondary literature regarding political, 

economic, domestic, ritual and craft activities and concludes that gender 

roles were generally non-exclusive among the indigenous population (i.e. contra 

Cassá 1974; Stevens-Arroyo 2006; Tabío 1989:107, etc. who assume a natural 

division of labour along sex lines). Deagan thus proposes that a weakly differentiated 

gendered division of labour would result in less social disruption after 

Spanish labour demands than a strongly differentiated system, and focuses on 

five socio-temporal analytical units to discuss this, including two “ritual events” 

and three “households”. Two “households” are represented by different phases 

of a superimposed post-built structure, unfortunately not published. The first 

structure was built shortly after AD 1200, and burnt down. The second structure 

was burnt down after contact. This indicates that each structure may have 

been occupied for 150 years. These structures are defined as elite based on their 

position in the centre of the plaza. The third “household” is a post-contact wattle-and-daub 

structure of unknown function on the raised earthwork bank. 

Results suggested that activities associated with men such as lithic tool and 

ornament production as well evidence for the hunting of small mammals and 

possibly some fishing activities slightly decreased after contact, whereas there 

was a high degree of continuity in manioc processing, shellfish gathering, food 

preparation and ceramic production, associated with women. It was thus concluded 

that women continued or took over activities and life continued as normal, 

rejecting Spanish influence. Ritual practice and the power of leaders to 

organise these events remained unchanged. Despite the fact that many of the 

non-elite males may have been drafted into labour regimes, this had little impact 

on craft production and foodways and ritual activities. There was however 

marked inequality between elite and non-elite indigenous contexts whereby the 

elites had more access to a wider range of food and European items. 


65

Thus although house plans are not published, and less than 300m² was excavated 

in the horizontal plane, and there are problems of equivalence comparing 

a post-contact structure of unknown function, central plaza elite structures, and 

pits of different function nevertheless, the approach is significant as it explicitly 

focuses on household scales and events to elucidate social dynamics in a historical 

context. 

2.5.1 Discussion of the different approaches 

What these three approaches have in common is that they all assume an important 

role of houses, although house dynamics are not the primary research focus. 

That is they do not elucidate the dynamics of individual houses, or groups of 

houses as spatio-temporal units of social and cultural life. This is because the 

data were not available, or not collected on a scale which isolated the house and 

related features, or the house in relation to neighbouring houses. In other words, 

units have been constructed in the archaeology of the Greater Antilles, but we 

do not know how these units worked, or indeed what they looked like with any 

confidence. 

In the last decade there has been acknowledgement of the empirical and 

theoretical gaps in Caribbean archaeology, in the both culture-historical and 

Marxist (the Cuban and Dominican variants) approaches (Curet 2003, 2005; 

Keegan and Rodríguez Ramos 2004; Torres Etayo 2006; Valcárcel Rojas 2002). 

These gaps are especially data pertaining to the intra-site scale of analysis, as opposed 

to the regional, inter-island and culture scales of analysis. The rare studies 

which have been conducted on this level (Deagan 2004) show the potential 

to reveal aspects of indigenous social dynamics. However, we know very little 

about the characteristics, meaning and significance of the main material locus in 

which this occurred, i.e. the house itself. Data from extensive excavations of intra-site 

domestic contexts can potentially supply information on the spatial and 

temporal dynamics of indigenous domestic life, the dimensions of social groups, 

economic, social and ritual practices, indigenous personhood and agency and 

critically, issues of social differentiation and inequality. The house in an intra-site 

setting contributes the unit and scale of analysis which has largely been missing 

from the Caribbean data set (Curet 2003; Curet and Stringer eds. 2010). 


This chapter has discussed theoretical and empirical developments in house-centred 

approaches as well as describing the definitions to be used in this dissertation. 

Our current understanding of the precolonial house is outlined with reference 

to historic documents and the archaeology of Hispaniolan sites in which 

the house is not an explicit research focus. It has been proposed that the house, 

both as a physical and social unit is an appropriate focus of study for addressing 

current issues in the archaeology of the indigenous Greater Antilles. 


Chapter 3 

Regional and local setting of El Cabo 

3.1 Research history in the eastern region 

The east is one of the most intensively researched areas of the Dominican 

Republic. This is a large geographical expanse of the Dominican Republic extending 

just west of Santo Domingo and incorporating the entire eastern peninsula 

in an area which corresponds to Veloz Maggiolo’s zone A and possibly 

also zone B (the Samaná peninsula) (Veloz Maggiolo 1972:89). This dissertation 

focuses on a smaller geographical entity, east of the large coastal settlementcemetery 

complexes of Juandolio-Guayacanes, La Cucama, Andrés-Boca Chica 

and La Caleta, in the coastal plains bracketed by the Yuma and Anamuya rivers 

(Fig. 4). Since the 1970s the Museo del Hombre Dominicano has investigated a 

Río Anamuya 

Punta 

Macao 

Iglesia de Macao 

Bavaro 

Higüey 

Cabo 

Engaño 

Altagracia province 

(eastern Dominican Republic) 

Veron 

Punta Cana 

El Barrio 

Sitio de Pepe 

Río Yuma 

Cap Cana 

Caletón Bobadilla 

Caletón Blanco 

Bayahibe 

Cueva de Berna 

Atajadizo 


Mona Passage 

Cabo 

San Rafael 

Parque Nacional del Este 

Figure 4. Altagracia province 

with modern (black dots) and 

archaeological (pink dots) 

place names referred to in the 

text. El Cabo marked with 

star. 

La Aleta 

0 10 20 

kilometres 


67

large number of sites (including the Cueva de Berna, Punta Macao, Atajadizo, 

Punta Cana sites, La Aleta, Bayahibe, Iglesia de Macao). In addition to this the 

Museo has carried out numerous surveys in the area, including surveys of rock 

art by Pagán Perdomo (1976). In particular in the last ten years Harold Olsen 

Bogaert has conducted frequent walkover surveys ahead of builder development, 

published in the Boletín (Olsen 2004a, 2004b, 2008; Olsen et al. 2007; Ortega 

et al. 1990). Currently foreign scholars such as from Indiana University have 

been researching in the Parque Nacional del Este and Leiden University in El 

Cabo. Research with direct relevance to El Cabo and its surroundings will be 

discussed later in the chapter, but first the earlier research history of the area will 

be sketched. 

3.1.1 Previous investigations 

Sir Robert H. Schomburgk was one of the first recorded people to publish archaeological 

observations on the eastern Dominican Republic. In a letter published 

by the Journal of the Ethnological Society of London in 1854, he mentions 

finding conch (Strombus spp.) shell heaps at the eastern point of Hispaniola 

at Cabo Engaño which he interpreted as evidence for a Carib presence in 

Hispaniola (Schomburgk 1854:120). In 1913 the Dutch-American archaeologist 

Theodoor de Booy, following in the footsteps of Schomburgk, made a trip 

through Altagracia, using Isla Saona as a base, exploring the Macao area, and 

recovering Chicoid bottle-necked jars and ceramic stamps from the Salado caves 

(de Booy 1915; Fig. 5). The Danish archaeologist Gudmund Hatt was another 

collector active in the eastern region, recovering ceramics near the mouths of the 

rivers Nisibón, Maimón, Chavón and at La Caleta (near La Romana) in 1923 

(Lovén 1935; Rainey 1940). 

Later on, at the end of the 1960s, expeditions by members of the Instituto 

Dominicano de Investigaciones Antropológicas de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo 

Domingo undertook various surveys, test-pitting and making assessments of the 

destruction of large sites around Santo Domingo and San Pedro de Macorís (La 

Caleta, La Cucama, Juandolio-Guayacanes) (Mañón Arredondo et al. 1971). 

They identified new sites along the south coast such as burial mounds and an 

earth-banked plaza to the west of San Pedro de Macorís. The extensive area 

Figure 5. The route taken 

through the eastern 

Dominican Republic by de 

Booy over four months in 1913 

on behalf of the Heye Museum, 

New York City. Reproduced 

from de Booy 1915. 


investigated (Fig. 6; including Macao, Anamuya, Higüey, Boca del Yuma, the 

south of Isla Saona, La Romana and all the way up to Santo Domingo) is a synthesis 

of various surveying and collecting activities along the coast and up river 

courses. 

In 1972, the Florida couple Ripley and Adelaide Bullen carried out a surface 

prospection in the La Romana region (Fig. 7) covering large areas of sugar cane 

land owned by the American Gulf and Western Company north and east of La 

Romana (Bullen and Bullen 1973:315-324). 

The Bullens recorded 31 sites (one pre-ceramic, four petroglyph sites, and the 

rest Late Ceramic Age sites), including known sites such as La Caleta and Punta 

Macao. Although brief, this was a significant investigation as it is one of the few 

occasions when inland, as opposed to coastal areas, were consciously searched 

for indigenous sites. 

Figure 8 shows that although covering a large area of the east, investigation 

was limited to coastal and low-lying inland regions. The higher hills of the Seibo 

Sierra to the northwest of Higüey are relatively under-researched compared to 

Figure 6. Shaded area investigated 

by Mañón Arredondo, 

Morbán Laucer, Manuel 

García Arévalo, Samuel Pión 

 

titled 

“Mapa de la República 

Dominicana indicando el area 

sureste de Santo Domingo de 

mayor densidad en asientos 

indigenas y de sus cementerios 

más importante.” Adapted 

from Mañón Arredondo 

1971:129. 

0 50 100 

kilometres 

Figure 7. Shaded area investigated 

by the Bullens on Gulf 

and Western Company land. 

Adapted from Bullen and 

Bullen 1973. 

0 50 100 

kilometres 

0 50 100 

kilometres 

Figure 8. The Mañón 

Arredondo and Bullens survey 

areas combined. 


69

the rest of the region. The coastal sites of the eastern plains, as well as the large 

sites along the south coast researched by the Museo, form the basis of the culture 

history of the region, as will be discussed in Section 3.6.2. 

3.2 El Cabo: Site setting 

El Cabo is situated on the east coast of the province of Altagracia in the administrative 

district of San Rafael del Yuma. The orange-segment shaped area of 

coast, ca. 10×2km, between the Caribbean Sea and the limestone cliffs in which 

El Cabo sits (Fig. 9), is bounded in the north by private resorts (Cap Cana and 

Punta Cana) and a narrowing of the coast between the cliffs and the sea, and in 

the south by Cabo San Rafael, the rocky headland where the sea and cliffs meet. 

In this sense, El Cabo is the end of the road, for although there are numerous 

pathways and access points up the cliff and out of the orange-segment, there are 

no metalled roads and no other villages in this, the extreme eastern tip of the 

Dominican Republic. 

North of this narrower section (as one enters Cap Cana property; Fig. 4) the 

cliffs swing back inland, leaving an expanse of coastal plain up to Cabo Engaño, 

Macao and the Seibo coast (Fig. 12). Coastal lagoons, mangroves and savanna 

used to be common in what is now one of the fastest developing areas of the 

Dominican Republic, served by a busy international airport and a large population 

of local workers in Veron. South of the Cabo San Rafael, the cliffs are 

tight against the sea until Boca de Yuma and the Parque Nacional del Este, in a 

still relatively undeveloped area. The El Cabo site itself occupies the centre of a 

small (ca. 400m long) jutting, 7m high promontory, one of the highest points 

in the otherwise low coastal segment. A reef crest where the waves break across 

Figure 9. Detail of topographic 

map showing the position of 

the village of El Cabo with respect 

to the Caribbean Sea and 

the contour lines showing the 

 

segment shape of the El Cabo 

coastal area. 


52 

0 20 40 

Figure 10. The El Cabo coastal 

promontory showing the entry 

to the village (grey buildings, 

furthest right is the village 

school) and excavated units 

(black). 

metres 

the shallowest part of the coral reef is visible a short distance offshore, dividing 

the shoreward lagoon and the seaward reef face and forming a protective barrier 

against the force of the waves and storms (Fig. 10). 

El Cabo commands an excellent view of the coast, taking in the peninsula 

of the Parque Nacional del Este and the Cabo San Rafael to the south 

and along to Caletón Blanco and Caletón Bobadilla in the north. Although 

the view out to sea is uninterrupted, one cannot see the small limestone 

island of Isla de Mona 65km to the east, nor the landmass of Puerto 

Rico, 120km in the same direction. 42 To the west, inland, the cliffs encircling 

the site are visible all the way down to Cabo San Rafael in the south. 

El Cabo enjoys a sea breeze, yet no direct access to the sea for boats or people. 

Potential access points and launching/beaching points for canoes are 

an inlet 4km to the south, and two very small sandy beaches, a few metres 

across, “El Cabo beach” 700m to the north, opposite the former house of 

42 Local people said this was also the case at other times of the year. 


71

Sr. Nicolas. 43 The nearest sheltered harbour is Caletón Blanco, 5km north. 44 

The Cabo segment is now home to a few families and day labourers concentrated 

in the village of El Cabo, who tend conucos (kitchen gardens of mixed plantings 

created by slash-and-burn), burn charcoal, extract wood, and keep flocks of 

goats and sheep against and on top of the cliffs. Thus the area around the village 

and the whole area under the cliffs along the coast, is a patchwork of active and 

abandoned conucos of various ages, pastures, coconut plantations and areas of 

re-growth in different stages. The population of the village has dwindled considerably 

in the last ten years, and noticeably since we have been there, due to the 

fact that the village, once a bustling centre, is being choked by private property 

blocking access roads on all sides. 

3.3 Geological setting: Dissolving worlds 

Hispaniola is the second largest island in the Caribbean island chain (after 

Cuba). The Dominican Republic and Haiti together cover 80,000km² (twice 

as big as The Netherlands). Its coastline varies from sandy beaches to raised 

coral terraces with undercut cliffs and steep mountainous slopes. In contrast to 

other West Indian islands the physical geography of Hispaniola is characterised 

by alternating valleys and mountain ranges (Bowin 1975: 502). One of these, 

the Cordillera Central, in the centre of the island, reaches over 3000m (Pico 

Yunque), the highest peak in the Antilles (Bowin 1975: 505). 

A geological map of Hispaniola shows a complex picture. The many lithostratigraphic 

units which follow a general northwest-southeast alignment are the 

result of volcanic, metamorphic and tectonic actions over millions of years. There 

are three major periods of geologic activity contributing to the construction of 

Hispaniola: (1) volcanic activity on the seafloor creating the arc of Caribbean 

islands, (2) continued volcanism (Cretaceous), and (3) a stage which most concerns 

us, that of accumulations of marine sediments (Pleistocene, i.e. ca. 1 million 

years ago; Bolay 1997) on top of the older deposits. Tectonic shifts subsequently 

raised these deposits. 

Figure 11. Aerial view of 

 

Blanco, 5km north of El Cabo. 

ground. 

Photograph by Harold 

Olsen Bogaert (from Olsen 

2001a:28). 

43 The location 4km south of El Cabo is Olsen’s Sitio No. 13, Proyecto Carmelo. This is a small 

inlet in the cliffs. No archaeological remains are associated with this area. “El Cabo beach” to 

the north however is in the vicinity of various surface pottery scatters (Olsen’s Sitio no. 5 and 

Johnson’s (2009) Site no. 90). 

44 The former harbour of the fishing village Juanillo. 


Two belts of metamorphic rocks occur 

in Hispaniola, one diagonally across the 

centre of the island, and the other along the 

north coast. These consist of various types 

of volcanic rocks and mineral assemblages, 

including marbles, quartzes and serpentinite 

(Bowin 1975:507-508). 

Figure 12. Satellite elevation 

map of the eastern Dominican 

Republic showing shaded relief 

(United States Geological 

Service). Lower areas are the 

eastern part of the coastal 

plains of Seibo, the higher 

elevations in the northwest are 

the Seibo Sierra. 

3.3.1 The eastern coastal plains 

0 10 

kilometres 

20 

The low topography of the accumulated 

marine sediments of the eastern part of 

Hispaniola is very distinct from that of the 

rest of the island (Bowin 1975: 505). This 

was also noted by Las Casas who wrote detailed 

descriptions of the physical geography 

of the eastern region (Las Casas 1992, Ch. 

3). El Cabo is situated within these eastern 

coastal plains, the coastal plains of Seibo. 

This is a 180km long and 65km wide carbonate 

platform with karst formations and 

thin soils stretching from the north coast of 

El Seibo province, the whole of the province 

of Altagracia, and along the south coast to 

Punta Palenque in San Cristóbal. Isla Mona 

and Isla Saona are part of the same tectonic 

unit as the eastern Dominican Republic. 

This large carbonate platform is made up 

of a series of stepped limestone sediment platforms, former coral beds and lagoons, 

which rise from the coast. The first major fault line, i.e. the one which 

forms the backdrop of the site of El Cabo, runs from the north coast El Seibo, 

far inland from the low-lying Cabo Engaño to just behind El Cabo, and tight 

along the coast all along down the eastern peninsula of the Parque Nacional del 

Este (Figs. 11 and 12). 

Elevations along this plateau range from 15m above sea level, to 100m near 

Higüey (Bolay 1997; Bowin 1975; USGS website; Vaughan et al. 1922/1983:43). 

Higher elevations can be found in the Seibo Sierra, including Los Haitises 

National Park, to the northwest of Higüey (dark areas on map in Fig. 12). This 

is a broad raised area of reefs and reef sediments and reaches a height of 450m 

above sea level, which nevertheless makes this a low topographic feature for 

Hispaniola (Bowin 1975:505). 

It was this distinction between the hills and the plains which Las Casas 

described (Las Casas 1992: Ch.3). He divided the east into two parts: firstly, 

vast coastal plains and grassy savannas (zabanas) with woods, and secondly, the 

higher stepped karst plateaus and hills to the north and west of Higüey (Lovén 

1935:73). Las Casas remarks on the predominantly rocky nature of the soils, 

comparing the exposed limestone which covers 95% of the surface to dog’s teeth 

and diamonds, and marvels at the fact that the inhabitants not only survived in 

this area, but flourished. 45 

45 Children from El Cabo today run barefoot across these jagged rocks with no hesitation. 


73

Several rivers (Ozama, Ocoa, Haina, Chavon, Yuma) cross the coastal plains 

and drain into the Caribbean Sea, and many areas between Higüey, San Pedro de 

Macoris and La Romana are key sugarcane production regions and cattle grazing 

land (Bolay 1997). East of this area, however, from Boca de Yuma to Macao, 

are no rivers at all. Again, this was a feature remarked upon by Las Casas, who 

noted that local people took water instead from xagüeyes or natural sinkholes and 

manantiales in the karst (Las Casas 1992: Ch.3). 

The limestone deposits of the coastal plains are worked into a range of landscape 

forms, namely caves and underground cavities and tunnels, by the action 

of climate (rainfall and temperature) and vegetation, base level (elevation 

above sea level), original relief of deposition, age, lithology (fabric), and structure 

(Choquette and James 1988). This dissolved calcium carbonate is known 

as karst, i.e. the carbonate geology formed by dissolution of original deposits. 

In geological terms karst forms rapidly, at the timescale of tens of thousands of 

years. 46 In the tropical and sub-tropical climes of the Caribbean, karst is mainly 

formed as the result of rainfall (“autogenic recharge”). 47 Karst physiognomies are 

highly variable and dependent on local conditions. For example, Los Haitises 

National Park, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, south of Samaná 

Bay, is a karst expanse of steep-sided hills (mogotes) separated by valleys (Rivera 

et al. 2000). This karst landscape is formed by rivers and thus very different from 

the karst platform of the southern coast where there are no rivers. 

3.3.1.1 Geomorphology of the coastal plains 

The landscape of the southern karst platform is one full of local variation – blowholes, 

undercut cliffs, and sea caves are some of the coastal features. Wet and 

dry pit caves (vertical shafts), rock shelters, cavernous systems replete with stalactites, 

stalagmites and flowstone (speleothems: precipitates deposited in spelean 

settings; Choquette and James 1988:3; Frank et al. 1998), vegetation-filled depressions 

of various dimensions, water-filled cenotas and subterranean rivers 48 are 

all common phenomena within the micro-tectonic unit of the El Cabo segment 

and the cliffs which surround it. 

Figure 13. Typical small dissolution 

pockets in the vicinity 

of El Cabo. Note the plants 

taking advantage of the natu- 

 

46 As is the case on the Bahamas; see Mylroie and Carew 1995/2003:10. 

47 As opposed to “allogenic recharge” which concerns dissolution by large volumes of water such 

as rivers and streams. Dramatic landforms such as the tower karst in Guilin, China, caused by 

allogenic recharge, do not occur on the carbonate islands, where the dominant forms are closed 

depressions and caves (Mylroie and Carew 1995/2003:5). 

48 One such subterranean river supplies water to the whole of Cap Cana which covers 160 sq 

kilometres. 


Figure 14. Dissolution pit 

 

 

events (Adapted from Mylroie 

and Carew 1995). Size of pits 

ranges from a few centimetres 

to several metres. 

Figure 15. Flank margin caves 

en route to El Cabo. Note collapsed 

face exposing the void 

and speleothems which formed 

inside. 

The etched karst ground surfaces of El Cabo, formed by rainfall, action of 

the sea and biological agents (invertebrates, algae, etc.) are pitted surfaces forming 

“natural flowerpots” (Bolay 1997; Figs 13 and 14). Although a dry zone, 

this type of karst is capable of significant water storage due to soil infill and the 

large surface network of dissolved pockets which hold water by capillary action 

(Mylroie and Carew 1995). The home gardens of the inhabitants of El Cabo village 

testify to this fact. Moreover, Las Casas describes this karst agriculture as a 

characteristic adaptation of the inhabitants of Higüey and Isla Mona different 

from the mound agriculture used to produce cassava. Despite the hard, dry and 

rocky conditions, the soil in the pockets was very fertile. Both large depressions 

filled with terrarossa (soil deposits rich in iron and aluminium), and also the 

smaller pockets in the bare karst were used for crop cultivation. A staple in the 

eastern region was the undomesticated cycad Zamia spp. (guáyiga), an alternative 

to cassava and used to make flour (Las Casas 1992: 299: Ch.3). 

The terraces further away from and progressively higher than the coast have 

been exposed for longer and thus their karst formations are more dramatic (longer 

exposure to rainwater, greater distance from water table, see Johnson 2009; 

Olsen 2000, 2001a). Caves open to the cliff face are common in the formations 

which provide a backdrop to El Cabo (Fig. 15). These are probably flank margin 

caves formed at sea level when the carbonate platform of the eastern coastal 

plains was emergent. Flank margin caves are dissolved oval or linear chambers 

with no natural entrances which form along the flank of carbonate platforms 

where fresh water and seawater mix. Later sea level falls led to the formation 

of speleothems, infilling and collapses, and eventual tectonic uplift drains the 

caves to leave them in the current position (Frank et al. 1998). The exposed cave 

entrances are evidence of cliff retreat which helps maintain the cliff vertical, i.e. 

mechanical collapse of the cliff from the base upwards due to bio-erosion (see 

Frank et al. 1998, citing Jennings 1985; Mylroie and Carew 1995 on Isla Mona 

and the Bahamas). Massive boulders noticeably dot the base all along the cliffs 

of El Cabo, evidence of the base-upward collapse model (Frank et al. 1998:81). 

Some of these boulders were foci in the pre-Columbian landscape with abundant 

shell and pottery remains, including reports of burial (the so-called “Indian 

cemetery” under the cliffs to the south of El Cabo site being an example of this) 

around their perimeters and petroglyphs on their flanks (Johnson 2009). On Isla 

Mona, such flank margin caves date to before the start of the second Quaternary, 

about 2 million years ago (2Ma). 

On top of the cliffs, 

further inland, the karst is 

more mature, with well-developed 

soils of terrarossa 

and deeper and larger karst 

voids. This may be due to 

a greater elevation above 

sea level with respect to the 

platform below the cliffs, 

as karst landscapes erode 

down to the level of local 

water bodies, and could also 


75

e related to micro-climatic differences as the rainfall on top of the cliffs is generally 

more abundant than down on the El Cabo plain (Choquette and James 

1988:1-21). 

Although compared to the richness of the older formations such as the 

Cordillera Central, the karst landscape appears mineralogically rather monotonous 

and there seems to be a paucity of local lithic raw materials. Exceptions 

are a type of greenstone, serpentinized peridotite, which as well as occurring 

in the Cordillera Central and along the north coast, can be found near Higüey 

(Bowin 1975:525). This may have been used for greenstone artefacts in El Cabo, 

although there were undoubtedly a variety of sources, including exposed greenstones 

in the Cordillera Central (Bowin 1975:540). Granites also occur to the 

northwest in the Seibo Sierra (Bowin 1975:528). 

Other local materials which may have been exploited are bauxite, an aluminous 

laterite which is present either as a fertile red soil (terrarossa), or forms 

seams of red concretions in limestone cavities. It is encountered especially on 

top of the cliffs of El Cabo. 49 This may have been used as a pigment or to temper 

pottery. 

Occasionally local and small areas of re-crystallised limestone (Bowin 

1975:512), ranging from a white to light brown, can be observed in the cliffs. 

This is similar to material used for a number of artefacts from the site. 50 

Speleothems (stalactites, stalagmites and columns) in the vicinity were occasionally 

sites of rock art, especially in the twilight of entrances. In addition, rare 

erratics or dropstones (the result of glacial action) are also present in the area, 

such as the nodule, no more than 30cm across, of dark grey/green metamorphic 

rock embedded in the karst formation on the road leading to El Cabo. Spherical 

iron-rich calcite concretions are often found in the landscape of El Cabo, and 

have also been recovered with excavated material at the site. This is the case with 

other sites in the vicinity. Although these elements were formed naturally, they 

may have been brought to the site as manuports. 

3.3.1.2 Geomorphology of El Cabo 

The geomorphology of El Cabo is heterogeneous. The northern portion of the 

site represents a topographic low with respect to the southern portion. A small 

fault-line separates these two zones (Hofman et al. 2005). The geomorphology 

of the southern portion, in which the main excavation unit was situated, reflects 

it’s submerged past as a carbonate lagoon. Whereas the raised El Cabo promontory 

now dominates the topography of the coastline, 100,000-200,000 years 

ago it was the bottom of a lagoon (Branko Mušič, pers. comm.; see Nichols 

1999:175 for geological description). 

The southern portion of the site consists of upraised carbonate sediments 

from algae and molluscs living in the lagoon. Beds of intercalated limestone and 

sandstone ca. 20cm thick of differential consistency (east to west) lie as a sediment 

packet on top of a layer of sand at differing depths across the site. There 

has been lateral transformation of these sediments so that they dip at an angle 

of ca. 45 degrees. In the north, thicker deposits of beachrock (lithified beach 

sediment), sand (blown deposits, hurricane events?) and humic soils (anthropogenic) 

form a thick packet over a metre deep at the cliff edge. This is underlain 

by bedrock and yellow sand. 

49 Terrarossa (as solid deposits called bauxite) occurs on limestone in an irregular belt from Panama 

and Costa Rica, across Jamaica and Hispaniola (Bolay 1997:298). These deposits are mined in 

the area of El Cabo (see Project Carmelo, section 3.7.2.1). 

50 Including a brown quartz micro-trigonolith and a small incised face. 


3 

2 

4 

5 

Figure 16. The local landscape 

of El Cabo showing aspects of 

its geomorphology. (1) coral 

limestone, (2) sand layer of 

intercalated deposits of former 

lagoon, (3) bedded limestone of 

intercalated deposits of former 

lagoon, (4) ibid.; extending to 

the promontory of El Cabo, (5) 

 

behind El Cabo. 

1 

The carbonate sediments of El Cabo are surrounded by fossilised coral, the 

former coral reef, much harder than the lagoon deposits of the site (Fig. 17). 

The fossil record contains shell and coral species which are extant today in the 

area such as Cittarium pica and Sidereastrea sp. (Johnson 2009). 

Figure 17. Coral limestone 

beach south of El Cabo. 

3.3.2 Summary 

The eastern coastal plains have a very particular geology characterised by karst 

topography, thin soils and subterranean water sources. The local landscape of 

El Cabo is a product of dissolved limestone, 

the fertility and hospitability of 

which is not immediately apparent, but 

whose “flowerpots” and hidden water 

sources were available to inhabitants. El 

Cabo itself occupies a promontory of 

soft, raised lagoon sediments, different 

from the harder, jagged coral deposits on 

either side. 

3.4 Ecology and palaeoecology 

Hispaniola, of which the Dominican Republic is the eastern part, is an island on 

the margin of the tropics, in the Northern Hemisphere, with its northern coast 

facing the Atlantic and its southern coast the Caribbean Sea. Zoo- and phytogeographically, 

Hispaniola was isolated through a long geological time period 

which contributes to a high degree of endemism. Over 10 million years ago the 

Greater Antilles were still attached to the Central American mainland and each 

other. Otherwise marine currents and human propagation have been the main 

agents effecting the flora and fauna of Hispaniola. The normal distinctions made 

between endemic, native and introduced flora and fauna (i.e. see Bolay 1997) are 

simply categories of timescale and historical interest, with endemic referring to 

a geological timescale, native referring to pre-European contact, and introduced 

post-European contact. Since the first colonization by humans in the 5 th millennium 

BC humans have had a huge impact on their ecology through the importation, 

cultivation and exploitation of plant and animal life. 


77

It is arguable the extent to which the current ecology of the eastern region, 

one of the areas of the Dominican Republic with the lowest historical population 

densities, is a legacy of the pre-Columbian, or so-called “native” ecology. 

Naturally people and their environments are in co-evolutionary symbiosis, and a 

constant state of change. Nevertheless, horticultural and culinary traditions, the 

continued impoverishment of the rural population and the relatively late impact 

of large-scale construction development in the area mean that not only are archaeological 

landscapes still observable in certain areas, but that the present-day 

ecology should be considered in terms of its departure from and potential similarity 

(continuity) to past ecologies. In other words small-scale slash-and-burn 

mixed plantings and staple crops have a lot in common with the precolonial 

indigenous past. 51 This is a position long adhered to by Dominican archaeologists 

(see Vega 1981). The untamed relocation and transformation of communities 

and places into tourist units (unidades turísticas) marks a definitive incision 

in this relationship. This is in no small measure because the elite discourse of 

tourism and privatization excludes working Dominicans and communities and 

consciously writes a narrative of a pristine nature (“pure jungle”, “with no access 

roads” as one local unidad turística puts it in its promotional material) with no 

human history for vast swathes of the country. 

3.4.1 Current ecology of the eastern Dominican Republic 

Flora and fauna. The eastern Dominican Republic has a varied phytogeography 

from mangroves and vegetation of coastal lagoons (depressions below the average 

high tides) to the humid (wet) to hyperxerophytic (dry) forests around and to the 

north of Higüey which are mostly now settled and cultivated for sugarcane and 

cattle grazing. Such forests associated with karst topography occur in all of the 

Greater Antilles and parts of Central America (Kelly et al. 1988, cited in Rivera 

et al. 2000). Subxerophytic forests (elements of both humid and dry) dominate 

the east from Punta Macao down to the peninsula of the Parque del Este and 

Isla Saona (Bolay 1997:103). Hyper- and subxerophytic forests are characterized 

by low, irregular rainfall in which plants depend on extremes which may only 

occur every few years. In hyperxerophytic areas, open woodlands with cacti and 

thornbushes dominate on thin alkaline soils. Subxerophytic forests are semiopen 

forests with alkaline soils deeper than those of the hyperxerophytic forests. 

Nevertheless, conditions are topographically highly variable with characteristics 

from different phytogeographic zones found close to each other in the same area 

(Brewer et al. 2003). For example, deep, red soils (terrarossa) and tall stands of 

broadleaf trees can occur next to areas of low bush and no soils. These forested 

areas are rich in species but suffer degradation from charcoal burning and free 

running goats (Bolay 1997:105, Rivera et al. 2000). 

The Dominican Republic has an insular fauna with birds as the largest vertebrate 

group and a high degree of endemism. Endemic fauna such as iguanas and 

the solenodon, a rare insectivore, have their nearest neighbours on Madagascar 

and demonstrate the high degree of isolation of the Caribbean (Hofmeester 

2008; Bolay 1997:112). 

The flora and fauna of the Parque Nacional del Este (Bolay 1997), a protected 

national park since 1975, is informative on the character of the biota of an area 

relatively free from the intensity of deforestation, exploitation and destruction. 

51 The main products produced for domestic consumption in the Dominican Republic include: 

cassava, maize, peanuts, beans, batata, yautía, pineapple – all pre-Columbian staples. The population 

also relies to a large extent on the later introduced plantains and rice (Office of National 

Statistics 2007). 


The park, its cliffs visible from El Cabo, and in the same climatic and coastal 

zone, has escaped the irrevocable destruction of the landscaping in Punta and 

Cap Cana (where the lagoons have been artificially drained, the cliffs dynamited 

and the natural topography razed for golf courses) and the much more minimal, 

yet characteristic impact of charcoal burning and goat grazing activities in the 

area of El Cabo. 

The Parque Nacional del Este is a peninsula which forms the extreme southeast 

of the country with an area of 310sq km (Fig. 4). Like the region of El Cabo 

it is a flat carbonate terrace with cliffs rising from the coast at about 1km inland. 

There is no surface fresh running water in the park. Underground sources such 

as the Manatial de la Aleta and other rainwater traps provide drinking water 

(Atiles and Ortega 2001). The vegetation, characterised by 1000-2000 mm annual 

rainfall, forms two layers: a strata of broad-leaved taller trees (7-15m) such 

as giant figs, mahogany and guayacán, and a dense underbrush of younger trees 

and bushes. Epiphytes (plants attaching to other, larger plants) and lianas (longstemmed 

climbers) are abundant. Over 500 different plant species have been 

reported for the park of which 50 are endemic (Ortega and Atiles 2003:18). The 

interior also has lagoons with mangrove swamps. The coastal areas, which are 

unfortunately unprotected, are dominated by sea grape and other bushes (Bolay 

1997). 

About half of all known Dominican bird species, including eight endemic 

to Hispaniola, occur in the park. Ortega and Atiles (2003:19) give a figure of 

144 different species present in the park. The park’s lagoons attract birds such 

as ducks and doves, coming from North America in the winter which would 

have been attractive to hunt (Mañón Arredondo et al. 1971:85). Small endemic 

mammals such as the hutía and solenodon are also reported in the park. Iguanas 

thrive in the dry environment. Bats are common in the caves in the park, and 

manatee and turtles occasionally graze the sea-pastures offshore. Pigs, goats, cattle, 

mongoose, mice and rats are important introduced elements and destroy 

the island biota. Isla Saona, an islet extension of the park, has barrier reefs lying 

to the south, dominated by Acropora palmata, brain corals, Porites spp. and 

Montastrea annularis which house many fish species. These are the same corals 

found in the fossil and living record of El Cabo. 

Today, because it is protected from intensive human exploitation, much of 

the interior of the park is impenetrable. The fact that tropical forest has been 

allowed to regenerate does not mean that this is more akin to the “natural” pre- 

Columbian landscape. Far from it. The large number of significant archaeological 

sites within its boundaries testify to an extensive indigenous presence in the 

past which would have had a significant impact on the environment and ecology, 

including the opening up and cultivation of large areas (Atiles and Ortega 2001; 

Conrad et al. 2001, 2008; Guerrero 1981; Ortega and Atiles 2003). Moreover, 

studies of late Holocene vegetation dynamics from lake sediments elsewhere in 

the Haiti and the Dominican Republic show that Ceramic Age deforestation is 

reflected in the pollen records (Higuera-Gundy et al. 1999; Lane et al. 2009). As 

a more general remark in this respect, a very frequent observation of Columbus 

is the existence of extensive pastures and agricultural fields of the natives, bigger 

than those in Castille (e.g. Columbus 1990:149-157). Nevertheless, if not the 

image of a precolonial landscape, the legacy of pre-Columbian and more recent 

horticulture is doubtless responsible for the current species diversity within the 

park. More research on the current phytogeography of protected areas of the 

Dominican Republic could potentially shed more light on precolonial ecology. 


79

Flora and fauna local to the site. The vegetation around El Cabo site consists 

of copses of coconut palms, livestock grazed grass, and low bushes and fruit trees 

belonging to the village. 52 Seagrape and guáyiga line the road along the coast 

into the village and beyond the El Cabo promontory along the coralline shore to 

the south. Outside the garden and house plots of the village, the vegetation between 

the rocky shoreline and the cliffs includes dense brush, occasional coconut 

stands, and towards the cliffs, taller trees such as guayacán. Now little-used tracks 

cut through the undergrowth, usually via cenotas and caves, which allowed access 

to and from former properties, to allow wood to be transported to the coast and 

access to the cliffs. Here and there differential areas of regrowth can be observed 

in areas of former pastures and abandoned conuco sites. Studies carried out in 

Los Haitises National Park indicate abandoned conucos develop closed canopies 

and a high density of trees in approximately 20 years (Rivera et al. 2000). The 

only reasons people come to this area now is to herd livestock, burn charcoal, 

collect coconuts, honey, bathe, fish, dig for artefacts and other more nefarious 

activities (drug and people trafficking). 

Although now rare, El Cabo villager Belto Villa occasionally sells guayacán 

logs (ca. 1.5-2m long, 30cm diameter) which he sources from near the village, 

below the cliffs. 53 There are immature small trees and stumps of guayacán growing 

on the site. Another tropical hardwood which grows on top of the cliffs, 

is princewood, piñi piñi (Exostema caribaeum). Botanist Máximo Peña Roca 

(Coordinador Gerencia Ambiental de Cap Cana) and Belto Villa informed us that 

both species, endemic to the Caribbean, were common and dense in the area 

above and below the cliffs thirty years ago. Belto also identified other fragrant 

wood types which occur as flotsam washed up in El Cabo. 

Climate. Exposure to trade winds and elevation are the two major factors 

influencing Dominican climate (Bolay 1997). The diverse landscapes of the 

Dominican Republic mean that the climate is varied. Mean annual rainfall on 

the east coast is less than 1000mm (see Bolay 1997: Fig. 9). Precipitation concentrates 

in the wetter, hurricane season from June to October, whereas January 

to April are dry, with some rain in May. Average temperatures in the Punta 

Cana area are between 22º and 31ºC, the hottest months occurring in July and 

August, the coldest in January and February (Tactuk 2007). 54 Annual temperature 

oscillations are minimal (about 5ºC around the mean) and daily temperature 

oscillations are higher than seasonal (Bolay 1997). Climate diagrams of the 

Altagracia area show that the precipitation curve rarely falls under the temperature 

curve (temperature and rainfall are related and together indicate evaporation 

potential) which means that although the area does not have much rainfall, 

it is not classed as arid, and therefore always humid (80% average humidity; 

Tactuk 2007). 55 This is typical for tropical climates (see Walter climate diagrams 

in Bolay 1997:68). 

Trade winds blow from the east over the whole island. This, together with 

sea breezes (currents of air created by the differential temperature rises on land 

and sea), mean that during the day there is always an easterly wind from the sea 

which blows over the area. In December winds sometimes come from the north. 

At night the reverse effect, the terral, blows from the land seawards. This moderates 

the hot, humid temperatures on the coast (Bolay 1997). 

52 See Ortega (2005:115) for a similar description of the environment in the late 1970s. 

53 He sells these for DR $ 125 (about 2.5 euros) a piece to middlemen to make “native-style” 

figurines (muñecas) for the tourist market. 

54 The Office of National Statistics publishes average highest temperatures per year from the Punta 

Cana weather station (Tactuk 2007). 

55 Arid climates are those in which precipitation falls under the temperature curve. 


There is another kind of wind which affects the Dominican Republic: hurricanes. 

These are provoked by the collision of air masses of different temperatures, 

when large amounts of water evaporates over the sea, which rise and cool 

quickly at altitude and spin along with the earth’s rotation (Bolay 1997). The 

Dominican Republic has a greater than 10% annual chance of experiencing a 

hurricane landfall. This is in contrast to the rest of the Greater Antilles, Lesser 

Antilles and Central America where chances are 5 to 10% (Dr Lisa Kennedy 

pers. comm.). Between 1900 and 2003, seventeen hurricanes (categories 1-5) 

crossed the Dominican Republic. For example, Hurricane Georges, a category 

3 hurricane struck the eastern Dominican Republic in September 1998, killing 

more than 400 people and leaving 155,000 homeless. During this time, the people 

in El Cabo who were directly in the path of the hurricane, fled to the caves 

in the cliffs and sheltered there for three days until the storm had passed. 

Landscapes. The area in which El Cabo is situated comprises approximately 

1300km² in which there are no terrestrial water sources. There are only two rivers 

east of Higüey. The Río Yuma which meanders south from Higüey and empties 

into the Caribbean Sea at Boca de Yuma, 17km as the crow flies from El 

Cabo (25km along a coastal route). Secondly, the Río Anamuya is a smaller river 

which meanders north from the direction of Higüey to empty into the Atlantic 

Ocean some kilometres west of Punta Macao (40km from El Cabo) (Fig. 4). The 

rest of the coastal Caribbean plain also has no major river systems. What rivers 

there are, are deeply entrenched in the soft underlying rock and have narrow 

valleys and virtually no floodplains (Bullen and Bullen 1973). The underground 

water supplies in the karst, and rainfall are thus important water sources. People 

not connected to the mains supply (i.e. the majority in rural places) rely on rainwater 

collection in rainwater butts outside their houses, and take advantage of 

the rainy months to time plantings. 

3.4.2 Palaeoecology of El Cabo 

Palaeoflora and fauna. In the Archaic, although there is some evidence for management 

of plants (manioc, maize, grasses, etc.), there is no evidence yet for the 

introduction of animals (Newsom and Wing 2004). Remains of Zamia spp. 

associated with ashes from hearths were found in layers dating from 1890 BC 

in the Cueva de Berna, on the edge of the Parque Nacional del Este (Veloz 

Maggiolo et al. 1977). 

From the Ceramic Age in the Greater Antilles there is much more evidence 

for the use of wild plants and cultivation of fruit trees and crops. Evidence 

from Puerto Rico and Haiti (En Bas Saline) suggests that in the Ceramic Age 

“Caribbean home gardens were diverse with multiple strata incorporating herbs, 

vines, shrubs and trees” (Newsom and Wing 2004:154). Food crops and staples 

such as manioc and maize were introduced or developed in the islands. 

Mammals such as the hutía were managed from the Ceramic Age and dogs were 

the most widespread domestic species. An important staple characteristic of the 

ecology and precolonial subsistence in the eastern region is the cycad Zamia. 

Zamia flourishes in karst areas, close to the sea. It has already been mentioned 

that in historic times Las Casas was struck by its use in Higüey as an alternative 

to cassava. More significantly, as well as a source of carbohydrate, bread made 

from Zamia was also a source of protein. This was due to a production process in 

which fermentation encouraged maggots to hatch in the dough (Veloz Maggiolo 

1992). The use of this undomesticated plant as a food source in the eastern region 

from the second millennium BC to the arrival of the Europeans shows not 


81

only a remarkable cultural continuity of Archaic and gatherer lifeways into the 

later period, but because of its enhanced protein content is seen as a superior staple 

food, and characteristic of the Mona Passage area (Veloz Maggiolo 1992). 

Local palinological data present in archaeological deposits come from the 

Project Juanillo excavations (Olsen 2002). Stratigraphic units from probable settlement 

contexts revealed the presence of fruits and crop plants such as prickly 

pear (Opuntia spp.), locally known as tuna brava or guazábara, papaya or lechosa 

(Carica papaya), guava or guayaba (Psidium guajava), cocoplum or hicaco 

(Chrysobalanus icaco), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), pitajaya (Hylocereus spp.), 

zamia or guáyiga (Zamia debilis), trees such as guayacán (Guaiacum officinale), 

as well as other beach plants, grasses and weeds possibly associated with land 

clearance. 

In terms of the faunal assemblage excavated from Juanillo, of the sixteen 

different areas (total of 370m²), 65% of all gastropods recovered were terrestrial 

species (Polydontes spp. and Caracolus spp.), and the vast majority of these 

Polydontes spp. 56 Of the marine shells, Strombus spp. was the most abundant 

(40% of the marine shell remains), followed by Cittarium pica (25%), with 

Murex spp., Vasum muricatum, Conus spp., Chiton spp., Fissurella spp, Nerita 

spp., Purpura patula, making up 1-10% with several other identified species as 

negligibly present. There are no data on the other faunal remains. 

Another site in the area for which published faunal data are available is El 

Barrio, 17km up the coast from El Cabo (Rímoli 1996). In both the lowest levels 

of the El Barrio site (fase Punta Cana, 340 BC-440 AD) and in the second 

phase (fase El Barrio, AD 400-700) marine and terrestrial gastropods dominate 

the faunal remains (almost 90%), the majority in both phases being Strombus 

gigas (30-70%) (with Cittarium pica, Murex brevifrons, bivalves and other species 

being less common). 57 A large 25-40% of the gastropods were land snails 

(Polydontes spp., Caracolus spp. and Cerion spp.). Reef and deep sea fishes represented 

less than 5% of the faunal assemblage (with less in the later phase) with 

birds, mammals and other vertebrate fauna contributing less than 1%. Of these, 

endemic dove species, turtle and dog remains were minimally present. The picture 

is similar for both phases. The faunal remains suggest very little exploitation 

of terrestrial fauna. Rímoli concludes a reliance on the exploitation of the coral 

reef and near-shore net fishing. 

Interesting in both the Juanillo and the El Barrio excavations are the high 

numbers of terrestrial gastropods in coastal contexts. Landsnails were also very 

common in the archaeological deposits of El Cabo. These are generally evidence 

of a wet, wooded environment (Rímoli 1996; Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1976). The 

present landscape in these areas is deforested, and these shell species are now 

largely absent, except when inhabited by hermit crabs. As commensal animals, 

attracted by human rubbish, their presence in the immediate area of human activity 

sites, may indicate open midden piles in the past. Perhaps the presence of 

such snails is also cyclical and dependent on rains. This does not preclude the 

fact that the surrounding areas were wooded, but simply that the density of terrestrial 

snail remains may be an indicator of density and coverage of midden material. 

The abundance of terrestrial gastropods and the sea snail Cittarium pica in 

midden deposits in El Cabo led us to speculate that all three species are regularly 

56 In the report (Olsen 2002 unpub.) the shell remains are reported separately for each excavated 

layer. Seeing as these layers are arbitrary and not dated and the stratigraphy is mostly shallow, 

I have lumped all the remains together to enable rough comparisons. It is not clear how the 

samples were counted, I assume by MNI. 

57 Again, it is not clear how the samples were counted. Percentages are directly quoted from the 

published text. 


inhabited by hermit crabs, and that this may account for their presence in midden 

heaps. Again, whether they were deliberately collected for food or present as 

scavengers is a matter for future research (Hofman et al. 2005:18). 

In summary, landsnails, Strombus spp. and Cittarium pica are most common 

in the Juanillo and Barrio sites, followed by smaller marine molluscs, and 

a long way behind this by deep sea fishes and terrestrial fauna, indicating a predominantly 

marine-oriented protein diet, as would be expected from coastal 

locations. 

Palaeoclimate. Data from lake sediments, trace metals, isotopes and pollen 

sequences allow reconstructions of climate history. The evidence generally points 

to a moist climate in the circum-Caribbean until the middle Holocene, with drier 

conditions from the middle Holocene from 3400 BP, punctuated by moister 

periods (e.g. 1600-900 BP). This “late Holocene drying trend” (Kennedy et al. 

2006) has been noted in high-resolution records from Haiti, the Bahamas, the 

Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (Lake Miragoâne, Church’s Blue Hole and 

Lago Enriquillio, Laguna Tortuguero) and more widely across the Mesoamerican 

and Caribbean region (Beets et al. 2006; Bertran et al. 2004; Bonnissent et al. 

2007; Kennedy et al. 2006). 

Over the last 2600 years, 200-year cycles of drought episodes superimposed 

themselves on these longer term cycles. These have been documented for AD 585, 

862, 986 and 1051 with an extended drought between AD 700/800-850/1000 

(Beets et al. 2006; Bertran et al. 2004; Curtis et al. 2001 and Hodell et al. 2001 

cit., Newsom and Wing 2004:12-13, Lane et al. 2009). The impacts of drier 

conditions on the late Holocene ecology, although contingent upon local conditions, 

were the loss of forests and extinction of some mammal species (Newsom 

and Wing 2004). Climatic variation also had an observable impact on human 

population dynamics. For example, lakes in the Las Lagunas area of the foothills 

of the Cordillera Central, Dominican Republic, first showed evidence of human 

occupation during a severely arid period (Lane et al. 2009), and further afield 

the abandonment of the settlement of Anse à la Gourde, Guadeloupe, has been 

attributed to worsening climatic conditions (Beets et al. 2006). Conversely, earlier 

migrations, such as the Saladoid colonization of the Antilles, has been linked 

to favourable climatic conditions (Bonnissent et al. 2007). 

It is worth citing the climate summary from the Las Lagunas study (Lane et 

al. 2009: Table 5) as this offers a dated chronology for late Holocene palaeoenvironmental 

change from the interior of Hispaniola. Although Las Lagunas is 

an interior site at a much higher altitude than El Cabo, the high-resolution data 

can be used as a basis for considering human/climate interaction in sites such 

as El Cabo until more local data become available. 58 Citing only those periods 

relevant to the occupation of El Cabo: after mesic (wet) conditions from 300 BC 

to AD 430, Lane et al. record an arid phase from AD 430 to 1060 with a severe 

drought between AD 750-950. This is followed by increasingly mesic conditions 

between AD 1060-1250 which get wetter still up to AD 1600. 

As far as coastal environments are concerned, with reference to Haitian data, 

Keegan remarks that the drying trend led to sea level decline of two metres at the 

beginning of the Ostionoid era (ca. AD 500-750, Keegan 1995:97). This may 

have exposed narrow shelves and sand beaches. This drier period continued to 

AD 950, after which wetter conditions returned (Curtis 1992, Curtis and Hodell 

58 In future we may learn a lot more about the immediate local Holocene climate (i.e. the last 

10,000 yrs) from ongoing research by Lisa Kennedy and colleagues, Virginia Tech, who are 

reconstructing hurricane history over the past few to several thousand years, through the study 

of coastal lagoon sediments from Laguna Bavaro. 


83

1993, Hodell et al. 1991 cit., Keegan 1995, Lane et al. 2009). This means that 

the sea level may have been 50cm higher than present in the Late Ceramic Age 

(Keegan 1995). In terms of impact on El Cabo, this may have meant that at the 

time of first settlement (ca. AD 600), more beach areas may have potentially 

been exposed and thus have facilitated canoe travel. The abundance of Chicoid 

ceramic remains along the coast testifies that this was also the contemporary 

coastline. Perhaps even more significant than this is the possibility that in the 

first few centuries of settlement in El Cabo, sinkholes in the immediate vicinity 

of the site, which nowadays contain water too salty for human consumption 

(Johnson 2009), may have periodically been sources of sweet water in the past, 

particularly during the Ostionoid (3.7.3). 

The coastline itself has been relatively stable for the last 2000 years and the 

tidal range in the Caribbean is relatively low. Despite the erosive impact of highenergy 

storms on limestone bedrock, and visible fracturing and shearing-off of 

large chunks of the cliffs onto the beach and into the sea, the archaeological 

evidence from El Cabo demonstrates that this is not the case in the immediate 

vicinity of the site where archaeological features take account of the contemporary 

cliff edge, showing that the coastline here was much the same. Evidence for 

this will be discussed later on. 

3.5 Land use history 

In order to understand the multitude physical factors acting on the site of El 

Cabo throughout its history so as to better understand the taphonomical processes 

effecting the archaeological deposits, it is important to reconstruct the history 

of land use and historical trajectory of the area in the post-colonial period 

over the last 500 years. We can do this through a combination of census data, 

oral and material history. 

3.5.1 Material history 

There is evidence of absence of occupation for the 500 years between European 

contact and the contemporary village. A number of looter’s pits, cement house 

bases and the iron remains of the base of a loading bay for tropical hardwood are 

the only physical remains testifying to past activity between 16 th century abandonment 

and late 20th century re-occupation. What occupation there has been, 

has had little lasting impact on the landscape – no large-scale building projects, 

no intensive agriculture or industry. 

3.5.2 Census data and reconstructed history 

In official administrative terms, the village of El Cabo belongs to the district of 

San Rafael del Yuma, in the province of Altagracia. How long it has been recognized 

as an official place is difficult to determine. On a map published by the 

Instituto Cartográfico Universitario from 1975, the location of El Cabo is marked 

by a place dot labeled Cayuba (see map page in Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1976:10), 

although we have never heard anyone in the village refer to it by this name. 

Population density maps from throughout the 20 th century show the population 

of Altagracia province to be consistently one of the lowest in the Dominican 

Republic (

charcoal and practicing subsistence farming. 60 Sub-tropical mature forests would 

have been common in the area until 30 years ago (Maximo Peña and Belto Villa. 

pers. comms.) when there was still enough hardwood to support a logging industry. 

The loading bay on the coastal promontory of El Cabo, the remains of 

which are referred to above, was active until it was abandoned in the 1970s or 

80s (Belto Villa. pers. comm.). Logging was common in the east in the 19 th and 

early 20 th centuries. For example, there was a sawmill on Catalina Island built in 

1934 to cut mahogany (Swiettenia mahogoni), guajac (Guauacum sanctum), quiebracha 

(Krugiodendron ferrum) and other trees (Bolay 1997:207). 

The eastern region is now one of the fastest developing regional economies in 

the Dominican Republic due to tourist and private development of the coastal 

zone. This is something which over the last few decades has irrevocably changed 

the face of the area. Until present the boundaries of this development stop just 

short of El Cabo, which sits like an island in the middle. When the legal disputes 

over the land around El Cabo have been resolved, it too will disappear. 

3.5.3 Oral history 

The history we know of El Cabo village, now the last settlement at the end of 

the coastal road, is repeated in similar ways in various parts of the Dominican 

Republic and represents the encounter of Dominican rural village life in an era 

of globalization. 

When we came in 2005, there were about 30 house compounds and maybe 

a population of 70 permanent residents. There were two rival shops (colmados) 

run by the two main families in the village – the mayor, Lionel Avila’s family, 

and Margot Rosario and Belto Villa’s family. Over the years, these are the two 

families with whom we have had most contact, who we know best, and through 

whom we understand El Cabo. 

El Cabo has probably been settled for about 50 years (Johnson 2009:20, 54- 

55). Belto came there as a boy, when there were 60 or so families, and has lived 

there for 25 years. Manolo Acosta, another Dominican colleague, lived there for 

22 years, when he moved down from the cliffs. Margot also said that they used 

to live on top of the cliffs, and subsequently moved down into the village. She 

mentions that the heart of the village used to be nearer the cliffs, on the coast, 

but retreated due to fear of storms. Elpidio Ortega (1978a:83) mentions señor 

Amado Sanata, nacido y criado en el lugar (“born and raised in the area”). This all 

suggests that the village operated as a kind of magnet several decades ago, pulling 

people in from smaller farms and households in the area. Margot suggested 

this happened after a particularly bad hurricane, but there could have been any 

number of other reasons and local economic incentives. 

There used to be at least three churches, one of which was still active, and 

a small state primary school which is one of the only signs of official recognition, 

as well as its inclusion on topographical maps of the Instituto Cartográfico 

Militar. There is no running water or electricity, no metalled road and no regular 

motor transport or access to medical services. 

60 Bolay cites a typical example of this kind of economic activity of a peasant farmer in the 1980s 

selling charcoal he burned from a hectare of land on Club Med property next to Punta Cana. He 

sold this for $1 per bag to a middleman who sold it in Santo Domingo. Twenty percent of the 

charcoal income went to the landowner. Soldiers arrested the peasant, but not the landowner, 

who supplied the peasant with credit during his arrest. After two years of using the cleared 

land as a conuco, the soil was depleted and given back to the landowner to graze cattle. In this 

way landowners clear their land and do not get charged for deforestation of green trees (Bolay 

1997:139). 


85

In the four years we have worked in El Cabo, there have been huge changes. 

The inhabitants, cast as illegal squatters of disputed land, are gradually being 

bought out (if they are fortunate), or forced to leave as the coastal zones of the 

eastern region get eaten up and turned into private enclaves. Since 2005, we 

have noticed a dramatic decrease in population and reduction in activity in El 

Cabo. The mayor moved to Higüey because of ill health and the village school 

has closed. Only the most marginalized families still live there, and Belto and 

his family act as caretakers of the land for a local landowner who also houses 

his workers in the houses of former villagers. This was a process which was well 

underway by 2005, as it was clear from accounts and abandoned properties that 

the village used to be much bigger with more streets, gardens and businesses. 

Gradually houses were abandoned, children sent to live with other relatives, 

homes built elsewhere with some in the village maintained as weekend fishing 

lodges. The villagers do not own the land on which the site sits, but they do 

graze animals on it, build houses over it and the village school is reportedly in 

the area of a burial concentration and midden deposits over one metre deep. The 

road into the village cuts through these midden deposits, and children in the village 

regularly collect adornos from their family conucos. The part of the site we 

investigated is oriented more seawards of the present-day village and extends to 

its north (Fig. 10). 

3.5.4 Summary and discussion 

In summary then, material, official and oral history of the village indicates that 

the archaeological site of El Cabo has not undergone any significant changes or 

degradation since precolonial indigenous occupation. The lack of a significant 

material footprint related to the last 500 years, the low population density of the 

region in general, and the minimal impact of the current population mean that 

the site is in a very good state of preservation. This concurs with Olsen’s impact 

assessment of the site in which he deems the quality of the remains excellent and 

the state of preservation of the site moderate, based on presence of looter’s pits 

in the north of the site (2000). 

3.6 Regional setting: Pre-Columbian and colonial Higüey 

3.6.1 The archaeology of the eastern region, post-AD 600 

The Higüey region, or the eastern Dominican Republic, to which El Cabo belongs, 

is significant in narratives of becoming Taíno. It occupies an important 

place in the culture-historical narrative of the Greater Antilles and the epistemology 

of the evolution of native populations in the area. In the Late Ceramic 

Age the eastern region (the modern day province of Altagracia and parts of 

La Romana, i.e. the low-lying area east of the Seibo Sierra and the Chavon 

river) comprised a number of settlement sites with long occupations and very 

similar ceramic sequences (Hofman et al. 2007; Veloz Maggiolo 1972). This 

sequence has been recently summarized as an early Ostionoid (AD 600-900), 

a late Ostionoid (AD 900-1200) and finally a Chicoid phase (AD 1200-1500) 


(Hofman et al. 2007: Table 3). 61 The possibility of an even earlier, pre-Ostionoid 

ceramic phase from 300 BC is in need of further investigation. There is a marginal 

presence of Saladoid ceramics in the area, at for example La Caleta (Veloz 

Maggiolo 1973; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1996). 

On a larger scale, the eastern region is incorporated into the cultural-geographic 

region of the Mona Passage (Rouse 1992). This is a difficult stretch 

of water, 120km wide, connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Caribbean Sea 

and separating the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico. This strait has been 

conceived of at different times and by different scholars to have represented an 

impediment, conflict zone or a positive facilitator of relations for populations 

on either side of the water. As a cultural area in the Late Ceramic Age it encompasses 

the western half of Puerto Rico, and the whole of the eastern part of the 

Dominican Republic up to Santo Domingo. The Mona Passage area was first 

identified as a major cultural sphere by Rouse, who noted that the boundaries 

between ceramic styles occur within islands, rather than between islands (Rouse 

1951, 1982, 1992). This suggests connections across bodies of water and closer 

cultural ties between peoples on either side of a passage than within the same 

island. 

From around AD 600 until colonial times the Mona Passage was an area of 

proposed cultural convergence and cross-fertilization, important in the development 

of the Chicoid ceramic series and the rise of political hierarchies, ceremonial 

complexity and social inequality. Ostionoid ceramics appeared almost 

simultaneously (in an archaeological sense) in the Mona Passage area and the rest 

of the Greater Antilles and Bahamas from the 6 th or 7 th century (Curet 2005). 

This was just one element in a suite of material culture changes attributed to demographic 

growth and migration (Curet 2005). At this time, the Mona Passage 

was conceived of as a reception area for migrating groups, and at the forefront 

of cultural innovation. By the terminal phase from AD 1200, it is generally seen 

as the heartland of the “Classic Taíno” (sensu Rouse 1992). Some of the oftcited 

material culture traits are Chicoid ceramics, large settlements, agricultural 

efficiency, stone-lined plazas, exotic and highly crafted items such as elaborate 

stone three-pointers and stone collars, cemí statuary and paraphernalia related 

to the cohoba ritual. The Mona Passage is seen as the source of appropriation, 

emulation and the focus of what some see as prestige relationships between elite 

networks in many other parts of the Greater Antilles (Oliver 2009). 

El Cabo thus belongs to the heartland of what are seen as the most complex 

societies in the Caribbean before European contact. The developmental trajectory 

of the well known historical end product, the “Taíno”, however, is much 

debated and based almost exclusively on text and pottery. 

Rouse saw this trajectory from primitive to civilized as a rather seamless progression 

from Saladoid to Ostionoid in Puerto Rico, followed by migration and 

displacement of Archaic peoples in the rest of the Greater Antilles via the Mona 

Passage, and subsequent development of the Taíno in this same area (1992). 

Other models, however, give far more agency to the already existent Archaic 

61 Veloz Maggiolo’s (et al. 1973) general use of the terms Ostionoid, Mellacoid and Chicoid are 

preferred over the more complex nomenclature of Rouse (1992) who uses a combination of series 

and sub-series names to describe ceramics. Veloz Maggiolo’s terminology has the advantage of 

being more locally specific to Hispaniola and moreover he disputes the Linnaean genealogy of 

ceramic styles as presented by Rouse. Veloz Maggiolo’s use of multiple regional names for very 

local and transitional styles will be avoided however, and the simplified chronology for the 

eastern Dominican Republic (Hofman et al. 2007) referred to instead. However, it is recognized, 

as stated by Veloz Maggiolo, that local diversity is a hallmark of ceramics in the eastern region 

(Veloz Maggiolo 1977). 


87

populations and to diverse, new, migrations of non Puerto-Rican origin. An example 

of this is the cultural hybridization hypothesis of Chanlatte Baik (2003) 

who credits the Ostionoid series to Archaic acculturation with pottery-producing 

Saladoid farmers in Puerto Rico. These new Ostionoid groups subsequently 

migrated out of Puerto Rico and in turn acculturated Archaic populations in 

other islands. Veloz Maggiolo points to centuries of migration, hybridization 

and population growth occurring before the proposed Ostionoid expansion from 

Puerto Rico, processes well underway by the 5 th century AD (Curet 2005; Veloz 

Maggiolo et al. 1991; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1996). The presence of pottery 

production several centuries BC in the eastern Dominican Republic (El Barrio, 

El Caimito, Musiépedro) is seen as evidence of island ethnogenesis and multiple 

separate migrations from the South American mainland (Veloz Maggiolo 1976; 

Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1974, 1991; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1996). 

Others (Curet 2005; Keegan 2000:150; Keegan and Rodríguez Ramos 2007) 

propose variations on these complex histories, incorporating diffusion, migration 

and hybridization. These scenarios take the agency away from the Saladoid 

horticulturalists as culture bringers, and see the Chicoid as a mix of mainland, 

endemic and Ostionoid traditions (see also Rodríguez Ramos et al. 2008). The 

models become more complex over time to emphasize a multiplicity of actors 

and origins. What they have in common is a consensus that there was a 

change which occurred sometime around AD 600 which led to the adoption 

of Ostionoid ceramics and the development of monumental architecture, especially 

in Puerto Rico. The development of the Chicoid occurred in southeast 

Dominican Republic, between AD 800-1000 (with the earliest occurrence in 

Juandolio around AD 825; Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1973). By AD 1200, Chicoidrelated 

ceramic and lithic artefacts are spread over the Mona Passage area and 

much of the rest of the Greater Antilles, evolving into diverse regional forms 

(Oliver 2009; McGinnis 1997; Veloz Maggiolo 1993; Wilson 2007:139-146). 

The only one who attempts to explain these developments in terms of local 

conditions and contingencies is Veloz Maggiolo. His picture of the historical 

diversity of Tainan origins is united round the hypothesis, specific to the karst 

zones of the eastern region and western Puerto Rico, that complexity was the 

result of an adaptive response to the local ecology (Veloz Maggiolo 1992). This 

complexity is seen as ceremonial and religious in nature. His model is based on 

interpretations of native ecology and organization of labour. Distinct from the 

intensive mound cultivation of cassava, which is a tropical lowland tradition, undomesticated 

zamia was exploited in the eastern region. Zamia did not require 

intensive farming methods, not even slash-and-burn, but was collected directly 

from the wild. This significantly reduced labour costs. Moreover, its processing 

produced a staple rich in both carbohydrates and proteins. Veloz Maggiolo sees 

this as a more efficient exploitation of the environment which, combined with 

centuries of migrations, gave cultures in the eastern region an adaptive advantage, 

promoted demographic growth and the opportunity to develop sophisticated 

ceremonial and religious structures (Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1976; Veloz 

Maggiolo 1992; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1986). Karst environments are not 

limited to the Mona Passage however, and there is growing evidence that Zamia 

was exploited across a wider area of the Greater Antilles than just Higüey in 

precolonial times (Pagán Jiménez and Oliver 2008; Rodríguez Suárez and Pagán 

Jiménez 2008). Nevertheless, this is one of the only attempts at a more situated, 

Antillean and social perspective on regional complexity. 


Sites in Higüey are therefore of significance in hypotheses of the evolution 

of the historic Taíno. They are also illustrative of how these debates have until 

recently occurred on the population level, on the basis of ceramic traits, or outside 

the settlement. By relying on this kind of data, the trajectory which leads 

to the complex stratification of the historical period is seen as inevitable but 

poorly understood in terms of its social processes. What is happening at the 

level of the individual settlement, household or local settlement group, and how 

these contributes to the bigger picture, is unknown. Curet’s work on precolonial 

demography deconstructed the idea that the social processes of episodes of 

significant culture change in the Caribbean can be understood simply in terms 

of macro-processes such as migration, and with recourse to ceramic sequences 

(Curet 2005). He sees similar changes in Puerto Rico as a result of multiple 

processes involving actors and contexts at smaller scales. In the next section the 

settlement pattern in Higüey will be examined in more detail to give context to 

the intra-site analysis in the following chapter. 

3.6.2 Settlement patterns 

Over 180 Ceramic Age sites, ranging from intensively excavated settlements to 

GPS points marking a few surface sherds have been identified in the Higüey 

region (Fig. 18). The distribution gives both an impression of Ceramic Age site 

density and location, and research intensity in the eastern region. An in-depth 

discussion of the dynamics and demographics of this distribution are beyond the 

scope of this chapter. The discussion here serves to place El Cabo in a diachronic 

regional setting within a network of local sites. 

The denomination “settlement”, marked by large white dots, is based on 

published interpretations or the reported presence of midden mounds. Clusters 

of points such as in the Punta Macao, Boca de Chavon and Cap Cana beach 

areas may not represent discrete sites, but the extension of large settlements, 

or settlement-related activity halos. This is probably the case with the Punta 

Macao site, which covers 1km². 62 Caves either denote sites of rock art, human 

or other cultural remains, and plaza sites are precisely that; sites with reported, 

usually stone-lined plazas. One site in particular should be treated with caution, 

the plaza at Punta Espada, at the southeast tip of the island, below El Cabo. 

A plaza was reported in this location in the 1950’s by the then director of the 

Museo del Hombre Dominicano, Emile de Boyrie Moya, well acquainted with 

Dominican plazas, having conducted an island wide survey. This site has been 

referred to in publications (Mañón Arredondo et al. 1971:91; Ortega 2005; 

Veloz Maggiolo 1972), but subsequent visits by ourselves, Ortega (2005:147) 

and Johnson (2009) failed to relocate the plaza, although Chicoid ceramics were 

found in the area. 63 The plaza is left on this map, although its existence should 

be treated with a caveat. 

62 Although it is difficult to conclude anything regarding the archaeology of Punta Macao. This 

is a multi-component site spanning a thousand years which has since become a golf course and 

remains largely unpublished (Andújar Persinal et al. 2004:171; Prieto Vicioso 2008:145; Ortega 

1978a; Ulloa Hung 2008; Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1972; unpublished reports: Olsen 2004a; 

Tavarez Maria and Calderón 2007). 

63 Despite the fact that the Mona Passage plazas are more like the stone-delimited ones of Puerto 

Rico, generally plazas in Hispaniola are delimited by earthern banks (e.g. Chacuey, En Bas 

Saline, corral de Las Cabuyas). If the purported plaza at Punta Espada consisted of raised earth 

banks, it may well be that hurricane damage inflicted in the intervening 50 years between de 

Boyrie Moya’s and later visits, such as that from hurricane Georges which passed over El Cabo in 

1998, razed the evidence. 


89

Figure 18. Archaeological 

sites in the eastern Dominican 

Republic. Legend: Large white 

 

triangles: cave sites; squares: 

plazas; small dots: sites rang- 

 

multi-component sites; white 

star: El Cabo. 

Previous research singles out the eastern coastal plains as the most intensively 

investigated and most densely populated zone in the Dominican Republic 

with a regular spacing of sites along the entire coastal plain (Arredondo et al. 

1971:106). And indeed, the first impression is one of overwhelming coastal settlement. 

This picture bears out the observation by the Bullens that “In every place 

where we found a beach, even a very small one, we found evidence of a presence in 

the past of Amerindians” (Bullen and Bullen 1973:317). This is not just limited 

to the sandy beaches, however, which are scarce in the eastern region, but is also 

the case along the more common raised and rocky shoreline. 

Hardly any sites have been identified in the interior except along river courses. 

Dry access points from the coast, i.e. pathways through the cliffs to the higher 

plateaus, also have sites along them. The Seibo Sierra northwest of Higüey 

seems to form a barrier, and few sites have been identified here apart from cave 

sites with rock art (Pagán Perdomo 1976). 

That this picture is a bias of research intensity, due to builder development 

along the coast and the high visibility of coastal sites (generally more exposed 

than those inland) cannot be ignored, but surveys which explicitly looked for 

sites in the interior also note the predominance of the coastal settlement pattern. 

The Bullens for example expressly searched the sugarcane field of Higüey, 

without result. Olsen’s research on top of the inland coastal plateaus didn’t locate 

any significant sites here either (Olsen 2001a). However, subsequent surveys by 

Leiden University did locate a couple of sites, including a potentially significant 


settlement (El Bartolo) on top of the cliffs, again related to an access point from 

the coast (Johnson 2009:79). It is significant that these inland sites are either 

related to river courses, and if not, are along access points from the coast. 

This seems to be at odds with Las Casas’ description suggesting that the 

higher regions were more densely populated than the coastal regions in Higüey 

(“en medio de estos montes hacian los indios sus pueblos…” Las Casas 1875:259, 

Ch.3:299). Although it is precisely these higher areas in the Seibo Sierra which 

have not been intensively researched. One of the most detailed descriptions of a 

town is of one such inland settlement in the hills of the Higüey area. Las Casas 

describes four broad streets, 50 paces wide and a crossbow’s shot long (i.e. several 

hundred metres) cut through the trees in the form of a cross. According to Las 

Casas, these streets were used for staging battles, and the town itself sat at the 

intersection, in the middle (Las Casas 1992: Ch. 3:299). 

The coastal settlements are relatively regularly spaced along the coast, 10- 

15km apart and interspersed with smaller sites (Fig. 18). Moreover, one can pinpoint 

hubs where settlements occur together with diverse site types such as caves 

and plazas. This is the case around Punta Macao, Punta Cana-El Cabo, Boca de 

Yuma, south Parque Nacional del Este/Saona, the Bayahibe and Boca de Chavón 

areas. The same is true further west along the south coast from La Romana to 

San Pedro de Macorís and Santo Domingo (not on the map). 

It is difficult to gain a reliable picture of the demographic dynamics through 

time represented by the site distribution. This is due to the over-representation 

of Chicoid ceramics with their tell-tale incised decoration, and probable underrepresentation 

of earlier ceramics, which bear fewer diagnostic traits. Moreover, 

many sites were identified on the basis of surface remains and thus earlier buried 

deposits would not have been observed. There is, however, enough chronological 

information to make a broad distinction between Ostionoid and Chicoid for ca. 

55 sites (Fig. 19). Moreover, early colonial material has been recovered from at 

least four or five sites. For some of these, including El Cabo, this can be seen as 

evidence for continued indigenous occupation during colonial times. 

As mentioned in the previous section, long occupations and similar ceramic 

sequences can be seen in sites across the Higüey region. Almost all sites with 

an earlier occupation (n=14) were also inhabited or used in the later period. 64 

If we look specifically at settlement sites, we see that settlement histories reveal 

continuity with successive ceramic populations occupying the same areas. This 

indicates continuity in settlement location. Care should be taken in attributing 

this to continuity of settlement population, however, and the relationship between 

earlier and later stratigraphic sequences must be established on a site-tosite 

basis. Too little is known about the majority of sites to conclude anything 

about settlement dynamics in terms of occupation phases. Nevertheless, two 

sites indicate differences between early and late occupations either in terms of 

intra-site settlement location or spatial organisation (Atajadizo, and El Cabo). 

This suggests a break or significant realignment and reorientation of settlement 

practices between the early and late phases. What Hofman et al. (2007) refer 

to as Late Ostionoid ceramics, are referred to locally under a multitude of siteand 

phase-specific names, each interpreted as different transitional types between 

Ostionoid and Chicoid, and representing diverse ancestries (Hofman et 

al. 2007; Veloz Maggiolo et al.1973). Combined Ostionoid and Chicoid traits 

are considered common at sites in the eastern Dominican Republic from around 

AD 800 to 900 (Hofman et al. 2007; Ortega et al. 2003). The nature and dating 

64 Sites for which this is not the case have generally not been intensively researched. 


91

Figure 19. Diachronic distribution 

of sites. Legend: Black 

stars: Ostionoid; white stars: 

Chicoid; black-and-white 

stars: Ostionoid and Chicoid. 

of this transition however needs further investigation, and given the multiple 

hypotheses about the origins of Chicoid this would be an important line of inquiry 

on a site level. 65 

The majority of the new sites, i.e. those which only appeared in the late 

period, seem to be cave sites. Some new settlement sites also appear, however. 

This all gives the impression of diversification of landscape use, with many more 

places being frequented than in the previous phase, and possible population 

increase. 66 The preference for coastal locations will be discussed later with reference 

to the location choice of El Cabo. This may have to do with a multiplicity 

of factors including exploitation of marine resources and strategic positioning 

for communication. 

65 Chicoid ceramics in El Cabo are associated with house structures which based on a relative 

chronology presented in Chapter 6, begin as early as the 9 th century AD, i.e. earlier than AD 

1200 suggested by Hofman et al. 2007 for the El Cabo Chicoid. 

66 This observation is significant with respect to the demographic trends for Puerto Rico, in which 

Curet notes a population decline in AD 1200-1500 in four study regions, including site abandonment 

(Curet 2005). One of his proposed explanations for this is migration to Hispaniola. 


Figure 20. 14C dates from: 

(1) El Cabo; (2) Sitio de 

Pepe; (3) El Barrio; (4) 

Punta Macao; (5) Iglesia de 

Macao; (6) Atajadizo; (7) La 

Aleta. (CALIB Radiocarbon 

Calibration Program, Stuiver 

and Reimer 1986-2005). 

A closer look at the dated settlements reveals the long duration of these sites 

and the chronological span of Ceramic Age settlement in the eastern region in 

general. Forty-four dates, predominantly from settlement contexts, including 

the dates from El Cabo, have been plotted in Fig. 20. 67 

The earliest securely dated contexts with Ostionoid ceramics in the eastern 

Dominican Republic come from El Cabo, beginning in the late-6 th to mid-7 th 

century. At the other end of the scale, El Cabo also shows the latest dates for a 

Chicoid context in the region. These early-15 th century dates are more or less 

contemporaneous with the dates from waterlogged wood from the Manantial 

de la Aleta (Beeker et al. 2002; Conrad et al. 2008). It is noteworthy that no 

indigenous sites reveal 16 th century dates given the presence of European material, 

such as olive jar fragments, in El Cabo, Atajadizo, Playa de Bavaro and 

Chavón sites, and probably Punta Macao. 68 Regarding the lack of indigenous 

colonial-dated contexts, a radiocarbon date from the Mona Passage area comes 

from charcoal and bone deposits from the site of Cueva Negra, on Isla Mona 

which had a calibrated range between AD 1480 and 1655 (Frank 1998). The 

mixed sample however is far from ideal. 

67 The shell samples have been corrected for the marine reservoir effect (which otherwise give 

dates several centuries younger). Other samples were from charcoal, human bone and shells. 

Unfortunately, insufficient context is known from many of these samples to be able to conduct 

too much detailed analysis (mixed bulk samples taken from arbitrary layers, original laboratory 

dates sometimes not published). Discussion is limited to Ceramic Age sites (i.e. not Cueva de 

Berna and Musiépedro) and excludes the broad ranges for Barrio. 

68 Assumed to be the Macao mentioned by Las Casas, although no colonial material has been 

reported from the excavations. However, the excavation history of this site is far from ideal. 


93


The eastern region is traditionally seen as an area of ethnogenesis and a reception 

zone, channelling pre-Arawakan and Arawakan influences into Hispaniola from 

northeastern South America via Puerto Rico and directly from various mainland 

destinations. The early start of the Ostionoid sequence in this area in the 

late-6 th century, the plethora of local variations in ceramic styles attested in the 

literature, and the coastal distribution of sites do not dispute this. Many settlement 

sites experienced century’s long occupation which resulted in varied use of 

especially the coastal landscape and the development of local coastal networks. 

Broad ceramic sequences, despite stylistic diversity, are shared throughout the 

area across many sites (Hofman et al. 2006, 2007, 2008; Ortega 1978a; Ortega 

et al. 2003; Ulloa Hung 2008; Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1973, 1976). 

All in all, and especially in the late phase, the site patterns suggest networks 

of local settlements, linked to isolated dwellings, fishing spots and gardens, with 

the inhabitants using local caves for a variety of purposes. Human remains were 

deposited at various sites throughout the landscape, including both settlements 

and caves. The relationship between the settlements and plaza sites is not clear. 

Some sites such as La Aleta and Atajadizo have large and multiple plazas in (possibly) 

settlement contexts, and other settlements have no identified plaza at all. 

Whether we should see these as regional centres of aggregation, serving multiple 

communities, needs more research. The possible although problematic location 

of a plaza at Punta Espada, with access only possible from the settlement of El 

Cabo is particularly intriguing in this respect. 

Some of these coastal settlements connect to other sites inland along access 

points up rivers and from the coast through the cliffs. The Bullens (1973) also 

noted this pattern, inferring a coastal-inland economy with an exchange of farm 

products for marine produce at shore villages, transported upriver by dug-out. 

They also note the clustering of sites in distinct ecological zones: small sites 

at every sand beach along the predominantly rocky coastline, sites on the first 

inland terrace where good agricultural soils start and inland sites along river 

banks and at elevation. In contrast, they note an absence of sites in inland areas 

away from rivers (i.e. they were unable to locate sites in sugar cane and grazing 

lands). 

More work is needed to refine this picture and shed light on the local dynamics. 

This has recently started with ceramic and clay provenance studies, one of 

the results of which suggest ceramics (or clay) from Punta Macao were widely 

represented at other sites in the area, such as El Cabo, and sites in the Parque 

Nacional del Este (van As et al. 2008, Conrad et al. 2008). 

As mentioned, several sites in the area witnessed colonial presence. Contact 

and colonial Higüey is discussed in the next section. 

3.6.4 Higüey: The last cacicazgo and the pacification of the east 

Higüey or Caizcimú (“nose” or “beginning”) is one of the several cultural-geographical 

entities of Hispaniola named in the historic documents. This cacicazgo 

covered the entire eastern portion of the Dominican Republic, the western 

boundaries being along the line of Santo Domingo to Los Haitises and the 

Bay of Samaná in the north (Vega 1980). The map of the cartographer Morales 

(1508; in Vega 1980) includes Higüey as a province within Caizcimú, whereas 

Las Casas (1992, Ch 3:298) sees Higüey as a separate kingdom, of which 


Macao was also part. 69 That Higüey was populated by ethnically diverse people 

at the time of contact is indicated by references to “Ciguayos” in the Samaná 

area, distinct from other groups (Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1980). The local 

political elite significant in Spanish accounts were Higuanamá (a powerful 

queen), Cotubanamá (a significant señor and warrior from the Parque Nacional 

del Este region), Cayacoa, Inés de Cayacoa (wife and successor of the former), 

Agüeybana of Saona, and Andrés of Higüey (Anderson-Córdova 1990; Las Casas 

1875: Bk 5:356; Bk 3:263; Oliver 2009:191; Tavarez María 1996; Vega 1980). 

Discrepancies and confusion about the relationship between both the place 

names (what was a region of what?) and historical personages (who was subordinate 

to whom?) indicates not only the selective encounters and fragmentary 

comprehensions of the Spanish colonists, but also the fact that the eastern region 

was probably not a unified cacicazgo, but a historically contingent region with 

shifting networks of peers. The protean geography and list of historical characters 

reflects the 18 or so years of changes which took place in the region during 

the time the various chroniclers were present. The ambiguity in the accounts may 

also be due to the fact that whereas some caciques (Cotubanamá) may have risen 

to prominence in times of conflict, others (Higuanamá) may have held more stable 

positions. The region may therefore have been transformed as a military confederation 

(as Oliver 2009 terms it) only in colonial times, whereas previously 

it may have been a regional community based on a different set of relationships, 

such as local networks of reciprocity as suggested by the settlement patterns and 

regional ceramic distributions in the last section. This historical area will henceforth 

be referred to as Higüey to discriminate between the westerly half of the 

cacicazgo (comprising the modern-day provinces of La Romana, El Seibo, Hato 

Mayor, San Pedro de Macoris, Santo Domingo D.N., and Monte Plata), from 

the eastern coastal zone (present day Altagracia including Isla Saona) which is 

the subject of this dissertation. 

That Caizcimú was seen as the beginning of the island is recorded by Martir 

de Angleria who states that Hispaniola was conceived of as a “monstrous living 

beast of the female sex”, of which Caizcimú was the head (Harris cit., Keegan et al. 

1998). In Harris’ analysis of Angleria and the 16 th century political geography of 

the island, Hispaniola was divided into eight pairs of cacicazgos with topographical 

features representing the eyes, mouth, forelegs, hind legs, and vagina (Keegan 

et al. 1998: Fig. 9.3). The eyes were two caves in the eastern region. 

The “taming of the east” (Olsen Bogaert et al. 2007) occurred relatively late. 

There was a period of more than ten years in which the people of Higüey, although 

well aware of the traumas and exploitation in other parts of Hispaniola, 

was mercifully free of direct colonial intervention. Until 1502 there were only 

300 Spanish in Hispaniola, and they were limited to the north, central and 

western parts and Santo Domingo (Anderson-Córdova 1990). It was in these 

parts, gold rich areas, that the Spanish policies of repartimiento and reducción 

forcibly removed the indigenous communities to Spanish towns and placed native 

people under the ownership of individuals (Anderson-Córdova 1990; Moya 

Pons 1992). Higüey was not of interest because it was without gold. The physical 

ill treatment, starvation and demise of the native population to the northwest 

probably ensured that the dominant response in the east was “horror and disgust 

at European civilization” (Lévi-Strauss 1955/73:74). 

69 Although there are also discrepancies between Las Casas’ works in this respect. 


95

However, under Ovando’s governorship from 1502, Spanish numbers and 

their labour demands increased. The newly established town of Santo Domingo 

relied on a supply of bread from Isla Saona, the trade in which persisted until in 

1503 an infamous incident sparked the first war of Higüey, recounted in detail 

by Las Casas. A Spanish mastiff, probably after deliberate incitement, attacked 

and killed an indigenous cacique. Spanish soldiers were killed in return whereupon 

Ovando sent hundreds of troops to wage war, resulting in the death of many 

hundreds of native people (Anderson-Córdova 1990; Churampi Ramírez 2007; 

Las Casas 1875; Oliver 2009). The heads of local villages eventually brokered for 

peace and accepted to serve the Spanish, continuing to supply them with bread, 

and building a fort for them in the area (Oliver 2009:196-197). 

It was unrelenting ill-treatment which in the end broke the Higüey cacicazgo. 

Following the truce, the colonial abuses wrought on the local people bred resistance 

which culminated in the second war of Higüey in 1504. The indigenous 

people of Higüey had been witness to the course of Spanish-native relations in 

other parts of Hispaniola. They had seen how strategies of flight, acquiescence 

and compartmentalization ultimately did not work (Anderson-Córdova 1990). 

In Higüey, in contrast, the opposition was impressive and attacks and counterattacks 

lasted ten months (Churampi Ramírez 2007). The new war again led to 

severe loss of native life and the execution of among others, Cotubanamá. This 

second war marked the definitive end of the cacicazgo of Higüey. Afterwards the 

remaining population was divided among encomenderos and two Spanish settlements, 

Salvaleón and Sancta Cruz de Aicayagua. 

One final incident in the colonial history of the region was a plan by local 

caciques to destroy the fort town of Salvaleón (Boca de Yuma), spurred on 

by resistance to the Spanish in Puerto Rico in 1510/1511. This was meant as 

part of a wider coordinated attack on colonial interests in Hispaniola but was 

quashed (Oliver 2009:214). Anderson-Córdova (1990:286) estimates that there 

were only 2000 native people in Hispaniola by 1529 (not including those people 

imported from other islands to swell a dying work force) out of an original 

population which she estimates to have been between 250,000 to 500,000 

(1990:156). 70 

El Cabo would have been witness to these traumatic events, possibly sheltering 

those who fled Isla Saona and their villages in the Parque del Este during the 

first war in 1503, and contributing warriors to resist the Spanish. The community 

would have been only too aware of the incidents and plight of the neighbouring 

communities, as well as the rest of the island, and keen to avoid disruption 

on the scale seen elsewhere. The senior members of the El Cabo households 

probably took the decision to assist Higuanamá and Cotubanamá by sending inhabitants 

to resist the Spanish in 1503 and 1504 in the periods of warfare which 

lasted over a year. In the short-lived truce period, they may also have provided 

labour and produce to try and mitigate the impact of the Spanish demands on 

the networks of communities as a whole. In the end, after the defeat of the second 

war and the round-up of the rest of the Higüey population, El Cabo may 

have been abandoned. This sad history would have been typical of the way native 

communities were exterminated by attrition, in which reserves, morale and 

population were worn down and extirpated by two years of direct conflict and 

the pressure of demora labour demands (Anderson-Córdova 1990:281). 

70 Estimates for the contact period indigenous population based on colonial sources range from 

60,000 at the lower end, to 8 million at the upper end (Verlinden 1973 and Cook and Borah 

1971, cit. Anderson Córdova 1990:196). 


The material evidence for the native response in El Cabo to the Spanish presence 

will be discussed further in Chapter 6. 

3.7 El Cabo archaeological research history 

“You don’t want to dig there, it’s already been done.” 

Frequently heard assessment of our endeavours from locals during the 

 

El Cabo has not been an isolated focus in previous research. Rather, it has always 

been incorporated in larger research areas and characterized as one of the 

numerous coastal sites which occur along the coast at regular intervals between 

Cabo Engaño and Santo Domingo. A more or less continuous coastal transect 

over 30km long (and of varying widths) from south of Cabo San Rafael to Punta 

Cana has been more intensively investigated by survey in recent years. This land 

is in private hands and subject to beach urbanization and mineral extraction. 

Although these surveys have been only rather superficial and largely limited to 

the coast, the results allow one to tie El Cabo into the material history of the 

immediate area and provide site characteristics for comparison. 

Certainly El Cabo has long been recognized as a site by looters, collectors and 

local buscadores. Less institutional, but very thorough artefact retrieval has been 

carried out over the years concentrating in the northwest of the site. Those commissioning 

collection from the site include Dr. Estrella, who has artefacts probably 

from El Cabo in his private collection, and also possibly Samuel Pión whose 

collection from the east of the Dominican Republic now fills the Museum of 

Altos de Chavón. 71 Harold Olsen also reports looting by foreign tourists (Olsen 

2001a). In the years we worked on the site, we met Hector Nuñez (as mentioned 

in Chapter 2) who regularly digs the zone with a team of friends and sells artefacts. 

We mapped some 25 pits in the site of El Cabo ranging from 3 to 18m² 

which had been dug to remove artefacts, some reportedly associated with burials. 

Spoil heaps still surround these pits. 

The site attracted the official attention of the Museo del Hombre in the late 

1970s. Two test-pits were dug by Museum researcher Elpidio Ortega under the 

direction of the former director of the Museo del Hombre, Bernardo Vega, and 

with the local field workers from El Cabo village, including the then future mayor 

of El Cabo Lionel Avila 72 (Olsen 2004; Ortega 1978a, 2005). This test-pitting 

was part of a series of investigations carried out by the Museum in sites along the 

east coast (Ortega 1978a). Over twenty years later, El Cabo was again identified 

in surveys (Project Carmelo and Project Juanillo) carried out by Harold Olsen 

Bogaert of the Museo del Hombre. These investigations and their results are discussed 

below, as well as the latest investigation of the immediate area of the site 

by Erlend Johnson, then MA student of Leiden University. 

71 This collection consists of 3000 unprovenanced objects, said mostly to come from the Río 

Chavón area (see Bluhdorn and Kaplan eds., 1992; Mañón Arredondo et al. 1971). 

72 Pictured at a sieve in Ortega 1978a. Lionel was the mayor of El Cabo throughout our fieldwork 

2005-2008. 


97

Figure 21. Sketch of the location 

of the site of El Cabo in 

relation to Amado Santana’s 

former property and the 

Museo del Hombre’s testpits 

(copied from Ortega 

1978a; reproduced in Ortega 

2005:118). 

3.7.1 El Cabo in 1978 

Ortega described El Cabo as an extensive midden with a modern house on top 

(Ortega 1978a, 2005). The location of this house, now gone, is probably the 

looted northwest part of the site, now a coconut grove where donkeys are tethered 

(Fig. 21). 

Two test-pits were excavated, the exact locations of which are rather difficult 

to determine from Ortega’s sketch. 73 The first, pozo no. 1 (1×1.25m), was probably 

excavated more or less on the line of a present day fence in the shallow, later 

occupation area of the site. Ortega encountered only 20cm of dark, humic, sandy 

soil before hitting bedrock. Ceramics, including adornos, were Chicoid-decorated, 

with incised and punctuated designs. Faunal remains included Cittarium 

pica, landsnails (Polydontes spp.), limpets (Fisurella spp.) and fish bones. 

The second test-pit, pozo no. 2 (1.2×1.2m), was probably in the vicinity of 

our 1×1m unit 85-44-00 (Fig. 27). 74 Five arbitrary levels of 20cm were excavated. 

A calcareous layer, interpreted as a house-floor was encountered at 15cm bsl. 

Below this, to a depth of 69cm bsl, was a layer of dark sandy soil with ceramic 

and faunal remains. At 80cm bsl large stones were encountered which covered 

the bottom, and the last 10cm was yellow sand with scant ceramic remains. 

Ortega notes that the top 60cm contained incised-punctated Chicoid sherds, 

and a stone bead. A section of a stone collar was encountered at 60cm bsl. This 

led Ortega to speculate about the presence of a ceremonial plaza (ibid. 2005). In 

the last levels ceramics are red and burnished with appliquéd zoomorphic deco- 

73 He notes for example that the Cabo San Rafael headland is 2km away from the properties 

depicted as viviendas de Amado Santana, when in fact it is more like 5km. 

74 The location of this unit early in 2005 was chosen to compare to the Museo’s findings in Ortega’s 

report. 


ation, i.e. Ostionoid. Faunal remains again included Cittarium pica, landsnails 

(Polydontes spp.), Chiton spp., limpets (Fisurella spp.), bivalves (Codakia spp.), 

and fish bones. 75 

All this led Ortega to conclude that two different occupations were present 

at the site: the first characterized as transitional, and representing either late 

Ostionoid or early Chicoid. A second, later occupation is that of the Chicoid. 

Ortega speculates that this was a minor cacical village under the dominance of 

Higüey (ibid. 2005:115). 

3.7.2 El Cabo in 2000 

Nearly 25 years later, in 2000-2002, mineral extraction and private development 

in the El Cabo region gave the Museum the opportunity to conduct 

semi-systematic walkover surveys with GPS. This work was part of the Carmelo 

and Juanillo projects, and was carried out by Harold Olsen Bogaert (Fig. 22). 

Olsen’s predictive modelling based on bibliographic, cartographic and photographic 

sources was very successful; archaeological remains were encountered 

in over 20% of predicted locations in the Juanillo project and almost 50% in 

the Carmelo project. 76 It is thanks to his detailed maps and descriptions that so 

much is known about this section of the Cabo coastline. Olsen’s inventorying 

surveys, later supplemented by Erlend Johnson’s survey (Johnson 2009) provide 

Figure 22. Areas surveyed in 

previous projects. Johnson’s 

survey in 2008 covered the 

same area as Project Carmelo 

1 as far as Cabo San Rafael. 

Legend: star: El Cabo site. 

75 As a note on Ortega’s observations, it is more likely that the calcareous level encountered in 

pozo no. 2, rather than representing a house-floor, is a layer of beachrock, or lithified beach 

sediment, i.e. a natural layer rather than one anthropogenic in origin. Similarly, the large stones 

found at the bottom of the test-pit, on top of a near sterile layer of yellow sand, form another, 

naturally occurring, geological layer. Although the stratigraphy and depth of the deposits described 

roughly correspond to what we also encountered in 85-44-00 and the adjacent 2×2m² 

unit (85-34-97), the neat distinction between the upper 60cm of Chicoid material and the lower 

40cm of Ostionoid ceramics does not correspond to the somewhat more mixed assemblages and 

the intersecting of features and archaeological layers we found. 

76 This goes some way to countering remarks made by those engaged in informal digging at archaeological 

sites about how archaeologists do not have an understanding of where archaeological 

sites are (Hector Nuñez, pers. comm. 2007). 


99

Figure 23. Site record of 

El Cabo from the Proyecto 

Carmelo prospection report 

(Olsen 2000). 

a very good documentation of surface archaeological deposits and other sites 

from which to gain an impression of the demography, dynamism and gamut of 

exploitation of the area. Sites comprising single sherd drops, settlement sites, 

fishing spots, gardens, burials, caves, rock art, and flooded sinkholes and caverns 

attest to a wide-ranging indigenous presence throughout the Late Ceramic Age. 

3.7.2.1 Project Carmelo 

The 2000 Project Carmelo survey (project name: Proyecto de Explotación Minera 

Carmelo) 77 covered a coastal transect between the sea and the cliffs and extended 

from the end of the Cap Cana property southwards to several kilometres round 

the Cabo San Rafael headland. The survey went up into the cliffs at a point 

behind El Cabo called Jarda Los Tolentinos, one of the only access points inland 

from the coast (Project Carmelo 1; Fig. 22). The focus of the survey was 

on previously documented sites and areas of potential interest (water sources, 

etc.) identified from aerial photos and topographic maps. Sites were identified 

from surface remains and 50×50cm shovel tests were made to check stratigraphy 

and depth of deposits when surface remains were not present where predicted. 

Fifteen locations tested positive for archaeological remains. 

One of these was the site of El Cabo, already published by Ortega (1978a). 

Olsen recorded El Cabo as location no. 9, archaeological site no. 5: El Cabo 

(Fig. 23). 

Twenty-two years after Ortega’s visit, El Cabo was described in much the 

same terms: as an area of raised midden deposits along the edges of a road, next 

to the sea at 7m above sea level. The site showed abundant fragments of griddles, 

Chicoid pottery (food vessels) and marine shells. Local people reported 

the presence of human bone material close to the school. Olsen did not make 

any shovel tests, but concludes from the high density of surface deposits and 

anecdotes describing human remains, that this was a village settlement in which 

Taíno groups practised horticulture and exploited the marine and land-based 

resources in the area. 

In 2001 the survey area was extended to include an area on top of the cliffs 

(Project Carmelo 2; Fig. 22). This transect ran from the cliffs inland, covering 

a polygon 4-8km west of the cliffs. Only three superficial surface scatters were 

documented which were negative in shovel-testing. Due to the aridity of the 

77 To extract high quality limestone for bauxite production. 


cliff-top area and its thin soils, as well as scant archaeological remains, Olsen 

interprets this as an area of transit and occasional exploitation for collecting 

and minimal horticulture, in much the same way as it was exploited by farmers 

at the time of the survey. He does not see this as an area worthy of permanent 

habitation. However, in 2008 members of the Leiden team visited the site of “El 

Bartolo”, within Olsen’s survey area (Johnson 2009:79), and in 2007, outside 

the survey area, the site of La Aleta 78 to the north, both of which had the characteristics 

of settlement sites. 

In total, the 2000 and 2001 surveys covered ca. 70km² in the immediate 

coastal and inland vicinity of El Cabo. 79 

Figure 24. Posthole from 

Caletón Blanco (Olsen 2002). 

3.7.2.2 Project Juanillo 

Project Juanillo was an inventorying survey carried out by the Museum in 2001, 

north of El Cabo, again under Harold Olsen, in the former village and surrounding 

area of Juanillo, now Cap Cana property (project name: Proyecto Inmobiliario 

Juanillo, Cap Cana). This transect adjoins the Project Carmelo survey area (Fig. 

22). Cap Cana property in turn adjoins Punta Cana to the north, the location of 

the sites of El Barrio and Sitio de Pepe. 

The Project Juanillo survey ran 8km along the coast from Punta Cana to 

Caletón Blanco in the south, and 1.5 to 2km inland. This is an area of approximately 

12km², much of which was dominated by a coastal swamp (Cinega de 

Pantanal), and includes numerous bays and entrances to the sea. In total 39 archaeological 

sites were recorded. These 39 separate sites clustered into 16 areas, 

at least two other settlements at Caletón Blanco, the location of the former village 

of Juanillo, and Caletón de Bobadilla from the clustering of GPS points in 

natural beach areas. 

The majority of sites, mostly open air, but some in caves with sources of water, 

were situated within 250m of the sea and all had early and late ceramics. This 

was followed up in 2002 by rescue excavations (most the archaeological sites had 

already been degraded due to landscaping and the circulation of heavy vehicles) 

in each of the 16 areas. In total about 370m², mostly in 2×2m units, was excavated 

down to bedrock or sterile sand. 

Like in El Cabo, archaeological remains were either 

on the surface or very shallow (

date for the burial. As mentioned, this was probably a settlement context. 

Features interpreted as postholes were also encountered, cut into the bedrock, 

also evidence for settlement (Fig. 24). 

No radiocarbon dates were obtained from the investigations, but the presence 

of both early and late ceramics (with the majority being later) and the lack 

of European material indicate activity at least throughout the Ceramic Age, and 

especially in the Chicoid period. 

3.7.3 El Cabo in recent fieldwork and historical reports 

Survey work in the local El Cabo area by members of Leiden University and 

Alfredo Coppa from La Sapienza University, as well as an MA thesis by former 

Leiden student Erlend Johnson increased knowledge of the cultural landscape 

of the site. The latter study in particular focused on the precolonial use of the 

landscape of the immediate area of El Cabo (Fig. 22), especially with respect to 

water sources and landscape features (Johnson 2009). 

In an informant-led survey of the El Cabo segment (and minimally on top 

of the cliffs), Johnson (2009; Fig.6.6) identified 52 sites with archaeological remains 

which together with sites identified by Olsen brings the total to 66 sites. 

Sites ranged from single sherds to more dense remains around water sources, in 

certain caves and around large boulders. 

Johnson’s results indicate that certain types of landscape features, such as 

large caves, boulder zones and flooded caverns, were actively sought out by local 

inhabitants for domestic uses and bathing. 

There are no drinking water sources in the immediate vicinity of the site today. 

Two sources near-by, one 1.5km away from the site, are technically drinkable, 

although brackish, and are used as non-preferential sources by some local 

inhabitants today (Johnson 2009:97). Most water sources in the karst, even the 

wells dug by the present-day villagers, are saline and used for purposes other 

than drinking. This is due to the proximity of the sea and salt water/fresh water 

mixing (Johnson 2009). However, the lower sea levels documented in the 

Ostionoid (Keegan 1995) may have affected the salinity of karst water sources 

in the past, and even very small and local fluctuations may have made the difference 

between potable and non-potable. Higher rainfall and lower sea levels may 

have tipped the balance in favour of past inhabitants and meant that these water 

sources were drinkable (3.4.2). If this was the case, then local water sources 

(

Cabo settlement. El Cabo is the largest and only settlement site in the coastal 

segment, with other possible settlements located on top of the cliffs at La Aleta 80 

and El Bartolo. 

In terms of the diachronic picture, Johnson identified a few sites with early 

(Ostionoid) ceramics, and the majority with late (Chicoid) ceramics (2009:109- 

112). This indicates continuity in landscape use with a diversification in the later 

period. 

A conglomeration of non-habitation sites in the southern end of the El Cabo 

segment before the Cabo San Rafael headland, which includes rock art sites such 

as incised faces on speleothems and large isolated boulders and possible human 

remains (anecdotal), suggests activities of a more ceremonial kind (Johnson 

2009:112-113). This is also the location of de Boyrie Moya’s purported plaza 

site. Other non-settlement activities are evidenced by caches and isolated finds. 

This is the case with 3000 dog and seal teeth with incised Chicoid motifs found 

by local children near a rock overhang in the near vicinity of El Cabo in the 

1970s (Ortega 1978b:285; 2005:116). Although the precise whereabouts of this 

cache is not known, it is thought to come from within the El Cabo segment. In 

connection with this, an almost identical perforated, incised dog’s tooth was recovered 

from a posthole from excavation in El Cabo (Fig. 25; and see Structure 

29, Chapter 5). 

Tantalizingly, local resident Belto Villa reported the find of a stone duho 

from a cave in the area some years ago. He and other villagers also report sporadic 

finds of trigonoliths and other such paraphernalia which they passed on 

to collectors. 

The map (Fig. 26) gives an overview of the sites mentioned in the text. The 

cultural landscape of El Cabo presents a full and diverse picture. 81 As in the 

wider eastern region, the concentration of sites is mostly coastal (a range of 1.5 

to 6km between the sites from El Cabo to El Barrio), although the identification 

of larger, possibly settlement sites on top of the cliffs, and in other propitious 

inland locations (such as indicated by the name Punta Salinas, on the 

edge of a coastal lagoon) indicates that more research might change this picture. 

Settlements, surface scatters and an incised monolith at Hoyo de Ramón (10km 

to the west of El Cabo) (Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1976:246, 321) indicate that this 

ecological zone may have been just as intensively lived as areas on the coast. 

El Cabo is the settlement focus of a small stretch of coastline, including the 

hinterland of the coastal segment. Its immediate neighbours were El Bartolo, 

3.5km away on top of the cliffs behind, settlements at Yuma ca. 15km to the 

west (not shown), and a probable settlement 5km to the north at Caletón Blanco. 

These sites were linked to each other via coastal routes and through access points 

in the cliffs. 

The row of cave sites to the southwest, round the San Rafael headland, some 

with petroglyphs, and others with ceramic and human remains, is equidistant 

between sites in the Yuma Bay area and El Cabo. Such sites, as well as the possible 

Punta Espada plaza at the San Rafael headland, and the monolith mentioned 

above, may have linked multiple settlements both on the coast and further inland. 

More research is needed to define these local relationships. 

80 NOT the same as the Parque del Este sites of the same name. 

81 Sites mapped are from a database of published literature and unpublished reports from the Museo 

del Hombre (Olsen 2000, 2002) compiled by the current author. The location of El Bartolo is 

taken from Johnson (2009). For a detailed map of all recorded sites in the El Cabo segment see 

Johnson (2009: Fig. 6.6). 


103

At a smaller scale, other sites in the El Cabo segment should be seen in relation 

to this settlement. Johnson identified flooded sinkholes used as (non-drinking) 

water sources and sherd scatters within half a kilometre of the centre of the 

site and which could be interpreted as peripheral to the settlement (2009:92). 

Other more distant ceramic scatters represent activities associated with water 

sources such as bathing spots, fishing points, and beach launches, and others 

around caves and locations with human remains or rock art. In other places, 

sherd concentrations, especially of griddle pieces may have been isolated houses 

or temporary shelters (Johnson 2009:73). The communities who lived in El 

Cabo, both throughout earlier and later periods, chose specific locations for a 

gamut of domestic, subsistence, mortuary, and ritual activities. Despite the apparently 

non-optimal conditions of its setting in terms of lack of agricultural 

soil and potable water, El Cabo was far from marginal - it is embedded in a fully 

lived landscape. 

The immediate landscape of El Cabo is reiterated in the similar hubs or nodes 

which are visible at the larger, regional scale along an 80km stretch of coastal settlements 

between the larger centres of Atajadizo in the west, and Punta Macao in 

the north. El Cabo’s settlement history is one shared by indigenous sites across 

a wide region. Of course each was characterised by its particular landscape and 

social setting, dependent on its position within the local settlement network. A 

characteristic peculiar to El Cabo is its location on a coastal cliff with no easy 

access to the sea. By contrast, Caletón Blanco, Caletón de Bobadilla, Sitio de 

Pepe, and El Barrio are all on natural sandy beaches. The settlement location 

of El Cabo may therefore be partly explained in terms of its position in a network 

of coastal settlements, and this was more important than access to the sea. 

Whether this is the case is something which can be examined by a closer look at 

the site itself. 

Figure 25. Incised and perforated 

dog’s teeth. Left: from 

a cache of thousands of teeth 

in the El Cabo site environs, 

 

(Ortega 1978b); Right: from 

a posthole in El Cabo site, 

actual size. Illustrator Erik 

van Driel. 


Figure 26. Distribution map 

showing 65 archaeological 

ate 

area of the El Cabo site. 

 

are those recorded in Olsen 

surveys. Legend: black triangles: 

cave sites; squares: plaza 

sites; grey dots: surface scat- 

 


In terms of their ecology, culture-history, settlement dynamics and colonial history, 

the eastern coastal plains of Higüey emerge as having a specific identity. 

The top or head of the island in Amerinidian sacred geography, the riverless and 

rocky environment offered hidden fertility in its limestone pockts and underground 

water sources. Another characteristic of the zone was the exploitation 

of uncultivated zamia from the Archaic, which did not necessitate the intensive 

mound agriculture of other parts of Hispaniola, and which at least by colonial 

times was eaten as a protein and carbohydrate rich staple. How much the ecology 

of the karst environment (i.e. a reliance on zamia and marine resources) was 

responsible for the predominantly coastal distribution of sites, or a product of 

research bias in site identification is not completely clear, however, what is clear 

is that both settlement dynamics and ceramic sequences indicate that habitation 

locations were stable through time. In the later, Chicoid period, there was a diversification 

in use of other areas of the landscape such as caves and plaza sites. 

Moreover, clustering of special activity sites around settlements creating local 

hubs, as well as relationships with sites further afield, suggests an intensive coastal 

network, which probably extended across the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico. 

It was possibly a combination of factors, as well as the openness of this region 

to external migrations and centuries of ethnogenesis, and possible continued 

demographic growth (not the decline seen in other areas of the Greater Antilles 

and northern lesser Antilles in the late period) which resulted in the development 

of and complexity documented in the Chicoid populations of this area. 

That the coastal location of sites is not just related to marine exploitation, 

but also social factors such as the position of a local settlement within a wider 

network, is attested by the fact that El Cabo does not have direct or easy access 

to the sea but instead appears to serve as both a link in a coastal network as well 


105

as with sites accessible from the coast in inland locations (El Bartolo). The indigenous 

inhabitants of Higüey had over a decade to witness and prepare their 

response to colonisation, although they were eventually reduced in numbers and 

resources and suffered social collapse due to sustained periods of warfare. 

The historically low population density of the eastern region has meant that 

precolonial sites and landscapes have remained relatively intact, especially in the 

protected area of the Parque Nacional del Este. This situation is currently changing 

dramatically with the advent of large-scale coastal development. 

The next chapter homes in on the site of El Cabo itself, and the excavation 

stratgeies employed at the site. 


Chapter 4 

Current research in El Cabo 

Understanding an archaeological site is always a process which develops over a 

number of seasons. Hence the methods employed in each season at El Cabo were 

different, but ultimately focused on the main research question to reconstruct 

the spatial, temporal and material aspects of domestic life. The contingent methodology 

was documenting the organization of settlement space and domestic deposits, 

and the main fieldwork focus was excavation of horizontal units by hand 

to document artefacts and features. 

4.1 Introduction: the processes of discovery or 

rediscubrimiento in El Cabo 

From 2005 to 2008 fieldwork was carried out on the site of El Cabo in the 

months of July and August by a combined field team from Leiden University and 

the village of El Cabo (predominantly members of Belto Villa and the mayor, 

Lionel Avila’s families) under the direction of Dr Menno Hoogland and Professor 

Corinne Hofman (Leiden University) and in collaboration with the Museo del 

Hombre Dominicano. 82 The team in the field numbered approximately 20 people 

at any one time. 

Additionally, two geophysical assays using magnetometry and ground penetrating 

radar were carried out on the site: the first, a pilot-study in the spring 

of 2006, and the second a fuller survey in the spring of 2007, funded by the 

National Geographic Society. Both projects were carried out in collaboration 

with Dr Branko Mušič of Ljubljana University, Slovenia. The results of this research 

are pending and will appear in a forthcoming site monograph. 

What follows is a brief chronological summary of the fieldwork seasons to 

give an impression of how excavation strategy and site interpretation developed 

over the course of the four seasons. The focus of interpretation is on the archaeology 

of the main unit and its built structures as this is the subject of this dissertation. 

Thereafter follows a more detailed description of the fieldwork procedures, 

field strategies and results. 


The excavations in El Cabo in the summer of 2005 were carried out between July 

21 st and August 12 th . A total area of approximately 70m² was excavated by hand. 

The aims of the fieldwork were: 

(1) To document levels of site preservation. 

(2) To open large units to recover features, houses, burials, etc. 

82 From 2005 to 2007 under its director Lic. Carlos Hernández Soto, in 2007 and 2008, Dr Marcio 

Veloz Maggiolo. 

83 See also Hofman et al. 2005, 2006 on the preliminary results of the 2005 excavation campaign in 

El Cabo. “Block A” in this report refers to unit 85-04 and “Block B” refers to unit 84-29/39. 


107

07 

27 

26 

5 

733 92 

04 

34 

83544 44 

31 41 

53 

52 62 

31 

51 

61 

30 40 

50 

60 

09 

29 39 49 59 

69 

98 

28 

38 

36 

4 742 93 

96 

17 37 

36 56 

834 

334 

0 20 40 

29 

metres 


(3) To open smaller units in order to verify the stratigraphy and chronology of 

the site that was reported by Ortega (1978a). 

(4) To collect a sample of the range of artefacts including ceramics, lithics, shell, 

coral and animal remains. 

(5) To gain a first impression of the geomorphology. 

A grid system was set out over the terrain and a series of eight 1m² units were 

excavated based on: (a) proximity to test-pits dug by the Museo del Hombre 

Dominicano in the late 1970s; (b) auger test data; (c) assumed site limits; and (d) 

areas of geological/soil variation (Hofman et al. 2005). Two of these units were 

later extended because features were encountered. The first was a 2×4m (85-04) 

unit in the northern portion of the site. Clear and regular posthole features were 

encountered at 30cm bsl. The second, a 5×10m (84-29/39; see light coloured 

rectangle in the main unit, Fig. 27) unit on the highest part of the raised coastal 

promontory of El Cabo revealed features cut into the bedrock, overlain by a 

thin packet (10-15cm) of humic sandy soil containing midden material (faunal 

remains and ceramic sherds), including part of a lithic belt or stone collar. All 

features were fully excavated and documented. 

Over 200 features, in both the sand and bedrock units, were documented and 

excavated in this first season revealing a palimpsest of pre-Columbian occupation 

over a wide area of the site. In terms of the material assemblage, a similar 

trajectory was witnessed in the ceramics as in the rest of the eastern region, with 

lower levels producing red, thin-walled, plain Ostionoid ceramics, and upper 

levels producing the more baroque, coarse Chicoid pottery. A horizontal segregation 

of these ceramic phases was also tentatively forwarded on the basis that in 

the northern portion of the site both styles were present, whereas the shallower 

southern part produced mainly Chicoid, and the 5×10m unit exclusively so. 

Based on these observations, and to investigate the Chicoid domestic setting, it 

was decided in future seasons to concentrate on this upper, southern part of the 

site, which thereafter became the focus of the excavation in 2006-2008. 84 

Figure 27. Overview of units 

excavated in El Cabo and 

referred to in the text. Large 

numbers are zones, smaller 

numbers are sectors. Units 

coloured from light (2005) to 

darker (2006, 2007, 2008). 


Excavation in summer 2006 was carried out on the site of El Cabo between July 

4th and August 11th. A total area of approximately 307m² was excavated by 

hand. Questions enumerated for the 2006 field season were the following: 

(1) What is the extent of the posthole features in the bedrock in the southern/Chicoid 

part of the site? Are any structures discernible in enlarged 

trenches? 

(2) Can we refine the site extents as inferred from the 2005 auger and test-pitting 

campaign, i.e. estimating the western limits of the site? 

(3) What is the relationship between the two cultural components witnessed at 

the site? Do the differences in pottery styles represent a continuous occupation 

sequence through time? Are there two spatially and chronologically 

distinct periods of habitation? 

The fieldwork was concentrated on two fronts: extension of 84-29/39 (5×10m) 

to a 10×30m unit (Fig. 27; sectors 29, 39, and 49), and excavation of 2×2m 

units mainly in the southern part of the site (to answer research question (1)). 

84 Eventually becoming a unit of 1030m². 

85 See Hofman et al. 2008. 


109

The decision to continue enlarging unit 84-29/39 based on the dense clustering 

of features and the presence of latest phase pottery here was bolstered by a radiocarbon 

date from charcoal from the fill of a posthole (F84-29-30) which gave 

a date (calibrated, 1 sigma) of AD 1399-1428 (GrN-29035). The preservation 

of the features in this area was excellent, the marks of manufacture (vertical chiseling) 

often visible on the inside walls of the postholes. However, material recovered 

in 2006 and a second 14C date (AD 797-912, calibrated, 1 sigma, GrN- 

29932) from a Cittarium pica from layer 1 (84-39-29) showed that the situation 

was far more complex than initially anticipated. A small number of Ostionoid 

sherds also appeared in this mainly Chicoid unit, in particular to the western 

end. As more surface area was excavated, overlapping circular structures and post 

alignments became increasingly apparent. The burial of a neonate was recovered 

from a shallow pit in this unit and differential clustering of sweeping accumulations 

of midden material was observed in the excavation of the squares. 

On a site level, Corinne Hofman’s pottery analysis sought to come to terms 

with the huge array of local terms (i.e. Punta, Anadel, Macao, transicional, 

Atajadizo, Guayabal, Morro, Corrales etc.) not only in the ceramics of El Cabo, 

but across the entire eastern region. Dating the sequence, which roughly moved 

from burnished, red, plain surfaces in the lower levels through to pottery bearing 

anthropomorphic adornos with appliquéd limbs and coffee bean eyes, to 

full-blown Boca Chica pottery with linear incised and punctated and modeled 

adornos with bat and simian faces was a priority. The Boca Chica layer appears to 

form a shallow veneer across the entire site, covering a much larger area than the 

other components, but nevertheless occupying less vertical stratigraphy. 

To ascertain the extent of the dense feature clustering on the brow of the 

promontory, and to learn more of the spatial articulation of the other ceramic 

components, a series of 15 2×2m units 86 were excavated in arbitrary 10cm layers. 

Excavation was carried out until bedrock, or sterile yellow sand was reached. 

What these units also made clear was that the geomorphology of the site is extremely 

variable. 

4.1.3 Summary of 2007 fieldwork 

Excavation in the summer of 2007 was carried out between July 11 th and August 

27 th. In total an area of 663m² was excavated in 2007. 87 

Questions enumerated in the 2007 field manual distributed at the start of the 

season were the following: 

(1) What is the extent and spatial characteristics of the posthole features in the 

bedrock in the large unit (84-29/39/49/59)? 

(2) What are the characteristics and possible interpretations of the features to the 

eastern (i.e. coastal) extent of the unit? 

(3) What are the characteristics of the structures discernible in the field? 

(4) What evidence is there for internal organisation in the structures (entrances, 

hearths, etc.)? 

(5) What evidence is there for external organization of space (work areas, ancillary 

structures, storage pits, middens)? 

86 Units 74-42-28, 83-29-60, 84-09-00, 84-17-03, 84-18-68, 84-28-22, 84-33-00, 84-34-05, 84- 

36-00, 84-37-03, 84-38-00, 84-56-00, 84-59-00, 84-59-50, 85-31-00. 

87 In all 33m² of 2×2 units, and the rest in the main trench in zones 84/85, 630m² 


(6) What is the (temporal and spatial) relationship between the different areas 

of habitation on site? 

(7) Was there continuous or interrupted occupation? 

(8) What is the relationship between the data derived from the geophysical survey 

and the archaeological data? 

As in 2006, excavation was concentrated on two activities: excavation of 2×2m 

units and enlargement of the bedrock unit, for the same reasons as in 2006. 

In addition to excavation of the abovementioned units, a surface survey was 

carried out over the southern half of the site. In previous seasons various members 

of the field direction had noted that surface artefact clustering and carpet 

midden densities were easily observed on the surface, and referred to in conversation 

(“the griddle clusters on the mound”, “coastal midden spread”, “the 

mounds by the school/fence”), yet no systematic record had been made of this 

other than personal notes and impressions. The area of the surface survey was 

more or less that also covered by magnetometry and georadar in May 2007. 

Throughout the course of the campaign, three human burials were encountered 

and excavated. In 85-34 a crouched inhumation with no grave gifts was excavated 

from a small pit dug into the sterile beachrock. The grave pit is spatially 

associated with posthole features. The stratigraphic relation of the features with 

the surroundings was not recorded as the burial was not visible in the profile. 

The boat-form vessel recovered from the bottom of the western profile of the 

adjacent unit in 2005 is thought to have been associated with the burial – possibly 

placed on the top edge of the grave. Some midden material was mixed with 

the grave fill indicating that the Ostionoid midden was formed or forming at 

the time of digging the grave pit. The vessel recovered in 2005 was surrounded 

by dense midden material and crab parts. This indicates that the grave was dug 

through the second (Ostionoid) midden layer. A second burial, also crouched 

and in a worse state of preservation, was recovered from a small, stone-covered 

pit from 85-40, spatially associated with posthole features. A third crouched inhumation 

was recovered from a 2×2m unit (85-31-08), later enlarged to 2×3m. 

Unfortunately for the spatio-contextual interpretation all three burials were either 

recovered from small units or from the edges of units. 

The main unit was extended eastwards to meet the cliff top. Approximately 

40m of cliff edge was excavated. This was done to investigate the relationship 

between the structures in this unit and the features visible on the cliff edge. 

Indeed it was found that the habitation features stopped two or three metres shy 

of the edge, followed by an “empty” strip, and then a few isolated features on the 

edge. In much of this area material was not collected as the bedrock was either 

exposed or covered by unstable sand. At this stage it was thought that the few 

features probably belonged to discrete cliff top structures associated with marine 

activities such as fishing. One feature in particular (85-62-F13) was a set of 

grooves on the edge of the cliff, apparently caused by repeated rope action in one 

spot. A month of the field team hauling buckets of seawater three to four times 

a day over the cliff did not produce any noticeable abrasions (Fig. 78). Hence 

F13 must have been produced over a longer period of time, or by an activity of 

greater intensity. 

One of the major discoveries of the season was the recovery of early contact 

material in site deposits of the main unit. This material consisted of a number 

of glass beads and green and white glazed ceramics. Dr Kathleen A. Deagan 


111

(Florida Museum of Natural History) identified Nueva Cadiz beads and olive jar 

pottery, both dated to the initial phase of European contact, AD 1500 to 1550 

(pers. comm. summer 2007). This material was recovered from the same context 

as Chicoid artefacts. Pig teeth and bones as well as metal (iron) objects were also 

recovered from this and more dispersed areas of the site. 

In addition a large number of shell and stone artefacts were recovered, including 

approximately 30 ground stone beads, incised shell adornments, many 

bearing the frog-leg motif, micro-trigonoliths, a shell guaíza, part of a stone collar 

(from 85-41-08, layer 1) with a small knob on it and with heavy secondary 

use as a tool, and a large decorated trigonolith made of local sandstone. This was 

in addition to hundreds of ceramic adornos. 

4.1.4 Summary of 2008 fieldwork 

Fieldwork in the summer of 2008 was carried out between June 30 th and August 

17 th . The focus of this season was find processing in the laboratories in Punta 

Cana, rather than generating additional excavated materials. The aims of the 

2008 season were therefore the following: 

(1) To complete the documentation of all materials and deposit the material in 

the Museo del Hombre Dominicano in Santo Domingo. 

(2) To check whether the horizontal confinement of colonial material to the 

northeast of the main unit was an artefact of researcher bias or the real state 

of affairs, i.e. re-opening bags of material excavated in 2005-2007. 

(3) To minimally extend the main unit to complete documentation of a circular 

structure (Structure 3). 

(4) To conduct a survey the indigenous presence in the immediate surroundings 

of the site (MA thesis project, Johnson 2009). 

However, we were fortunate enough to expand upon and map an additional 

124m² in the main unit. This meant that as well as documenting the remaining 

part of Structure 3, we were able to excavate parts of three sectors, extending approximately 

25m along the edge of the cliff and 5-11m inland. Work progressed 

fast because the bedrock in this area of the coast was at the surface and devoid of 

soil and artefacts. 88 With some trowel-cleaning the features in this area were laid 

bare, mapped by Total Station (TS) and drawn. 

In addition, we commissioned local divers to troll the waters below and on 

either side of the site to observe the extent (parallel to the coast and out to sea) 

of archaeological materials on the seafloor. We asked them to collect exotic stone 

and ceramic material. This they did, all three divers (on separate occasions) indicating 

that the spread of material was very limited extending perhaps no more 

than 100m parallel to the site and not far out into the sea. Material they collected 

was mostly small, including very eroded pottery sherds and larger complete, 

and near complete greenstone tools. 

4.2 Fieldwork procedures 

An overview and description of basic fieldwork procedures is necessary at this 

point to understand the standards and methods used during excavation, collection, 

documentation and processing of the archaeological materials. The ba- 

88 A shame one could not say the same of the goat droppings, however! This is the favourite late 

afternoon sleeping place of the local flocks. 


sic sampling and excavation procedures are those consistently employed by the 

Leiden Caribbean Research Group under Menno L. P. Hoogland and Corinne 

L. Hofman at sites such as Anse à la Gourde, Guadeloupe, Kelbey’s Ridge, Saba, 

and various sites on St. Martin, and informed by the first large-scale excavations 

of habitation areas in the Caribbean at Golden Rock, St Eustatius (Hoogland 

and Hofman 1993; Hofman and Hoogland eds. 1999; Versteeg and Schinkel 

1992). Research questions as well as local and logistical conditions mean that 

this methodology is adapted to each site. In El Cabo, with the exception of 

the first year of fieldwork, the procedures were stated in field manuals for each 

season. 89 

The basic fieldwork procedures employed in El Cabo were excavation of 

2×2m units in arbitrary layers across the site, and the excavation of a larger unit 

in the later habitation area of the site for the exposure of features. Additional 

activities undertaken to complement this approach included an auger campaign, 

topographical mapping, a surface survey of the southern portion of the site, surveys 

in the local surroundings, engagement with local people, and a geophysical 

survey. 

4.2.1 The site grid 

A local grid was established with a TS. Points in the grid were marked with 

plastic tubes set in concrete or bedrock. GPS coordinates were taken later which 

were matched to points in the local grid. 

The grid divided the site into units of zones (100×100m), sectors (10×10m) 

and squares (1×1m). There is a direct relation between the x and y coordinates, 

so that in a grid of 1km² (100×100m), each 1m² (1×1m) has a unique digit reference 

(Fig. 28). This has the advantage of making the grid infinitely extendable 

and once fieldworkers are used to the system, can locate themselves anywhere on 

the site. The site grid was the basis for locating all units, features and finds. 90 

Figure 28. El Cabo site grid 

system. The location of the 

black 1×1m square can be referenced 

as 85-35-33 (i.e. Zone 

85, Sector 35, Square 33). Nb. 

 

is 00 and the top right-hand 

square is 99. 

89 There was no written manual at the start of the project in 2005; this was developed during the 

field season. 

90 In 2006 the numbering of the zones was changed: 500 was added to the y axis and 2800 added 

to the x axis. This was done simply to avoid the border between two differently named km² zone 

blocks occurring on-site. 


113

4.2.2 The find layer 

Units were set out within this grid system and excavated in “squares” (horizontal 

extents of 1m²) and vertical layers of 10cm, until features were encountered. 

Excavation then proceeded according to the feature. In units where a stratigraphy 

was present profile drawings were made and the profile walls photographed. 

Material from the find layer was recovered in 10cm layers. Material from 

layers was recorded with sector-square coordinates to pinpoint their find spots 

within 1 metre uncertainty. Significant in situ finds were point-plotted with the 

TS. Material was dry sieved on-site through a 4mm plastic sieve mesh. All ceramics 

(>1cm), shell (land and marine), stone (except local limestone matrix), 

bone, coral, glass, and other artefacts/ecofacts were selected from the sieve by 

hand. Each find (whether single such as a bead or adorno, or bulk such as a layer 

or soil sample) was put into a bag together with a find label and entered in the 

find list. Offsite, finds were wet sieved through the same mesh to remove sand 

and soil. 

In the case of the 2×2m units, one square from each unit was selected as a 

sample square from which all sieved remains (not including the local limestone 

matrix) were collected (i.e. after sieving through a 4mm-sieve mesh, the local 

rock material was discarded and the entire rest of the sieve residue was bagged 

and tagged). The rest of the material from the remaining three squares was selected 

as above (Fig. 29). 

All excavated material from the site was stored at the Ecological Foundation, 

Punta Cana, and documented (quantitive and qualititve analyses as well as photographic 

recording) in the laboratories there. At the end of the 2008 season, all 

material (95 boxes) was stored in the depot of the Museo del Hombre in Santo 

Domingo. With the exception of feature fills, material from the survey squares, 

ceramic and botanical samples, as well as paraphernalia and ceramic adornos, 

were taken to Leiden for further analysis. They will be returned to the Museo del 

Hombre after completion of analysis. 

material selected by 

hand from sieve 

sample square 

100% collection 

10 cm 

2 metres 

2metres 

Figure 29. Schematic diagram 

of the El Cabo sampling strategy 

for 2×2m units. 


A 

B 

1 

 

section of postholes in the 

 

 

lines represent bedrock matrix. 

Crosses represent visible 

toolmarks. Note postholes in 

the bedrock were not sectioned, 

so no segment distinctions are 

made in the documentation. 

1 

2 

x 

x 

4.2.3 The feature layer 

The majority of features in the main unit were identified and documented in one 

time per season after the final cleaning of the bedrock layer into which they were 

cut. Others were encountered whilst excavating smaller units. All features were 

assigned a feature number which was fixed to the adjacent bedrock in the field, 

and added to the plan drawing. 91 

Features were excavated after they had been assigned a feature number, drawn 

on the trench plan and measured-in with the TS. The majority of the features 

were first visible at the level of the bedrock. The majority of these are postholes. 

Only in exceptional cases was it possible to section the features conventionally. 92 

Instead features were fully “emptied” from the top down, in order not to miss 

changes in colour or texture indicating a different fill (Fig. 30). 93 All material 

was collected per fill and soil samples were taken from each fill for comparing to 

the Munsell colour chart. No sorting or selection was done of the feature fills in 

the field (unless special finds were encountered), so unlike for the squares, stones 

and other ecofacts were bulk recovered. 

Features were documented in terms of depth, diameter, shape of bottom, absence 

or presence of toolmarks, and angle (i.e. vertical or not). Fills were described 

in terms of texture and colour (Munsell colour chart) and a drawing (1:10) was 

made of the interior contours of the feature and toolmarks indicated. 

A feature form was completed (including drawing) for each feature excavated. 

Photographs were made of all excavated features in 2005, and selected 

features thereafter. See Appendix 1a for a copy of a feature form. 

4.2.4 Soil descriptions 

Soil, whether from the fill of a feature or from the surrounding matrix, was 

described on the feature forms, profile and trench plan drawings with the aid 

of a Munsell chart. Descriptions were made out of direct sunlight and for consistency 

and to avoid inter-observer variation the present author made all soil 

descriptions. 

Important fields on the form relate to dimension, the presence or absence of 

toolmarks, the shape of the bottom and description of the fill(s). The maximum 

dimensions of the feature were recorded. For features in the bedrock this is the 

point at which the bedrock is first seen to be modified. These points were indicated 

with oblique pencil lines drawn at the feature boundaries on the feature 

forms and recorded in written numbers on the feature forms. 

4.2.5 Drawings 

All drawings, with the exception of drawings on the feature forms, were done 

on millimeter pretex paper with waterproof pencils. Plan drawings were drawn 

1:20, section drawings 1:10, profile drawings minimum 1:10. 

91 Feature numbers are unique. They consist of a 6-digit number consisting of a 2-digit zone 

number, sector number, and a feature number (note: no square number), with the latter preceded 

by F (for Feature). For example 85-29-F87 indicates Feature 87 located in Zone 85, Sector 

29. 

92 This is because bedrock does not allow sectioning, and the features were generally too small to 

make a section of their fills only. 

93 In practice this means no distinction is made between segments 1 and 2 in terms of excavation, 

finds collection and sampling. The drawing on the feature form is not a section drawing, but a 

drawing of the contours of the internal walls of the feature. 


115

4.3.6 Off-site processing of find material 

See Appendices 1b-e for copies of laboratory forms used in the quantitative 

processing of find materials. Four main forms were used in the laboratory 

for processing materials: a form for splitting material excavated from features 

(Appendix 1b), a form for splitting material excavated from squares (Appendix 

1c), a form for splitting material excavated from survey squares (Appendix 1d) 

and a form to record more detailed information on marine shells from the feature 

fills (Appendix 1e). 

The square split form records weights of land shell, seashell, crab parts, stone, 

bone, coral, ceramic and other (metal, glass, etc.) and MNI counts of seashells, 

land shells, as well as a number of shell tools, paraphernalia, modified and unmodified 

pieces of shell, the same for stone tools, paraphernalia, modified and 

unmodified pieces and bone tools, paraphernalia, human (un-worked) and animal 

(including fish, un-worked), modified and unidentified pieces of bone. 

Coral tools, paraphernalia, modified and unmodified pieces as well as ceramic 

undecorated and decorated sherds were counted. After 2006, landshell and crab 

were no longer separately recorded, as their distributions mirrored those of other 

categories. Besides they were too time-consuming to sort and their significance 

more ambiguous than other categories. 94 

The feature fill split form differed slightly from the former, having fewer 

fields. This form records weights of land shell, seashell, crab, stone, bone, coral, 

ceramic and other (metal, glass etc.) and makes a distinction in the count section 

of the form between shell tools and paraphernalia, stone tools and paraphernalia, 

bone tools and paraphernalia and human (un-worked), coral tools and paraphernalia 

and, finally, ceramics decorated and griddles. Individual counts were 

not deemed necessary for all material categories. Furthermore, all local bedrock 

was separated from the feature residues and discarded after being weighed and 

photographed (Fig. 31). This was done as it is assumed that the majority of karst 

material in the fills fell into two categories and was either: (a) gravel which had 

fallen back into the postholes on manufacture (and subsequently been worn 

by the action of the post), or (b) larger chunks used as packing. Photographic 

documentation was deemed sufficient to be able to make a rough estimation of 

the proportions of each. 

Figure 31. Bedrock and gravel 

from the sieve residue of a 

 

photographed and discarded. 

94 Land crab and terrestrial gastropods may have been commensal scavengers, rather than exploited 

for food by the indigenous inhabitants. 


The majority of the find material consists of shell and ceramic remains. 

Information required for this dissertation research was more quantitative than 

qualitative (with exceptions), and thus detailed, specialist reports are expected 

and ongoing for each material category. 

Ceramics and marine shell were considered the most significant material categories 

in interpretation. In quantitative and spatial analysis these were deemed 

most representative of the distribution and density of indigenous activities. 

These two categories were given precedence in interpretation not only because 

they represent the majority of archaeological material from feature fills and excavated 

layers, but because they are relatively heavy and dense (compared to crab 

parts and small fish and mammal bones) and are deposited as a direct result of 

consumption and discard practices. This is not to say they are simple to interpret, 

but that their deposition is more transparent than that of for example land 

shell and coral, which may be subject to more indirect processes. 95 Moreover, 

whereas ceramics and marine shell were generally recovered and recorded in 

equivalent ways over all field seasons, other material categories were not. This 

reflects changing recovery practices between smaller units and the main unit, 

debates as to the significance of these categories, and refinements to excavation 

strategies over the years. Therefore, ceramics and marine shell are not only considered 

most diagnostic, but also most equivalent. 

Analysis of the Chicoid ceramics is still pending. 96 Detailed forms describing 

morphological, stylistic and technological attributes of the pottery, developed 

by prof. Dr Corinne L. Hofman (2005), were completed for all rims larger than 

5cm, in addition to the forms mentioned above. In terms of this dissertation information 

on absence/presence, location and quantity of ceramics is important. 

Moreover, basic functional distinctions, such as that between griddle and other 

sherds in as far as they shed light on domestic practice are taken into account. 

Sometimes notes were also made in the field or in the laboratory concerning 

decoration on ceramics – usually this was limited to a positive identification of 

Chicoid. This information is incorporated into the following argumentation, 

but the reader should be aware of its rather ad hoc nature. Knowledge concerning 

site chronology and artefact typology would be greatly advanced by future 

research concentrating on the ceramics from structure features for example. 

The same is true of the other individual artefact categories such as the bone, 

shell and stone materials. These have been the subject of a number of BA and 

MA theses (de Ruiter 2009; Hofmeester 2008; van der Horst 2009; Ouweneel 

2007) and further studies will contribute qualitative knowledge in the future. 

A detailed breakdown of the shell species in the posthole features was undertaken 

in summer 2008 by students experienced in determining shell species on 

Curacao, trained by Dennis Nieweg, MA, affiliated to Leiden University. This 

will be the subject of a future study. 

95 Fossilized coral is not naturally present on the site itself, but can be found in abundance a few 

hundred metres away, and the mechanisms by which it got to the site are as yet under-researched. 

Certainly some was brought by human agency for use as tools, but other pieces may have been 

thrown up in storms or brought to the site in other periods. Similarly, as discussed in Chapter 3, 

land snails may be present as commensal animals, or have been collected as food, or the shells be 

transported on the back of hermit crabs. They may also indicate wetter climatic conditions. In 

this sense, the processes acting on pottery and marine shell are much simpler! 

96 At the time of writing this dissertation, an MA Thesis on the iconography of a sample of the 

Chicoid adornos (those excavated in 2005 and 2006) by Noortje Oudhuis (2008) was available, 

and in addition an MA thesis by Cortney St. Jean (2008a) on the early and late Ostionoid ceramics 

(i.e. not from the main unit). Moreover, fabric and technical analysis of clays and ceramics 

from the eastern Dominican Republic had been preliminarily undertaken (van As et al. 2008). 


117

Twenty-five percent of the sieve residue (by weight) from each 10cm layer 

from each sample square of the 2×2m units was taken back to Leiden for 

processing. A number of bulk botanical samples (5 litres) were sent to Dr Lee A. 

Newsom (Pennsylvania State University) for analysis. 

4.2.7 Coring programme and mapping of site elevations 

To gain insight into the character of the natural stratigraphy and the nature and 

extent of the cultural accumulations at El Cabo at the start of fieldwork a coring 

programme with a 12cm hand auger was carried out across the site, totalling 64 

tests (Fig. 32). In addition, detailed mapping of the site elevations, including 

 

5600 

5500 

5400 

3700 

0 20 40 

metres 

3800 

3900 

Figure 32. Position of hand 

auger tests and elevations 

across the site. Contour lines 

are 1m apart. Grey area 

represents inferred spread of 

archaeological material. 


the coastline and off-site areas was carried out with a TS. The spacing of the elevation 

measurements was 2m where elevations were variable, and 4m when the 

landscape was somewhat flatter. 

Corings were set out along five axes: three running in a west-east direction 

for 160m across the width of the site, and two axes running north-south for 

280m across the length of the site. A 10m interval for tests was used for areas 

that yielded archaeological material, whereas a 20m interval was established for 

an absence of archaeological material in the tests. Site deposits covered an area 

of approximately 3.5 hectares. 

Initial information on the internal site structure of El Cabo, including the 

size and location of midden mounds, the presence and absence of archaeological 

material and an indication of the site limits was inferred from the resulting elevation 

map and the stratigraphic profiles, created by ‘stitching’ all the auger data 

 

Augers 44-51 

Augers 32-43 & 52-55 

Augers 56-64 

Augers 17-23 

Figure 33. Results of auger 

plots, where grey represents 

the presence of archaeological 

 

Don van den Biggelaar). 

Sand 

Archaeological material 

Bedrock 

Augers 1-16 

& 24-31 

0 50 

metres 


119

from all five axes together (Fig. 33). 97 The coring programme provided partial 

but important information on location and depth of the midden accumulations. 

Ceramics, charcoal and shell appeared to accumulate to the north and east along 

the coastal margin, and along the fault-line. The frequency/density of archaeological 

materials diminished about 50m from the periphery of the middens. 

In terms of site geology, the tests also provided information about the relative 

depth of the bedrock across the site. In certain areas where no bedrock was 

encountered the underlying matrix was yellow sand/limestone gravel, at others, 

mainly in the southern part of the site, the bedrock was shallow or at the surface. 

Soils were deeper in the north of the site. 

4.2.8 14C sampling and site chronology 

Dates obtained from 14C samples from El Cabo have already been discussed in 

a regional perspective in Chapter 3. This section looks at the dates from the site 

in more detail. 

Laboratory 

code 

GrN-29035 

GrN-29931 

Material 

Charcoal from 

outside edge 

of burnt post 

Charcoal from 

outside edge 


Conventional 

radiocarbon 

age (BP) 

535 +/- 25 

GrN-29932 Citt.pica 1495 +/- 30 

2-sigma 

calibration 

(AD) (95%) 

1322-1347 / 

1392-1436 

815 +/- 35 1164-1271 

748-753/757- 

983 

1-sigma 

calibration 

(AD) 

Zone/sector/ 

square/feat/ 

layer 

Remarks 

1399-1428 84-29-F30 Unassigned, assoc Structure 6 

1194-1195 / 

1208-1263 

85-04-F01 From 2×4m unit excavated in 2005 

797-912 84-39-29/1 Main unit 

GrN-29933 Citt.pica 1750 +/- 30 521-699 584-665 85-44-00/10b 

GrN-29934 

Gercarcinus 

lateralis 

1110 +/- 25 

896-924/939- 

974 

888-988 85-44-00/10a 

GrN-30531 Citt.pica 1170 +/- 25 1095-1285 1166-1258 84-34-06/3 2×2m unit 



GrN-30534 

GrN-30535 

Charcoal from 

outside edge 


Charcoal from 

outside edge 


600 +/- 25 

580 +/- 30 

1298-1370 / 

1379-1407 

1301-1367 / 

1382-1417 

GrN-31412 Charcoal 1230 +/- 40 684 -887 

1309-1332 / 

1337-1361 / 

1386-1398 

1317-1353 / 

1389-1407 

712-746 / 767- 

830 / 837-868 

1×1m (“coastal unit”, layer 10, compare 

with dates from 85-34 from 2007) 



84-29-F178 Entrance post Structure 6 

84-29-F249 External post Structure 6 

75-26-62/9 2×2m (“donkey field”, layer 9) 

GrN-31413 Citt.pica 1705 +/- 20 580-725 626-690 75-26-62/12 2×2m (“donkey field”, layer 12) 

GrN-31414 Citt.pica 1435 +/- 20 876-1025 911-987 75-26-62/9 2×2m (“donkey field”, layer 9) 

GrN-31415 Citt.pica 1520 +/- 20 729-938 788-887 85-34-90/4 2×2 (“coastal unit”, layer 4) 

GrN-31416 Citt.pica 1745 +/- 20 550-691 596-665 85-34-81/10 

GrN-31417 

GrN-31418 

Charcoal from 

outside edge 


Charcoal from 

outside edge 


915 +/- 20 1036-1169 

1046-1090 / 

1121-1139 / 

1148 -1159 

925 +/- 30 1026-1177 1044-1102 

/1119 -1143 / 

1146-1155 



85-50-F156 Internal back post Structure 1 

85-50-F193 Entrance post Structure 1 

97 Don van den Biggelaar MA, carried out the coring as well as presentation of the results. 


utions 

of 14C dates from El 

Cabo (CALIB Radiocarbon calibration 

programme, Stuiver 

and Reimer 1986-2005). 

Table 2. 14C dates from El 

Cabo (samples calibrated with 

CALIB Radiocarbon calibration 

programme, Stuiver and 

Reimer 1986-2005). Note that 

samples were 

corrected for the marine res- 

 

correction is an averaged value 

for the west coast of Jamaica 

 

marine database published 

by Hughen et al. (2004) and 

Reimer et al. (2004). Values 

available from the Bahamas 

 

Atlantic values, so these have 

not been used (thanks to Paula 

Reimer for advice on this). 

4.2.8.1 Sample selection 

Over 50 samples were taken from the site with a view to radiocarbon dating, of 

which 17 samples were dated. All samples were dated by the Centre for Isotope 

Research, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Materials collected included 

charcoal, Cittarium pica shells and land crab claws. Priority was given to charcoal, 

shell and crab samples from secure contexts (i.e. in situ features rather than 

stray pieces which may have been subject to bioturbation). Separate samples 

were never combined. For example, the sample of land crab (Gercarcinus lateralis) 

was a bulk sample from a discrete concentration of land crab remains in one 

layer. Cittarium pica shells were single individuals selected from midden layers 

and preferably not from layer 1. For the main unit, however, this was unavoidable 

as often there was only one layer available. In this case we ensured that the 

individual was well embedded in the midden packet. In terms of interpretation, 

preference is given to dates from charcoal samples from primary contexts in the 

main unit. Charcoal was preferably selected from substantial stumps of burnt 

posts from which it was possible to select the youngest wood (i.e. the outside 

edge). Features from almost every structure were sampled in the hope that charcoal 

from burnt posts would be encountered. However, different abandonment 

practices meant that this was not the case. Many structures had no or insufficient 

charcoal in their fills. 

In total from the main unit the remains of five burnt posts, from at least two 

different structures, were dated and a Cittarium pica snail was dated from layer 

1. Other dates were obtained from charcoal from a post stump in the 2×4m 

unit in the northern portion of the site, and ten additional samples from the 

smaller units across the site, especially concentrating on the two units with the 

deepest stratigraphy and presence of early Ostionoid ceramics (85-34/44 and 

75-26-62). 


121

4.2.8.2 Discussion of dates from the main unit 

The five dates from burnt posts in the main unit cluster into two phases associated 

with two separate building events (Structure 1 and Structure 6, see Chapter 

5). The first took place in the early- to mid-12 th century, the second in the late- 

14 th century. This agrees with the Chicoid ceramics in this unit. Fragments of 

early olive jar and Nueva Cadiz style beads associated with Chicoid artefacts and 

indigenous features extend the dating sequence of this unit into contact and 

early colonial times (up to AD 1550). 

An earlier ninth-century date from a Cittarium pica shell from layer 1 (GrN- 

29932) extends the time-depth of activities in this area of the site by over 300 

years. Such activities, however, are not so easy to interpret. Shells are subject to 

displacement through numerous processes, for example in the form of reoccupation 

and relocation by hermit crabs. They can also be moved around by people 

in refuse deposits. This is not the case for wood from post stumps, or charcoal 

from hearths which are in secure primary contexts. In addition, few controlled 

comparisons have been made between dates from shell and charcoal. However, 

the date has some quite interesting implications with respect to the origin of the 

Chicoid ceramic series. Both this date and another 9 th century date from a sample 

from a smaller unit on the coast (GrN-31415) are associated with Chicoid 

ceramics. These early dates from Chicoid contexts coincide with the earliest 

manifestations of Chicoid in the Dominican Republic identified at the site of 

Juandolio, on the south coast of the island, near Santo Domingo at around AD 

825 (Veloz Maggiolo et al. 1973). El Cabo thus has one of the earliest dates associated 

with this type of pottery. 

Although the12 th to late-15 th century (the latter based on colonial ceramics) 

dates indicate five centuries of habitation, more evidence is needed from the 

relative chronologies of the built structures in this unit to arrive at conclusions 

about the continuity, or not, of habitation, and whether there was also habitation 

in this area as early as the 9 th century (see Chapter 5). 

Nevertheless, we can look more closely at the building phases of the two 

dateable structures by summing the probabilities of samples from the same 

structures. 

Figure 35. Summed probability 

of two dates from Structure 

1 showing a 95% probability 

that construction took place 

between AD 1020 and 1180 

(OxCal v.3.10). 


If we sum the probability distributions for the two samples from Structure 1, 

this generates a best estimate for the period in which 95% of the building events 

took place. 98 In the case of Structure 1, there is a 95% probability that construction 

took place between AD 1020 and 1180 (Fig. 35). 

In the case of Structure 6, there is a 95% probability that construction took 

place between AD 1290 and 1420 (Fig. 36). 


of dates from Structure 6 

showing a 95% probability 

that construction took place 

between AD 1290 and 1420 

(OxCal v.3.10). 

If one adds a third dated sample which is spatially associated with Structure 

6, yet not part of its internal or external post arrangement, the dates are shifted 

a little younger and there is a 95% probability that construction took place between 

AD 1300 and 1440 (Fig. 37). 


of three dates from 

Structure 6 showing a 95% 

probability that construction 

took place between AD 1300 

and 1440. 

98 Summing averages the distributions without decreasing the error margins as with other forms of 

statistical combination (Oxcal v.3.10; Bronk Ramsey 1995, 2005). 


123

Combining the dates in this way is the most conservative way of treating 

them and results in larger margins than for the individual dates alone. Assessing 

these probabilities together, one can distil the fact that Structure 1 was erected 

in the early- to mid-12 th century and Structure 6 was erected in the late 14 th century. 

Their relationships to other structures in this unit and the implications of 

these dates will be discussed in Chapter 6. 

4.2.8.3 Discussion of dates from the small units 

Having expressed caution at treating dates from shell, it is worth mentioning 

that the dates show consistency and integrity. Unit 84-34, 50m to the south 

of the main unit is an area of Chicoid refuse deposits. Cittarium pica samples 

from layers 1 and 3 date to the 13 th and 14 th centuries, respectively (GrN-30531, 

GrN-30533) 

The earliest dates from the site are from two Cittarium pica samples from the 

bottom, layer 10, of the coastal unit 85-34/44. These samples (GrN-29933 and 

GrN-31416), taken in different years, show very tight and overlapping dates, 

indicating the start of the El Cabo dating sequence to be somewhere around the 

early- to mid-7 th century AD. If we exclude the early El Barrio dates, these are 

the earliest Late Ceramic dates for the region. A third date on crab claws from 

the same level gave a much later, early 10 th century date. Rather than being a 

discrepancy due to the dating of different materials, this sample is probably from 

a later feature, dug into earlier midden deposits. The crab claws are associated 

with the deposition of an upturned ceramic vessel associated with a burial feature. 

This indirectly dates the burial to the early-10 th century. 

An early-13 th century date from a burnt post in the 2×4m unit (85-04) also 

accords with the Chicoid ceramics found (as well as earlier styles) in this unit. 

The late date shows that the Chicoid habitation area was not confined to the 

bedrock, but also made use of the sandy deposits in the northern portion of the 

site. This has implications for the spatial extent of the late-phase site. This date 

shows that the northern part of the site has not only some of the earliest, but 

also some of the latest dates. 

The earliest date from 75-26-62 is from a Cittarium pica shell from layer 12, 

the deepest (cultural) layer of this unit (GrN-31413). It is a slightly younger 

7 th century date than the two dates from the deepest levels of the coastal unit 

discussed above. Two more dates from layer 9 of this unit overlap (GrN-31412 

and 31414). 

Finally, a ninth century date from a Cittarium pica shell from layer 4 of 85- 

31 (GrN-30532), overlaps with the shell date from the main unit a few metres 

to the south (GrN-29932). 

4.2.9 Small unit excavations 

The aim of the small units, the majority 2×2m, was threefold: to obtain stratigraphic 

data, to sample the archaeological remains, and to test for presence/absence 

of features. 99 This can be seen as a procedure between coring and excavating 

a large unit, i.e. it gives the qualitative information of excavation and the 

spatial information from coring. 

99 Seeing as feature density in the large unit ranged from >0.5 to >2.5 features per m², units of 4m² 

were deemed sufficiently large to reveal the presence or absence of features in even areas of light 

feature density. 


Unit (SW coords) m2 No. of features Ceramic type Year 

excavated 

Special finds 

74-36-42 4 0 Pending 2007 Cream disc-shaped bead, elliptical Strombus pendant 

74-42-28 3 0 Pending 2007 

74-42-28 1 0 Pending 2006 Part of a coral micro-trigonolith 



74-98-94 1 0 Chicoid 2005 

75-26-62 4 1 Ostionoid/Chicoid? 2007 Tubular stone bead, Strombus teeth inlay 

75-33-69 1 4 Ostionoid 2005 

75-92-70 1 2 Ostionoid 2005 

83-29-60 4 0 Pending 2006 Coral micro-trigonolith 


84-17-03 4 2 Pending 2006 Two halves of a sandstone phallus-shaped object/dagolito 



84-33-00 4 2 Pending 2006 Stone earplug 





84-39-09 1 3 Chicoid 2005 


84-59-00 4 4 Chicoid 2006 

84-59-50 4 5 Chicoid 2006 

04-04-85 8 14 Ostionoid/Chicoid 2005 Chicoid body stamp 

05-07-85 4 0 Ostionoid 2005 

85-27-00 4 0 disturbed 2005 

85-31-00 4 7 2006 Incised bone earplug, three Strombus pendants with frog-leg 

motif, bell-shaped Strombus pendant 

85-31-08 6 14 Ostionoid/Chicoid 2007 

85-34-80 4 7 Ostionoid/Chicoid 2007 Two shell pendants, Chama sarda bead, nacreous teeth inlay, 

three coral and stone microtrigonolitos, Strombus bead, quartz 

earplug, young female burial, burnt post 

85-41-08 4 14 Ostionoid/Chicoid 2007 Piece of stone collar, Strombus key adornment 

85-44-00 1 3 Ostionoid/Chicoid 2005 Boat-shaped vessel, diorite bead 

TOTAL 111 110 

Table 3. Overview of El Cabo 

smaller units, size, number of 

features, ceramic components, 

 

In total 31 smaller units ranging from 1m² to 8m² were excavated in addition 

to the main unit (Table 3 and Fig. 38). As described in Section 4.2.8.3, smaller 

units were excavated in arbitrary layers of 10cm and the excavated material wet 

screened through a 4mm sieve. All artefacts were selected in the field and given 

separate find numbers. The majority of the units were 2×2m. One square in 

each 2×2m unit was generally designated a sample square and all artefacts and 

ecofacts were collected in the field (lithics, bone, coral, shell, ceramics). Bulk 

botanical samples were also taken from some units. 

To summarise the general picture from these smaller units, it is worth noting 

that two closely spaced units in zone 75 in the northwest of the site (75-26 

and 33) and two adjacent units in zone 85 on the coast to the northeast (85-34 

and 44) were the most interesting in terms of their deep, undisturbed stratigraphies. 

These two units had multiple archaeological layers which supplied seven 

radiocarbon samples (Section 4.2.8.3). Moreover, they dated the earliest levels of 


125

07 

27 

26 

5 

733 92 

04 

34 

83544 44 

31 

41 

31 

53 

52 62 

51 61 

30 40 

50 

60 

09 

29 39 49 59 

69 

98 

28 

38 

36 

4 742 93 

96 

17 

37 

36 56 

834 

334 

0 20 40 

29 

metres 

Figure 38. Overview of small 

excavated units (black). 

Italicised sector numbers indicate 

those units with archaeological 

features. 

the site and provided the bulk of the early and late Ostionoid ceramic material. 

These ceramics have been characterized by St. Jean (2008a, 2008b) as plain, simply-shaped 

functional vessels with some variation in lip form and very occasional 

decorative elements such as adornos and striped black-and-grey bands of paint. 

Most of the other units had much shallower, undifferentiated or disturbed stratigraphies. 

I will begin with a description of these two units first to give context to 

the site and thereafter summarise the stratigraphy and features in the rest of the 

units grouping them per zone. It should be noted that only preliminary results 

are available from the analysis of the material from these units and therefore 

determinations of what is early Ostionoid and late Ostionoid, as well as where 

they occur mixed with Chicoid are preliminary observations made in the field 

and may be revised in the future. 


4.2.9.1 Units in zone 75 

Units 75-33-69 and 75-26-62 100 were dug in an area of raised midden deposits in 

the northwestern periphery of the site. This is an area of heavy looting. The dry 

conditions in this area of the site have made the soil very crumbly and hamper 

visibility. Seven 10cm layers were excavated in unit 75-33-69, which was then 

investigated down to the bedrock layer with the hand auger due to the powdery 

nature of the soil. The larger size (2×2m) of 75-26-62, 20 metres to the north, 

on the edge of a looter’s pit, enabled excavation down to bedrock. In both units 

seven stratigraphic layers were observed. In 75-33-69 the bedrock was at a depth 

of 1.40m bsl, in 75-26-62, at 1.20m bsl. 

In both units, archaeological layers 3 to 6 were clearly midden deposits with 

lots of shell and burned stones. In 75-26-62 (Fig. 39) an ashy concentration in 

archaeological layer 5 may have been the remains of a hearth. Distinctions in 

the dry midden packet were hard to observe. Early and late materials were to a 

large extent mixed in these units. The bedrock at the bottom was hard, horizontal 

and homogenous (no dipping like in the main unit). Radiocarbon samples 

were taken from archaeological layers 3, 4 and 5. A Cittarium pica shell from 

the deepest archaeological layer (3) gave a date of AD 626-690 (GrN-31413). 101 

A charcoal and a Cittarium pica from the layers (4 and 5) above this layer gave 

dates of AD 684-887 (GrN-31412, charcoal) and AD 876-1025 (GrN-31414, 

shell). 102 This can be summarized as deposition beginning halfway through the 

7 th century AD, continuing (interrupted or smooth) throughout the 8 th , 9 th and 

10 th centuries. The mechanical mixing of this material higher up, so that earlier 

and later ceramics occur together, appears to be a result of mixing in the past 

rather than later, looter activity. 

 

75-26. Legend: (1) bedrock; (2) 

 

(3) ibid. midden layer with 

some ceramics and faunal 

remains; (4) midden layer, 

more humic sandy soil with 

faunal and ceramic remains, 

some charcoal and ash; (5) 

ibid. midden layer with 

abundant remains, especially 

shell, ash and burnt stones; 

(6) ibid. midden layer with 

darker sandy soil and roots; 

(7) humic soil with ceramics, 

faunal remains and vegetation. 

Radiocarbon samples taken 

from layers 3, 4 and 5. 

N 

2 

4 

3 

6 

7 

2 

5 

1 

S 

10 cm 

100 In the area referred to by us as the “donkey field” which is a coconut grove, on the western side 

of the track running into the village. 

101 Two standard deviations, corrected for the marine reservoir effect. 

102 Ibid. 


127

Lastly in zone 75, but the first to be excavated, was unit 75-92-70 103 , placed 

in clear raised midden mounds, next to the village school, near the presumed 

locus of one of the two test-pits excavated by the Museo del Hombre (Ortega 

1978a). This unit was excavated to a depth of approximately 100 cm. A brownish-red 

ceramic type was encountered in all layers, and was particularly dense in 

layers 4 and 5 (40-60 cm bsl) as well as abundant marine faunal remains. Two 

possible basin-shaped features, both shallow, were encountered between layers 8 

and 9 (80-100 cm bsl). 

Preliminary investigation of the ceramics indicate that this unit contained 

only Ostionoid material. 


Two coastal units on the other side in the northeast of the site also produced 

informative profiles. A 1×1m unit (85-44-00) 104 made in 2005 was enlarged in 

2007 by placing a 2×2m unit, 85-34, adjacent to it. Both units were excavated 

to depths of approximately 100 cm. The soils contained dense midden material 

(e.g., faunal remains, charcoal, ceramics, lithics, coral) interspersed with layers 

of stones and shell. 14C samples from the bottom layer of both units revealed 

dates from the 6 th century (Section 4.2.3), the earliest dates from the site. In 85- 

44, a clear distinction was seen in the ceramic styles with a Chicoid component 

in the upper layers, and an earlier Ostionoid component from 40 to 50 cm bsl, 

mixed with large amounts of faunal remains, down to the bottom of the excavations. 

The earliest layer with Chicoid ceramics, 30 to 40cm bsl, gave a 9 th century 

date (AD 729-938, GrN-31415). It seems that these two components overlap 

between 40 and 60 cm bsl. By 60cm bsl, plain red pottery, the sherds smaller and 

more fragmented, is the only type present and from 70cm bsl an area of concentrated 

faunal remains was encountered, particularly land snail shells. In this layer 

the soil is very dark brown, almost black. A near-complete, boat-shaped vessel 

was encountered, inverted, at 80-90 cm bsl, protruding out of the west wall, as 

well as a concentration of faunal remains including crab claws (Fig. 40). This 

feature was a later intrusion as it dated to the 10 th century. 

Under this was another shallow layer of yellow/brown sand and a possible 

feature level (90-100 cm bsl). Although when sectioned, the features appeared 

shallow and the bedrock, which was also encountered in this layer, was not 

modified. 

Figure 40. Boat-shaped vessel 

 

unit 85-44-00. The vessel is 

inverted in a midden layer. 

103 In the 2005 report this unit is referred to as test-pit 1. 

104 In the 2005 report this unit is referred to as “test-pit 2”. 


85-34. Legend: (1) bedrock; 

 

sand with larger granular 

inclusions; (2b) ibid., more 

brownish; (3) sand with organic 

component, some charcoal; 

(4) ibid., coarse midden 

deposit, land and marine shell, 

land crab, ceramics, charcoal, 

coarse inclusions; (5) ibid., 

ibid., 

 

abundant land crab; (7) yel- 

 

less material, “sterile”; (8a) 

 

midden deposit, with layered 

patches of charcoal; (8b) 

ibid., but less dense; (9) as 8 

but more mixed; (10) humic 

topsoil. 

S 

10 cm 

8b 

6 

Feature ? 

7 

5 

The reasons for excavating yet another unit in the same spot in 2007 (85-34- 

80) were to re-document the stratigraphy on the coast given our greater knowledge 

of the site, to take more radiocarbon samples and to test an area with 

high thermomagnetic resonance from the geophysics campaigns. In addition, 

it would help to resolve whether the find of the boat-shaped vessel in the west 

profile in layer 9 of 85-44 was an isolated find or related to another feature. It 

turned out that the vessel was probably associated with a burial (F06) in this unit 

of a crouched, articulated, young female. 105 

The burial pit was a subcircular pit excavated in the bed/beachrock, about 

80cm in diameter and 60cm deep. The borders of the bottom of the burial pit 

gave way to yellow sand. The boat-shaped vessel was placed on this beachrock 

layer next to the grave pit, its location suggesting association with the burial feature. 

Unfortunately, its precise relationship cannot be determined seeing as these 

features were excavated in different seasons. Nevertheless, a tentative dating of 

the burial feature to the 10 th century may be suggested from the crab remains 

from the contents of the vessel (GrN-29934). In addition to this feature, three 

other features were excavated in the unit (F03, 04, 05). F03 appeared to be an irregular 

pit with midden fill, F04 smaller with a lot of charcoal (burnt post?) and 

F05 a posthole with postmold and charcoal. Profile drawings made of the west 

profile, accord well with profile drawings of the east and north profiles made in 

85-44-00. 

To summarise, the profile in Fig. 41 consists of two clear midden packets full 

of faunal remains, ceramics, charcoal and ash, separated by a layer of fine, almost 

sterile sand about 10-15cm thick. These layers are deposited on top of an uneven 

beachrock/bedrock matrix into which features have been cut. The midden packet 

below “sterile” archaeological layer 7 is all early. Above this, mixed Chicoid 

and Ostionoid deposits occur. Again this potentially indicates earth movement 

in antiquity, in the later Chicoid occupation phase. 

An important unit in the northern central part of the site was 85-04-04 (Fig. 

42). This was excavated as a 2×4m unit after an auger test revealed an ashy layer 

with charcoal at a depth of 70 cm bsl. The feature layer became visible as stains 

or darker areas in a yellowish calcareous beachrock approximately 30 cm bsl. 

9 

2b 

4 

8a 

3 

2a 

Sterile sand continues 

10 

1 

N 

105 Pers comm. Dr Raphaël Panhuysen. 


129

Figure 42. Photograph and 

plan drawing of 85-04-04 

(2×4m) showing the dark 

features clearly visible in the 

sandy matrix. 

Above this was a packet of dark brown clayey soil, with few artefacts. The semicemented 

to hard, (relatively) thin, calcareous hardpan may have been formed 

in recent times, and was interpreted by Ortega (1978a) as a house floor. What at 

first appeared as irregular features, presented themselves as highly regular, circular 

features only a few centimetres beneath the hardpan surface. 

All the features had very sharp, regular boundaries and rounded bottoms, 

consistent with their interpretation as anthropogenic features (Fig. 43). They 

could not be interpreted as having resulted from natural agency. The fill of the 

features exhibited varying degrees of brown/yellow-coloured soil and varying 

proportions of sand and clay. Many features appeared to have been cut through 

a partly- to fully consolidated cemented layer of beach rock, although this may 

have formed around the features as carbonate rich water percolated through the 

sand and gravel whilst posts and pits were in situ. Ceramic sherds, as well as marine 

fauna and some charcoal were found in the majority of the features. This 

area of the site merits further investigation, as the feature layer is intact. The 

artefact layer has been looted and disturbed in parts, but this is mainly confined 

to the raised midden areas. 

Figure 43. Example of posthole 

features in 85-04. Note the 

very clear feature boundaries. 

The feature on the right was 

 

of the unit. 


Over 12 (of a total of 14) of these features were interpreted as postholes the 

dimensions of which ranged between ca. 20 to 40 cm in diameter and ca. 30 to 

50 cm in depth. In addition the unit contained a feature interpreted as a post 

burnt in situ (F01) as well as two pits, the fills of which showed evidence of 

burning. A charcoal sample from the post remains was dated to AD 1164-1271 

(GrN-29931). 106 Moreover, the eastern border of the feature was demarcated by 

a large stone slab placed on end, possibly a packing stone to support the post. A 

fragment of Chicoid pottery, part of a body stamp, came from the upper layers 

of the fill of F01. 

The stratigraphies of units 85-27-00 and 85-07-05, the most northeasterly 

units, appeared heavily disturbed by looters. There are, however, pre-Columbian 

deposits and potentially also features in this part of the site. 

Three units were excavated in zone 85 in the southerly transitional area of 

this unit, west of the main unit (85-31-00, 85-31-08 and 85-41). This area 

is transitional in several respects: geomorphologically it is a zone of transition 

from shallow bedrock to deeper deposits. It is chronologically and stylistically 

transitional also, as it marks the southern border of the earlier, Ostionoid, raised 

midden deposits, to the south of which the predominantly Chicoid material 

occurs. All three units revealed relatively shallow stratigraphies but multiple archaeological 

layers. The idea behind these units was to link the excavations in 

the main unit to gain greater insight into where and how the transition between 

the late occupation area and the earlier and mixed deposits occurred. All three 

units revealed a high density of features (1.75-3.5 p/m²) cut into the underlying 

bedrock, as in the main unit. 

Unit 85-31-00 was excavated in four 10cm layers. A possible house floor represented 

by a circular area of ashy deposits was encountered in layer 2. The rest 

were posthole features cut into the bedrock, as well as a relatively high number 

of Strombus adornments such as three pendants with frog-leg motif. 

Unit 85-31-08 (Fig. 44) was enlarged to 2×3m to incorporate a burial feature, 

a crouched adult inhumation in an oval pit cut into the bedrock (F01). 

Two ceramic clusters were also encountered (F02 and F03) and the rest of the 

F13 

F09 

F08 

F07 

F05 

F06 

F01 

F14 

F10 

F04 

F03 

F02 

Figure 44. Plan drawing of 

unit 85-31-08. 

F11 

F12 

1m 

106 Two standard deviations. 


131

14 features were interpreted as postholes of varying sizes. The ceramic clusters 

were large sherds, lying flat and represent in situ vessels rather than mixed midden 

deposits. These are the kinds of features we potentially miss when excavating 

squares with a shovel. The ceramic concentrations were resting on soil platforms 

on top of the bedrock. 

Unit 85-41-08 revealed 14 features cut into the bedrock. A piece of a stone 

collar also came from square 8, layer 1of this unit – a slender type with projection 

and signs of secondary reuse as a hammering tool. On inspection it looks as 

if it is made from the same metamorphic greenish stone as the two pieces from 

2005/2006, although it is far more heavily used. 

The only other units excavated in zone 85 were to test the origins of areas of 

high thermomagnetic resonance. Two small units (1×1m) were excavated during 

spring 2007. The first contained a large piece of rusted metal in the first two layers. 

The second was fully excavated down to the bedrock where it was seen in the 

profile that a large feature, the width of the unit, cut through all layers from the 

top to the bottom. The fill of this feature was loose and contained, among a few 

pre-Columbian sherds and faunal remains, also many small pieces of corroded 

iron. These pieces were the origin of the thermomagnetic signals. Doubtless the 

features belonged to the hardwood loading bay which Belto Villa told us was 

indeed in this location. 


A collection of 12 units were excavated in zone 84 in an area of predominantly 

Chicoid material. Here the geomorphology was variable (bedrock to sand) but 

predominantly shallow (surface to 40cm bsl) and most of the units contained 

posthole features. 107 

The karst matrix became increasingly crumbly towards the west (84-29 to 

09), in contrast to the relatively solid bedding planes to the east, up to the coast. 

In the zone adjacent, 74, the bedrock was again hard, homogenous and shallow. 

The geomorphology is similarly variable towards the south. Unit 84-37-00 to 

the south of the larger trench consists of beachrock below humic layers. Natural 

crevices and pockets in the natural matrix were often hard to distinguish from 

anthropogenic features, especially in areas where the underlying geomorphology 

was less compact (Fig. 45). The single feature in 84-09-00 for example was 

Figure 45. Unit 84-28-22, 

showing the uneven variability 

of the underlying bedrock. 

Note only one anthropogenic 

feature was distinguished from 

all the natural crevices in this 

unit, centre top. 

107 Three of these smaller units (84-39-09, 84-59-00 and 84-59-50) were later incorporated into the 

main unit and will not be discussed here. 


Figure 46. Plan drawing of 

unit 74-93-00. 

identifiable in the profile 

wall of the unit, but not 

F12 

in plan view. 108 Features 

were therefore only identified 

as such using rigorous 

F11 

F10 

criteria (regularity 

and resemblance to other 

features). 

F09 

F08 F07 

No features were 

F06 

identified in units 84- 

34-05, 84-37-03 or 84- 

F05 

56-00. The remaining 

F04 

units revealed a number 

F01 

of postholes features, 

like those in the larger 

F03 

excavated area (Table 3). 

F02 

Accumulations of domestic 

1m 

refuse were en- 

countered in many of the 

units including 84-34 

(four layers), 84-37 (three layers), 84-17 (four layers) and 84-09 (two layers), 

as well as in 84-59-00 and 84-59-50 (two layers, later part of the main unit). 

These accumulations did not equate to midden mounds, but rather toss zones 

or sweeping accumulations on the periphery of living/activity areas. 109 Such differential 

spacing of the features indicates multiple house clusters across this part 

of the site. This will be discussed further in Chapter 6 together with the results 

of the surface survey. 


No features were encountered in the two most southwesterly site units (74-36 

and 42). 110 These units were placed on the eastern flank of a natural elevated 

mound, the western flank of which forms the western limits of the site in this 

area. Neither were any features encountered in the 1×1m unit 74-98-94, excavated 

in 2005. Exclusively Chicoid ceramics were encountered in the fill of this 

unit. The two other units in this zone, 74-93-00 (Fig. 46) and 74-96-00, contained 

12 features each, cut into irregular bedrock. 


The southernmost unit 83-29-60 was excavated to a depth of approximately 

40cm bsl. The fill was light and sandy with negligible archaeological material and 

no features. This is also the point at which surface material is no longer present 

in the south of the site. This is accepted as the southern limit of the site. 

108 This unit has a similar geomorphology to that encountered in the 2×4m unit 85-04-04. Here 

features were only clearly visible a few centimeters below the level of the beachrock formation. 

This would probably be the case in 84-09-00 also if larger units were opened. 

109 Something seen more widely across the southern part of the site (Section 6.6). 

110 Both were 2×2m units, 74-42-28 being increased from a 1m² in 2005 to a 4m² unit in 2006. 


133

0 5 10 

metres 

4.2.10 Main unit excavation methodology and features 

The main unit, an area of 1030m² with a perimeter of 190m, was excavated by 

hand between 2005 and 2008. The decision to excavate here was based on the 

dense clustering of features excavated in 2005 and the almost exclusive presence 

of Boca Chica pottery suggesting that this area belonged to the latest phase of 

occupation. The unit occupies the highest part of the raised coastal promontory 

of El Cabo. In total some 2100 features were documented and used in reconstructions. 

The quality and visibility of the features in the bedrock is unparalleled 

in the Caribbean (Fig. 47). 

4.2.10.1 Excavation methodology 

Excavation progressed from the westernmost sector, 29 (Fig. 48), towards the 

coast, and thereafter extended northwards, as this was where the features were 

densest. 

Figure 47. Plan drawing of the 

El Cabo main unit. Grey areas 

are archaeological features cut 

into the bedrock, level 1. The 

solid lines are features - either 

 

of burning. The solid line 

marking the eastern boundary 

of the unit is the coastline. 

The dashed line in the north of 

the unit is a modern wooden 

fence. 


30 40 

Figure 48. Schematic overview 

of the El Cabo main unit sector 

numbers (in black, zone 

numbers in white). 

Figure 49. Sector being divided 

with elastic into 1×1m 

squares. 

53 

84 84 84 84 84 

85 

The methodology employed in excavation of the main unit was as 

follows: each sector (10×10m) was divided into 1m units (squares) and 

elastic strung between the squares for reference (Fig. 49). 

Excavation of the find layer generally took place in a checkerboard 

fashion (i.e. alternate squares), in two stages: First a shoveller removed 

the bulk of the soil into buckets and seeing that there were no distinguishable 

layers in the packet of soil above the bedrock in this area, this 

was excavated in 10cm increments (Fig. 50). 

All material from each square was carried to the sieves on the edge of 

the unit, and the sieve reside selected (shell, stone, bone, coral, ceramics, 

as described in Chapter 3), bagged and given a unique find number 

(Fig. 51). Certain special finds were point-plotted with the TS. 

After bedrock had been reached, a troweller took over the task of 

cleaning the square, removing most of 

the soil from the bedrock crevices in 

order to reveal potential features. The 

top few centimetres of material was removed 

to make these visible (Fig. 52). 

Once the bulk of material had been 

removed from the squares, fieldworkers 

“cleaned” the feature level, the 

52 62 

85 85 

51 61 

85 85 

50 60 

85 85 85 85 

29 39 49 59 69 

Figure 50. Checkerboard excavation 

in progress. Note the 

variability of the depth of the 

 

right and left hand photos. 

Figure 51. Sieving and the selection 

of material from sieve. 

Figure 52. Systematic cleaning 

of the bedrock (left) and 

cleaned expanse of bedrock 

(right), clearly revealing circular 

posthole features (some 

already excavated). 


135

Figure 53. Excavation of 

features, sometime requiring 

uncomfortable excavating 

positions! 

Figure 54. “Poking” features 

to take depth. 

bedrock, systematically trowelling in lines from the coast (i.e. the direction of 

the prevailing wind). This stage was crucial to uncover all potential features in 

the bedrock (Fig. 52). 

Features were excavated per fill without sectioning (for explanation see 

Section 4.2 and Hofman et al. 2005), but with attention to fill characteristics 

and changes in fill. Given the depth and narrowness of most of the features, this 

was often difficult work, consisting of literally spooning out the contents, comparing 

it against a soil sample (to note eventual changes), and hoping the bottom 

would be reached before it got too deep (Fig. 53)! 111 Fills were dry sieved on site 

and bagged in the field without further selection (unlike for layer 1). Again, if 

spotted, diagnostic artefacts were split from the residue in the field. 

Features which were not excavated, i.e. 75%, were probed for depth, and 

their diameters recorded. This was done using a surprisingly effective “poking” 

method, whereby a reinforcing steel rod was used as a depth probe and pushed 

into the centre of each feature (Fig. 54), as far down as the bedrock – which 

made a distinctive sound in contact with the bottom of the rod, unlike contact 

with sand, soil or stones. In this way all features were recorded for depth and 

diameter. Those with anomalous (i.e. shallow or variable) depths were excavated. 

Often they proved to have a very stony fill, or be multiple features. 112 Excavated 

features were documented on feature forms (Fig. 55). 

4.2.10.2 Description of the find layer 

The find layer in the main unit consisted of a top layer of scrub and grazed vegetation, 

with humic soil containing archaeological remains underneath, forming 

a covering of varying thickness on top of bedrock (Fig. 56). This shallow packet 

is the artefact layer, living floor and material from the last ca. 1300 years collapsed 

into 10-20 cm. The deposits above the bedrock generally formed a thin 

covering with no stratigraphical distinction. Thus, the majority of squares were 

excavated in only one or two (10cm) layers, and sometimes, where there was no 

or negligible material (i.e. the last two or three metres along the coast), not at 

all. Very occasionally a third layer was necessary (i.e. 20-30cm bsl). Second and 

third layers represented denser sweeping accumulations. This was, however, all 

one archaeological event as no separate archaeological layers were recognized. 

It is clear that despite the shallow and superficial nature of the archaeological 

deposits, the archaeological remains are relatively intact, meaning that no 

significant deterioration or landscaping activities have occurred. For example, 

111 Local children found this fun work and invented ingenious tools from plastic bottles, sticks and 

bits of string they found on the beach. These were often more effective than the soup ladles we 

brought from the Netherlands. 

112 In general, and with the exception of some of the larger features, the agreement was good between 

poked depths and excavated depths. Naturally excavated depths are the most reliable, and 

this was used wherever possible. 


Figure 55. Documenting 

excavated features on feature 

forms, and detail of feature 

cluster. 

in areas related to the latest phase of habitation in the unit, large sherds from 

the same vessels occurred together in the same or adjacent squares. Elsewhere in 

the unit, certain artefacts stood out from the general accumulations of sweeping 

remains and were associated with particular structures while charcoal and burnt 

stones were found associated with burnt features. Results presented in Chapter 6 

from the artefact distributions elaborate on this and show that spatial information 

from layer 1 is representative of indigenous activities. 

 

of a “typical” square in the 

main unit showing: (1) limestone 

bedrock, dipping ca. 45º 

west; (2) dark brown humic, 

sandy layer of varying depths 

(1-30cm bsl) with varying 

densities of faunal, ceramic 

and lithic remains; there is 

no stratigraphic distinction 

 

is all related to one (cumulative, 

over time) event; (3) archaeological 

features cut into 

 

features is dependent on the 

abandonment process). 

4.2.10.3 The feature level 

Features associated with predominantly Chicoid ceramics were first encountered 

in the 1×1m unit 84-39-09. This area was subsequently chosen to enlarge in order 

to pursue floorplans (Fig. 57). 

Features here were hewn directly into the bedrock. The bedrock in the main 

unit consists of stacked limestone bedding dipping to the southwest. The karst 

matrix is not homogeneous and becomes increasingly loose and less compact 

towards the west (namely in 84-29), in contrast to the relatively solid bedding 

planes in the rest of the unit to the coast and north. Nowhere on the site is there 

a large expanse of homogeneity, as can be seen from the geomorphological variability 

evidenced in the smaller units. Also within the “tougher” limestone in the 

main unit, there were differing degrees of hardness. Although not subjected to 

any hardness tests, a good indication can be given by the fact that in some places 

in the main unit it was impossible to hammer an iron nail into the bedrock 

(used to attach feature numbers to the features), and sometimes a drill had to be 

used to position the iron rebars to mark the unit boundaries, especially towards 

the coast. This attracted rather than deterred the earlier inhabitants, however, 

as features were made in substrates of differing consistencies with no apparent 

favouring of softer areas. In general, one can see an explicit choice to settle the 

limestone of the lagoon deposits (as opposed to the harder coral limestone to the 

W 

10 cm 

3 

ceramic 

1 

2 shell 

3 

E 


137

south), which are spatially confined to the El Cabo promontory. This is also the 

case in Caletón Blanco and Punta Macao where similar limestone deposits were 

chosen for settlement, and where postholes were made into the bedrock. 

Site formation processes often obliterate smaller features, or they may only 

be recoverable under excellent conditions of preservation. In the bedrock of El 

Cabo, however, even slight modification of the bedrock leaves clear impressionsand 

features less than 5cm in diameter are nevertheless unmistakable. The unevenness 

of the bedrock surface, below the topsoil, made for a very high labour/ 

time intensive excavation. This was more than compensated by the permanent 

and unmistakable anthropogenic nature of the features. 

In 2005, all features in the main unit were fully excavated, drawn and photographed. 

This was an important process to become acquainted with the characteristics 

of the features in the site, to be able to distinguish anthropogenic 

actions from natural solution pockets and depressions, and to understand the 

range of variability in physical appearance, construction, type and fill. 113 This 

gave us a large sample from which to make decisions about future selections for 

excavation. 

Over the next seasons, different sampling strategies for selecting features for 

excavation were used. However, as more surface area was uncovered, associations 

between features became visible and structures were recognised both in the field 

Figure 57. Unit 84-39-09, 

where posthole features cut 

 

encountered. 

113 Many questions were posed by ourselves and visitors to the site over the years as to the origin of 

the features in the bedrock, and especially whether they were anthropogenic, i.e. human-made, 

or not. The erosive action of water in a karst environment produces equally regular holes and 

shafts in bedrock (see Section 3.3 on geology). Toolmarks and other manufacturing evidence as 

well as their incorporation as structural elements into built houses of course provide the ultimate 

arguments against this. Growing familiarity with the features led us to discard several “natural” 

features in later years. However, use of natural holes and depressions to support posts is also 

witnessed in the unit, and therefore many of these “natural” holes were later reinstated when 

there was a functional reason to do so. 


and through desk analysis. We were then able to excavate a selection 

of features per structure and sample per structure for the potential 

presence of charcoal for dating. 114 

Hence, an isolated structure and relatively low feature density in 

84-59 led us to continue excavating right to the edge of the cliff in 

an effort to understand the relationship between the circular structures 

and the more linear configurations of features visible on the 

exposed rock of the cliff edge. An “empty” strip of about two to 

three metres separated the features of the circular structures from 

features along the edge of the cliff (Fig. 58). In much of this area 

material was not collected as the bedrock was either exposed or covered 

by unstable aeolian sand. 

In 2008, we took advantage of this situation, and cleaned the 

bedrock in the already exposed area on the highest part of the promontory 

in order to expose more features and the rest of a structure 

uncovered in 2007. Time consuming sieving was not required as 

there was no intact find layer. 

Figure 58. The boundary 

between postholes related to 

circular structures (by seated 

 

free strip (by standing group), 

and beyond them, on the coast, 

a few (not visible) features. 

4.2.10.4 Metric and physical properties of the features 

Almost 25% (ca. 495 features) were fully excavated in the main 

unit. However, metric information was recorded for all of the features. Features 

varied in depth from 2 to 116cm, and in diameter from 4 to 72cm. A total of 

99% of all features are interpreted as postholes; negative features, deeper than 

they are wide, made for sinking wooden posts into. A few postholes still contained 

the remains of burnt posts and in some postholes, postmolds (stains left 

in the section of the posthole indicating the former presence of a post) were visible. 

The remaining features are a small number (n=6) of pits, two depositions of 

human remains, two burnt patches, several natural depressions (which may have 

been used to support posts), and a number of features which we were unable 

to positively identify as anthropogenic, but which may have supported posts. 

Features were interpreted as postholes on the basis of metric and morphologic 

considerations: the regularity of their plans at point of entry into the bedrock, 

the regularity of the inner walls, cross-section and the regularity of the diameter/ 

depth ratio (Fig. 62). Later on in the excavation process, as more square metres 

were laid bare, functional and spatial considerations became a more obvious 

factor in interpretation: most features were incorporated as structural elements, 

postholes, in built structures (see Chapter 5). 

As can be seen from Fig. 60, 90% of all postholes are equal to or less than 

54cm deep. Over 50% are between 10 and 25cm deep. The tail of the histogram 

contains a significant number of postholes (over 200) however that are deeper 

than 55cm. Depths naturally break into classes 2-9cm, 10-25cm, 26-42cm, and 

43-116cm deep. 

114 In 2006 it was decided to excavate the last row (row 90) in each sector, i.e. a 10% sample. 

Additionally, features for excavation were selected on the basis of size (> 30cm diameter, assuming 

the largest postholes would have belonged to the main load-bearing posts, and the relationships 

between these main posts important for distinguishing between structures), anomalous 

characteristics and irregularity in plan view. In 2007 we were able to recognize multiple circular 

structures in the field and to investigate their configurations, both internal and external. 


139

Figure 59. Overview of main 

unit excavation in 2006 (note 

the looser consistency of the 

bedrock in the near picture). 

White objects are feature labels 

 

The distribution curve is even tighter for posthole diameters (Fig. 61). Ninety 

percent of all postholes are equal to or less than 25cm in diameter. Over 50% are 

between 10 and 16cm in diameter. This means that the majority of postholes are 

relatively slim poles. Diameter classes naturally break into are 4-9cm, 10-16cm, 

17-33cm and 34-69cm in width. 

From the distribution of and correlations between the depths and diameters 

of the features, we can characterise the overwhelming majority of features as 

slim, shallow postholes. The fact that the dimensions are relatively small has 

much to do with the visibility of the features in the bedrock matrix, but it is 

also an accurate representation of real building practices and proportions of the 

building material selected. This latter is a “real” category of postholes which corresponds 

to a specific function. This function corresponds to the most common 

Figure 60. (left) Histogram 

showing the frequency of posthole 

depths in 3cm intervals. 

Figure 61. (right) Histogram 

showing the frequency of 

posthole diameters in 2cm 

intervals. 

250 

200 

Mean = 26.74 

Std. Dev. = 18.141 

N =2,071 

Normal 

400 

300 

Mean =16.13 

Std. Dev. =7.217 

N =2,097 

Normal 

Frequency 

150 

100 

Frequency 

200 

50 

100 

0 

0 

20 

40 

60 

80 

100 

Depth of posthole features (cm) 

120 

0 

0 

10 20 30 40 50 

Diameter of posthole features (cm) 

60 


120 

100 

80 

Depth (cm) 

60 

40 

20 

0 

0 

20 

40 

Diameter (cm) 

60 

80 

Feature types 

Burial 

Natural 

Posthole 

Pit 

unknown 

Fit line for Total 

 

of the relationship between 

depths and diameters of all 

features in main unit. The linear 

regression line summarises 

the relationship between depth 

and diameter. 

Figure 63. (right) Histogram 

showing depth frequencies for 

postholes between 12-14cm in 

diameter. 

Figure 64. Histogram showing 

diameter frequencies for 

postholes between 10-25cm in 

depth. 

Frequency 

200 

150 

100 

50 

0 

0 

10 

20 

Diameter (cm) 

30 

40 

50 

Mean = 13.4 

Std. Dev. = 4.358 

N =1,097 

dimensions for construction timbers. The posts of the outside walls of circular 

structures fit into postholes between 12-14cm in diameter (26% of all postholes). 

Figure 63 indicates that although post diameters were relatively standardized 

(according to function, see Chapter 5) the depths vary within these categories. 

Most are between 15-20cm in depth, but range from 4 to 47cm. 

If one does the same with diameter frequencies for posthole depths between 

10-25cm (50% of all postholes, i.e. a larger class than for the diameters, 26%), 

then one sees that there is much less variation, and that the standard deviation 

from the mean is smaller than for the diameter frequencies for a smaller class 

(Fig. 64). 

This suggests branches or timbers of a standardized thickness (ca. 10cm) were 

preferred, and the postholes were executed to accommodate them. Although 

depths are strongly correlated to diameter, the larger standard deviation suggests 

either the depth was less crucial (because the bedrock provided ample support 

after a certain critical depth?), or, as we shall see in the next chapter, because 

depth correlates not only to diameter, but also with another factor: the position 

of a post within a structure. Taken altogether, 

however, the average ratio of diameter to 

depth is 1:1.6. 

Unlike Golden Rock, where 60cm had to 

be added to the height of the excavation level 

to compensate for deterioration of the original 

living floor (Schinkel 1992:145), in El Cabo 

we can be confident that the feature excavation 

level, level 1, is also the original living 

floor level and that by and large excavated feature 

depths are real depths. 115 

Base shapes of the postholes tend to be 

round to cone-shaped, with larger features 

having gentler, flatter bottoms and smaller 

ones, more sharp terminations (Fig. 65). Baseshape 

however was not considered particularly 

diagnostic, as the distinctions between the 

115 In Golden Rock, 60% of the posthole features were between 1-26cm below excavation level. In 

actual fact this means the features were reconstructed as being 61-86cm deep. 


141

Unexcavated 

Round 

Cone-shaped 

F lat-bottomed 

Irregular 

Square 

Figure 65. Pie-chart showing 

the relative frequencies of base 

shapes of posthole features. 

shapes were not sharp, and many postholes shared similar forms, presenting 

themselves as regular cylinders. The bodies of many of the larger postholes billowed 

or flared halfway down their lengths, so that their tops and bottoms were 

slightly narrower. 

The control and skill exercised in manufacturing the features can be seen 

from a number of their characteristics. Firstly, they are all executed with a high 

degree of regularity. This is regardless of the hardness of the matrix into which 

they were dug. Secondly, the tool marks visible on the inside walls of many of 

the features show that they were made with controlled and sustained movements. 

Tool marks, if visible, appeared as vertical chiselling on the walls and 

edges of the holes (like inverted, fluted Doric columns), but sometimes a pecked 

technique was used. This was observable on both large and very small features 

(Fig. 66). Some of the vertical chiselling runs in parallel lines from the top to 

the bottom of sometimes very deep features with no visible break. This gives the 

impression that they were sawn. Thirdly, there is evidence for very few mistakes 

in the negative architecture of the habitation area – such things as tool slippages, 

incorrect placement of the hole, etc. are hardly ever observed. When features 

were placed close to each other, the thin walls between them were preserved all 

the length of the feature, again evidencing knowledge of how to work the bedrock 

and if the posts were no longer there, knowledge of the position of former 

posts. In general, posts would have fitted snugly into these holes with minimal 

room for lateral movement. The relative absence of packing stones in all but the 

larger postholes seems to support this (although see below on the evidence from 

burnt posts). 

Elsewhere in the Caribbean (Golden Rock and Tutu), holster-formed postholes 

were dug out to ease manoeuvring of posts into the holes. Here, the inhabitants 

of El Cabo preferred to make the most of the natural, solid and strong 

properties of the bedrock, and make the postholes as constricted as possible to 

benefit from the natural supportive properties of the bedrock. The native technology 

appears to be light framed with good foundations. 

As already noted, in many cases the smaller and larger postholes have evidence 

of tool marks. The most obvious of these can be observed as closely spaced 

vertical to diagonal grooves down the length of the feature’s wall. Lithic and 

coral tools approximating the size and shape of the grooves were recovered from 

a number of the test-pits, although it remains speculative whether such implements 

were used to manufacture postholes. A rougher finish in some of the 

features may result from hand-pecking rather than from a pick-and-coa (digging 

stick) technique, although the roughness could equally result from erosive 

processes. Experimental tests would shed light on how the postholes may have 

been produced. 


Figure 66. A selection of 

posthole features with visible 

toolmarks on their interior 

walls. This is visible on large 

(right and left) and small (centre) 

features alike. The three 

features on the left evidence 

chiselling-type marks, whereas 

that on the right appears more 

pecked. 

E 

10cm 

Figure 67. Here the posthole 

(84-29-F21) falls between two 

bedding planes, hence the east- 

 

position than the western wall. 

The maximum depth (i.e. on 

the eastern wall) was recorded 

for all feautures. 

W 

10cm 

x 

x 

x 

Figure 68. Posthole features 

 

each other. Such “double” 

postholes are quite common. 

The smaller is not a support 

element however, as generally, 

the two features belong to different 

structures. 

x 

x 

W 

x 

E 

It is clear that the indigenous population did not take account of the jagged 

micro-topography of the bedrock when deciding where to place postholes, but 

worked to a pre-defined idea about the desired structure. This can be seen from 

the fact that features occur between beds, on peaks, in troughs and some of the 

smaller features consist of toolmarks on the side of a bed where the limestone has 

been modified, but not dug into until a hole was made in the limestone proper 

(Fig. 67). 

More often than not, the absence of smaller features in clear configurations 

where they would be expected coincides with natural crevices and channel-like 

irregularities in the bedrock, especially towards the coast. In terms of spatial 

distribution, the posthole features occur singly, in pairs, and in clusters of three. 

These are generally related to separate building events rather than acting as support 

posts, which of course are not necessary in bedrock foundations. 

In cases of multiple overlapping features it is difficult to establish which feature 

was cut first or, indeed, whether they were contemporary. In most cases the 

postholes have been dug vertically into the bedrock. Almost 25% of the features 

excavated (n=123), however, were slanting, meaning that they were dug at an 

angle so that the posts they supported would not have stood vertically upright 

(Fig. 69). 

4.2.10.5 Feature fills 

Most features contained one fill, but some of the larger features contained more. 

The differences in fill are due to both cultural and natural processes. The most 

commonly occurring difference noted in feature fills was a gradual increase in 

sand content and decrease of humic content in the bottom part of the feature. 

This is not equated to different fill events, but to pedological factors. The contents 

of the fills were also dependent on abandonment processes, i.e. whether 

posts had been removed, or left in situ on house abandonment. Five post stumps 

were recovered in situ in 29-F178, F249 and F293, and 85-50-F156 and F193 

(Figs. 70-74). These were the remains of burnt posts left in place when the structure 

was burnt down. 116 The first three (Figs. 70-72) are interpreted as belonging 

to the same structure and have consistent radiocarbon dates (Section 4.2.8; 

GrN-29035, 30534, 30535). The latter two similarly belong to another structure 

with consistent radiocarbon dates (GrN-31417 and GrN-31418). 

116 In these cases the posts were fully burnt, and related to abandonment, not just charred as in the 

case of some of the posts recovered from the Tutu site where post ends were charred on construction 

of the house to strengthen and protect the wood (Righter 2002a:301-303). 


143

The posts in Figures 70-72 showed a pattern of combustion consistent with 

burning at high temperature in situ. In all three cases, the middle of the trunk 

was burnt away, leaving two outside sections of charred charcoal. This is due to 

the fact that the more oxidized inside had burned away completely, unlike the 

outside which was packed by soil and therefore not oxygenated (pers. comm. 

Menno L. P. Hoogland). 

The postholes of these three features are larger in diameter than the posts 

they contain, and the spaces around the posts were packed with stones. The 

holes are 46-50cm in diameter, the posts themselves are 20-26cm in diameter. 

Moreover, the posts did not reach the bottom of the pits. This is in contrast to 

the observations made above, that posts would have fitted the postholes quite 

E 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

x 

10cm 

W 

Figure 69. Example of a 

slanting feature, 84-29- 

F07. Crosses indicate visible 

toolmarks. 

Figure 70. Section drawing 

and plan photo of burnt post 

 

burnt post remains not sectioned). 

Legend: (1) charcoal; 

(2) ashy post stain; (3) dark 

 

 

 

sand and loose bedrock, natural 

stratum. 



29-F178. Legend: (1) charcoal; 

- 

 

and charcoal; (4) consolidated 

sand, some charcoal; (5) brown 

sand; (6) loose bedrock. 



29-F249. Legend: (1) char- 

 

(3) brown loose, homogenous 

sandy soil; (4) grey, stony 

sand; (5) greyer, many larger 

stones; (6) loose bedrock. 


W 

10cm 

Figure 73. Feature 85-50- 

F156. Legend: (1) brown 

humic soil with ceramic, 

charcoal and faunal remains; 

(2) charcoal layer, with ashy 

shadow underneath; (3) as 1 

but fewer archaeological inclu- 

 

sterile sand. 

N 

10cm 


F193. Legend: (1) brown humic 

sand with very negligible 

remains and a thick layer of 

 

a burnt post; (2) yellow sand. 

SW 

10cm 


F282. Legend: (1) light brown 

sand, gravel and stones, 

negligible faunal and ceramic 

 

1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

1 

E 

S 

NE 

snugly. These postholes, in sector 29, were made more roughly than those in the 

easterly sectors, perhaps related to the fact that the bedrock in the western half 

of sector 29 is of a more crumbly consistency than further east. However, based 

on evidence from elsewhere in the unit, it would appear that at least some of the 

larger postholes were made bigger than the posts for which they were destined. 

This may also have been the case with two more adjacent posts (interpreted as 

the entrance posts of a structure) in sector 85-50, which also contained remains 

of burnt post stumps in their fill. The bands of charcoal visible in the sections 

are interpreted as the bottoms of posts (Figs. 73 and 74). Note that here as well 

the posts do not reach all the way to the bottom of the posthole. 

Yet other postholes appeared to have had their posts removed, and the posthole 

subsequently refilled, in one event with clean material. This is the case with 

the large posthole pictured in Figure 75, which was wide enough in diameter to 

section. The fill was homogeneous and there was no evidence of a post shadow 

in the section. 

In other cases, the posts had similarly been removed, but the holes were backfilled 

with large stones. This is the case with the feature in Figure 76. 

In the latter two cases (back-filling after post removal), this can be seen as a 

desire to re-use a plot of land. However, the majority of the features contained 

the same material as layer 1 (i.e. the quantity of archaeological remains depending 

where it was located in the unit). This is also attributed to posts being removed, 

and refilled with the surrounding matrix. 

These assertions are made with caution, however, as due to the small size of 

many of the features and the impossibility of conventional sectioning, detailed 

observation of the fill section for signs of such phenomena as post shadows was 

not possible. Had posts been left to rot in situ for example, we would only have 

been able to detect this for the very largest features. The only thing we can say 

is that this practice was not observed in the few posthole features which were 

sectioned. Instead, post-removal followed by back-filling, and burning of the 

structure are two practices for which we do have positive evidence. Although we 

cannot be sure what percentage of excavated features represent cases where posts 

were deliberately removed, we can at least be more confident about cases where 

structures have been burnt down. Charcoal was easily spotted and documented 

in the fills of features. In small quantities, charcoal in posthole fills does not 

necessarily indicate burning (it may have been present in the back-fill material). 

Smaller features with charcoal were only interpreted as part of burnt structures 

if most features consistently showed burnt remains and the larger features of the 

same structure contained burnt post remains or significant amounts of consolidated 

charcoal. As will be seen in Chapter 5, this was the case for a small number 

of structures only. 

4.2.10.6 Non-posthole features 

Despite being vastly outnumbered, other types of feature were documented in 

the main unit. This for example was the case for burn patches associated with 

structures. Although the natural colour of the bedrock varies from white to greys 

and orange according to different oxidization processes, it was possible to identify 

two large areas of bedrock which appeared to have been transformed due to 

exposure to intense heat. These were features 84-29-F371 and F372 (indicated 

with solid lines in the far west of the unit in Fig. 47). These areas may be associated 

with the same burning event as described above for the postholes in this 

area. This will be discussed in Chapter 5. 


145

Other features in the west of the unit were a pit (39-F270), an anthropogenic 

channel (29-F363 and F363 west) and the deposition of a neonate (84-29- 

F261). The pit was oblong shaped with a rounded end (the other end went into 

the trench wall) and cut by two postholes. The bottom and inside walls of the pit 

had clear toolmarks in them, resembling the marks of a small chisel and multiple 

shaping blows so that the finish was relatively smooth. The fill had higher concentrations 

of faunal remains in it than the majority of the postholes in this sector, 

although not in high enough densities to characterize it as a refuse pit. The 

anthropogenic channel was related to several rough postholes. The chronology is 

not clear, i.e. whether the postholes cut the channel or vice versa. 

The deposition of neonate remains in 29-F261 is spatially associated with 

multiple circular structures in sector 29. At this stage it is not yet known whether: 

(a) the skeleton is complete, although on excavation the cranial fragments, 

ribs and long bone seemed to be in anatomical position and; (b) whether the 

deposition is in fact associated with the burnt structure. There were for example 

very minimal charcoal remains in the burial pit. 

The deposition of human remains was also encountered in another feature, 

85-40-F17. This was a small, stone-covered pit containing the badly preserved 

remains of a crouched (wrapped) inhumation spatially associated with posthole 

features. The grave pit contained a few sherds and shell (such as an intact 

Cittarrium pica shell). The burial was directly against the unit wall and thus further 

spatial information could not be ascertained. Another posthole contained a 

fragment of a possibly human tibia. 117 

Human remains are associated with posts and posthole features in other sites 

in the east of the Dominican Republic such as Juan Pedro and Atajadizo (Veloz 

Maggiolo et al. 1976, 1991, 1996; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1986). 

Elsewhere, another non-posthole feature which may be pre-Columbian in 

origin (85-62-F13) was a set of grooves on the edge of the cliff as if caused by 

repeated rope action in one spot (Fig. 78, left). This has already been described 

in Section 4.1.3. 

A further observation on the features of the main unit is that in some areas 

(especially observed in sectors 29 and 49, but detectable in the majority of the 

unit with the exception of along the coast) the peaks of the bedrock had been 

artificially flattened to create a smoother surface (Fig. 78, right and Fig. 47 indicated 

by solid lines). Coupled with the evidence for burning (F371 and F372), 

this suggests that, as mentioned above, the bedrock was the actual living surface 

Figure 76. Section drawing of 

posthole feature in which the 

post has been removed and the 

 

stones. 

3 

10cm 

2 

1 

Figure 77. Plan drawing in 

level 1 of 84-29-F261, the 

deposition of the bones of a 

neonate in a small pit in the 

bedrock. Legend: (1) skull and 

rib fragments; (2) loose brown 

sand and gravel into which 

bones are deposited, and into 

the yellow sand underneath; 

(3) brown sand and gravel. 

 

impression of how the majority 

of the long bones, skull and 

jaw lay in the pit, i.e. loosely 

articulated with some missing 

elements. 

117 Pers. comm. Dr Darlene A. Weston. 


Figure 78. Feature caused by 

repeated abrasive action (left; 

note visible striations on in- 

 

 

(right). Note “smooth” aspect 

of bedrock around the feature 

 

in the past. In the next chapter it will be shown that these areas occur inside the 

main structures and indicate that the bedrock, perhaps covered by mats, or a 

layer of earth or sand, was the living surface inside these structures. 

Also noteworthy were several squareish features in 85-52 and 85-62. These 

occurred in the same area as the present-day fence which cuts the unit across 

these sectors. The feature walls of some were also relatively “cleanly” cut compared 

to the rest of the features in the unit. One or two round holes had clearly 

been drilled through the bedrock recently and in other areas precolonial postholes 

were used to support the posts of the present fence. All were mapped. 

4.2.11 Surface survey methodology 

To compliment the data from the main unit excavations, a surface survey was 

carried out in the southern portion of the site. This was to gain more qualitative 

data on depositional variability across the largely Chicoid part of the site. It was 

hoped to see more nuanced patterning in the sheet midden deposits. In such a 

way it would be possible to compare data from a larger area with that from the 

main unit, to place this unit in a site context and thus assess how representative 

the excavated part of the habitation area was in comparison with the rest of the 

late-phase habitation area. Moreover, it would provide comparative data for the 

geophysical data which covered largely the same area. 

The survey limits ran from the “mound” (a rise ca.130m inland, between the 

coast and the present-day village, the karst of which was exposed at the surface) 

the western slope of which marks the westernmost boundary of the site. Other 

borders were formed by the coastline (east), the southern site limits (i.e. the 

point at which the surface material dwindles to nothing) and the main unit. The 

surveyed area did not completely meet the main unit because spoil heaps from 

previous campaigns were an obstacle. 

Survey logistics were aided enormously by the vegetation clearance of the geophysical 

prospection in May 2007 which left swathes of the site almost bare. 118 

Due to the lack of rain, none of this vegetation had recovered in the intervening 

two months, leaving 0.75 hectares of the southern portion of the site with 

equal visibility. This was true of the whole area surveyed except for the parts not 

covered in the geophysical campaign, and so an additional 3200m² of vegetation 

was cleared by machete. 

Survey transects were set out in 20×20m units (Fig. 79). Material was collected 

from 2×2m units in checkerboard fashion with 50% coverage achieved. Due 

to time constraints the survey area is not completely continuous and alternate 

transects were surveyed in the northwest area (hence “empty” areas). In total ca. 

8500m² was intensively surveyed with 50% coverage. 

118 This was also the case at En Bas Saline, Haiti where fieldworkers profited from extensive 

vegetation clearance for an electromagnetic survey to carry out a surface collection (Deagan 

1989:455). 


147

Figure 79. El Cabo site 

plan showing areas surveyed 

(dark grey) and 

detail of zoomed survey 

transect divided into 

2×2m squares for 50% 

coverage. 

20m 

The first intention was to count ceramic material only, leaving it in situ. 

However, subsequently it was decided that the ability to make a qualitative distinction 

in the material to shed light on activity areas (i.e. griddle, non-griddle) 

and to check chronological differentiation in ceramics (early/late) to nuance 

the broad dichotomy between north-early, south-late was desirable. In the 

end all material, with the exception of land shell and unmodified local stone 

was collected (i.e. bone, marine shell, coral, ceramic, exotic/modified stone, 

and all modified material and artefacts). Material bigger than a fist (e.g. mature 

Cittarium pica shells) was left in the field in those areas covered by georadar seeing 

as this was tossed aside in the geophysical campaign to allow the easy passage 

of the radar antenna. 

Qualitative analysis of the ceramics is pending, although observations in the 

field and laboratory during sorting indicate that most has Chicoid characteristics, 

rather than early Ostionoid (using the diagnostic characteristics or red, 

well-fired, thin, which of course are just guidelines, and ignoring the fact that 

the Late Ostionoid ceramic characteristics are hard to distinguish from those of 

Chicoid, especially the paste of body sherds). 

The results of the surface survey gave very good insight into intra-site settlement 

dynamics. These results will be discussed in Chapter 6. 



This chapter summarised the fieldwork carried out over four seasons in El Cabo, 

as well as the field, data recovery and documentation procedures. Results were 

presented from the coring, topographic mapping, dating and small units as well 

as a more detailed discussion of the main unit excavation and the features and 

find layer from this unit. 

Five radiocarbon dates from charcoal from post stumps in the main unit 

indicate that building activities were taking place on the El Cabo promontory 

between the early 12 th to late-14 th centuries, with an additional date from shell 

in the 9 th century and imported European material extending this chronology 

both earlier and later. 

A certain degree of horizontal segregation between the early and late habitation 

is suggested by radiocarbon dates and the ceramic typology. Dates from 

the northern portion of the site (zones 75 and 85) indicate the start of habitation 

from the beginning of the 7 th century and a sequence of dates until the 11 th 

century. This occupation, whether continuous or not, created the ring-shaped 

accumulations of Ostionoid midden material in this area of the site with habitation 

presumed to have been located in the area inside these deposits (Fig. 80). 

Late dates from the main unit, as well as predominantly Chicoid ceramics and 

Ostionoid habitation 

52 

Ostionoid midden 

Chicoid habitation 

bution 

of main densities of 

Chicoid and Ostionoid material 

across the site. 

0 20 40 

metres 


149

12 th to 14 th century dates from smaller units in zones 74 and 84 indicate habitation 

had spatially shifted south in the later period, despite some overlap with the 

earlier habitation. 

The picture presented below is a simplified visualisation of the data. In general 

dates from across the site indicate the start of the Chicoid in the 9 th century 

in El Cabo, with earlier Ostionoid habitation limited to the northern part of 

the site, and Chicoid habitation concentrated in the south with overlaps in the 

north to an unknown extent. Detailed ceramic analysis would help refine this 

picture. Ultimately only more excavation in the lesser-investigated north of the 

site would clarify occupation sequences here. 

The shallower deposits on top of the bedrock in the southern part of the 

site were more intensively researched owing to the quality of the features, the 

predominantly single-phase Chicoid deposits, and the minimal disturbance by 

looter activity. The large unit excavated here revealed thousands of features cut 

into the bedrock. The detailed overview of the morphological and metric characteristics 

of the features led to the interpretation of the majority as postholes. This 

interpretation is strengthened in Chapter 5 which presents the reconstructions 

of the features from the main unit and develops a typology of built structures. 


Chapter 5 

Reconstructions of the built 

environment in El Cabo 

5.1 Methodology of reconstruction 

The field methodology, data attributes and characteristics of the features in the 

main unit have been described in the previous chapter. This was to give the reader 

the necessary information and background for the reconstructions proposed 

in this chapter. 

Three factors were of primary importance in identifying structures: (1) the 

visual impact of the spatial relationship between features on the plan drawing; 

(2) diameter and depth information of each feature, visually represented; and 

(3) the identification of “template configurations” as keys for identifying other 

structures. 

(1) Structures were primarily identified on the basis of the spatial relationships 

between features in the horizontal plane. This is immediately apparent when 

looking at the plan drawing of the main unit: circular forms leap off the 

page! Accuracy of plan drawings is therefore crucial. Considerations which 

help maintain the accuracy and utility of field drawings are continuity in 

terms of draughts-people and those who give the measurements (either one 

or the other role should preferably be consistently the same person/s), ensuring 

that feature concentrations are spread over as few excavation units 

as possible, and thereafter drawn on as few sheets as possible. In addition 

to drawing the features to scale by hand in the field, point plotting feature 

centres with a TS is an important control of accuracy. Any discrepancies between 

the field drawing and the digital map are evident if they are overlain 

on top of each other. These can then be resolved. 

(2) Following spatial relationships, diameter and depth of features were the next 

most important factors involved in interpreting structures. This metric information 

was known for all features. This was not only a factor in the interpretation 

of the function of individual features (pit or posthole, interior or 

exterior, etc.), but it also clarified relationships between features. 

(3) As familiarity grew with the types of elements present in the unit, certain 

commonly occurring “template configurations” or diagnostic parts of structures 

were identified and taken as templates by which to identify similar 

structures. So, for example, after the most evident circular configurations 

had been isolated, entrance configurations, with their tell-tale orientation 

and accompanying pair of aligned roof-supports, were often arresting elements 

of a house structure. 

All other lines of evidence, such as the presence or absence of toolmarks and the 

shape of the bottom of a feature, were considered secondary to the spatial and 

metric characteristics at the identification phase. These characteristics were consulted 

for the corroboration or questioning of a particular interpretation. 

Reconstructions of the built environment in El Cabo 

151

Other factors such as fill properties became more relevant in later stages of the 

analysis, concerning for example the lifecycle or chronology of particular structures. 

Fill properties were rarely a factor in the identification of structures (unlike 

for example at Anse à la Gourde, Guadeloupe, where Structure 3 was identified 

on the basis of Chama sarda shell fragments in posthole fills, Duin 1998), 

although they were important in terms of interpretations of abandonment. 

Archaeological material excavated from both feature fills and the artefact layer 

were also important in terms of determining function and relative chronology 

of the structures as well as related activities and practices. The material categories 

coral, non-local stone, local stone (mainly bedrock), bone (fish and mammal), 

land shell, marine shell, ceramics (decorated, undecorated, griddle), charcoal, 

metal and glass were taken into account during analysis of the structures. 

Arriving at the reconstructions presented was a process of many phases, 

which has by no means exhausted the infinite refinements which may be made 

in the future, or by other researchers. What is presented are not the final, but the 

best possible reconstructions. No reconstructions are presented which are not 

deemed credible by the author. 

Reconstructions were made in multiple stages, and by developing the most 

efficient use of the software for the data at hand. 119 This was found to be a system 

of colour-coding features according to depth and successive “fading-out” of 

features as they were assigned to structures. A brief synopsis of the desk-based 

analysis is given below. 

5.1.1 Desk-based analysis 

First, using GIS software, a base map of the plan drawing was visualised (in 

MapInfo from data imported from AutoCad maps and database tables) in which 

all features were colour coded, in three ranges, according to depth. This base 

map gave a maximum of visual information (i.e. location, diameter and depth) 

without an overload of detail. Finding this happy medium was a process of constant 

adjustment. 120 Depth classes were initially chosen according to the natural 

break algorithm in the software programme and subsequently refined to follow 

an archaeological reality: i.e. the main functional categories of features in the 

most prominent structures – the circular buildings. 121 Roughly this equates to: 

(1) features related to perimeter walls, alignments and light structures (1-24cm, 

i.e. shallowest); (2) support elements, usually internal to structures (46-116cm, 

i.e. deepest); and (3) mid-range features which could fulfil either function (25- 

44cm). The most distinct configurations and patterns were isolated, and gradually, 

starting with the most confident reconstructions, structures were “faded” 

from the plan. 122 This meant that no features were ever deleted from view, but 

remained visible as having been already assigned. 123 Successive stages of fading 

119 MapInfo, version 7.0, copyright 1985-2002 MapInfo Corporation; Microsoft Office Access 

2003, copyright 1992-2003, Microsoft Corporation; AutoCad 2008, ACIS copyright 1989- 

2001; SPSS 16.0, copyright SPSS Inc. 1989-2007. 

120 Adjustment of depth ranges and colours. Especially colour selections are sensitive to observer 

differences: I found the best combination was pink for the shallow features (white was too 

“empty”), grey for the mid-depth range features and black for the deepest. 

121 Not because this is the only type of structure present in the unit, but because it was a secure 

starting point. Once these more conspicuous and reliable elements had been identified the visual 

map was altered to highlight other potential configurations. 

122 Their colour properties were changed to make them less prominent but still visible. 

123 Some features were used more than once, but preferably in combination with corroborating 

archaeological evidence (fill, re-shaping, anomalous size for a particular function (suggesting 

re-cutting), etc. 


structures isolated those features which were more problematic to assign, and 

which in turn (sometimes!) yielded their patterns once freed from the dense 

clutter. 

In early phases, minimal reconstructions were always preferred. Therefore, elements 

such as repairs, double features and overbuilding were not incorporated 

at first in case they belonged to other structures. However, once as many credible 

structures had been reconstructed as possible and other categories of evidence 

had been assessed (fill properties, dating, morphological details of the feature, 

etc.), additional features could be assigned more confidently. Hence the reconstructions 

presented are the fullest versions plausible. 

The more surface area exposed, the easier it is to reconstruct structures. 

Therefore, areas in the southeast of the unit have higher proportions of assigned 

features because this is the largest exposed area. Conversely, the closer one gets to 

the boundary of the excavated area, the harder it is to assign features, as they often 

belong to structures which are partially or almost fully outside the excavated 

area. This is also the case for larger structures in excess of 10m in diameter which 

are simply harder to reconstruct being in excess of the excavation boundaries. 

For example, there are two structures which have a potential area of over 100m², 

although due to the restricted vision of the whole structure these have relatively 

low reliability ratings. Thus the size of the excavated area greatly influences the 

size of structures which will be reconstructed: structures larger than the maximum 

diameter of the excavated area will inevitably be harder to spot. This is not 

to say that such structures have been overlooked, but that these are not be the 

easiest to identify. 

5.1.2 Confidence classes 

Due to the stability, preservation conditions and relative flatness of the bedrock 

(little difference in elevation despite surface irregularities) in the El Cabo main 

unit (as opposed to soil stains in more dynamic environments), features can very 

confidently be assigned a functional interpretation (postholes, natural depressions, 

burials, pits, etc.), and thus, as mentioned above, much emphasis is placed 

on the spatial and physical properties of the features as an indication of their 

fitness for inclusion in a particular reconstruction. Elsewhere in the Caribbean 

differences in excavation planes (i.e. slopes and micro-topographic irregularities), 

features spread over different units, lack of regularity in built elements 

and differential soil formation processes contribute to variation and pose greater 

challenges to reconstruction (Bright 2003; Curet 1992a; Hoogland 1995, 1996, 

1999; Hoogland and Hofman 1993; Kaplan 2009; Morsink 2006; Righter ed. 

2002; Siegel 1992; Versteeg and Rostain, eds. 1997). 

Many structures were recognised in the field, especially when larger excavation 

extents were laid bare in later seasons. The remarkable uniformity in spacing, 

depth and diameter of features and the clear patterns observed in the field 

also aided the desk-based reconstructions considerably. 

In summer 2008 reconstructions of all the main circular structures recognised 

at that time and some harder to interpret structures were checked again 

by excavation of one or more internal and external features of these structures. 

Entrance features were deemed particularly diagnostic and so often selected for 

excavation. 124 

124 These were some of the largest features in the excavation and were thus more likely to have been 

excavated even when not recognized as part of a structure at the time. 


153

A hierarchy of reconstructions is presented which reflects the confidence assigned 

to each structure by the author. Ultimately this hierarchy, reflected in reliability 

scores, is derived from a similar system used for assessment of house-plan 

reliability by the Leiden school of Dutch Prehistory and adapted by the Leiden 

Caribbean School (Arnoldussen 2008; Bright 2003; Fokkens and Jansen 2002; 

Morsink 2006). The classes will differ per site depending on the soil formation 

processes and substrata of the site. For example, in El Cabo all features appear 

in one plane (the bedrock), whereas the situation is different for example for 

dynamic flood-plain sites such as Jacanas (PO-29), Puerto Rico (Kaplan 2009). 

Moreover, criteria used in prehistoric Europe, where house typology is relatively 

well understood are not necessarily suited to the Caribbean context where house 

typology is hardly understood. In the Caribbean much more faith is vested in 

the interpretations of the excavator or the report writer. In Tanki Flip, Aruba, for 

example, feature configurations were approved as structures if they met “a certain 

minimum qualitative level” described as “regularly spaced postholes in the 

most symmetrical or regular possible pattern”. However, a “less ‘strict’ criteria” 

was employed where it was felt necessary (Versteeg and Rostain, eds., 1997:33). 

At Tutu, St Thomas, USVI (Righter, ed., 2002:296-297), C14 dating was the 

most useful analytical tool for the identification of structures, followed by posthole 

depth, and the recognition of frequently occurring types or parts of types 

(similar to the “template configurations” referred to above). Because of the faith 

placed in the excavator and because of the lack of sites for comparison, researchers 

should be rigorous in their interpretations and not admit structures which 

are not defensible. Only by presenting clear arguments and being transparent 

about the level of credibility of an interpretation can a basis for a typology or 

trends in building traditions be identified and usefully employed as comparisons 

by other researchers. 

Discussions between researchers in the Leiden Caribbean Research Group 

engaged in the reconstruction of site features, and a number of MA theses on 

this topic (Bright 2003; Duin 1998; Kaplan 2009; Morsink 2006) have provided 

a starting point to come up with a set of criteria or guidelines which may be used 

by future researchers, although procedures will necessarily vary per site. This is 

something which should be worked on collaboratively in the future. 

Reconstructions of the site El Cabo site structures were divided into four, 

numbered, confidence classes, i.e. (1) = very reliable, (2) = reliable, (3) = plausible, 

and (4) = possible. The following criteria were applied: 

Confidence Class 1 

Very reliable. The structure was recognised in the field and the features checked 

in the field for conformity within a wider group of features. The features share 

metric and qualitative consistency (i.e. in diameter, depth, angle, spacing and 

fill) and, except in areas cut by the excavation boundaries, form a complete 

plan representing dug-down elements of the former structure. There is no doubt 

about validity. 


Reliable. The structure was recognised in the field or from visual inspection 

of plan drawings and the features checked in the field for conformity within a 

wider group of features. The features share metric and qualitative consistency 

(i.e. in diameter, depth, angle, spacing and fill). The structure represents a complete 

or nearly complete plan of dug-down elements, although uncertainties 

may exist about the precise former configuration in certain areas. This does not 


detract from the interpretation as a whole. There is no doubt about validity, 

but uncertainty may exist in the details (due to rebuilding or multiple plausible 

interpretations). 


Plausible. The structure was recognised on the basis of visual inspection of plan 

drawings and field documentation. The features have some metric inconsistencies 

(i.e. diameters, depths, angles, spacing and fills may not entirely correspond) 

and the structure may be incomplete in excavated areas (i.e. outer or 

inner structure alone recognised), and evidence irregularities not shared by more 

secure examples. However, together the features evidence sufficient coherence to 

be recognised as conforming to a structure. Alternatively, a significant portion 

of the plan may fall outside the excavation boundaries, hindering recognition, 

but the visible portion is consistent with complete examples of the same type of 

structure. Thirdly, the structure may be recognised from plan drawings as a coherent 

configuration of features but is relatively uncommon in the unit, or has 

no features excavated to provide additional information. This is considered the 

best plausible reconstruction. 


Possible. Features show metric inconsistencies and incompleteness, but given 

their similarity to other configurations of features which are more secure indicate 

they may belong to the same type. Alternatively, features may be inconsistent, 

appear to form incomplete structures with no similarity to other structures 

reconstructed in the unit, but feature proximity, internal patterning and feature 

exclusion from other structures makes association as part of one structure possible. 

In short, it is felt that the balance of evidence is such that these configurations 

merit interpretation as a possible structure, over rejection. 

5.1.3 Presentation of the structure interpretations 

Due to the high quality of the data, and the fact that many interpretations are 

thought to represent complete, or near complete structures, the reported measurements 

(depth, spans, diameters, etc.) represent real building logic. Therefore, 

reported measurements such as average spans between posts or the floor area of 

structures are subject to interpretation based on what the building would have 

looked like based on experience gained from the other (more complete) structures 

in the unit. For example, where posts are deemed to be missing, or the 

structure falls outside the excavation boundaries, an interpretation is preferred 

that interpolates the “missing data”. 

So, for example, interpretations of “adjacent” and “opposing” postholes in a 

house structure are based on the interpreted orientation of the structure and its 

presumed internal architecture related to their function within a building. Other 

distances are not considered as relevant (Fig. 81). 

Spans between any two posts are given from centre to centre. Given the 

former discussion, this is counter-intuitive, especially in the case of entrances, 

where distances between the outside edges of the features would give a real minimum 

size of a doorway. The logic here is that posthole diameters are not necessarily 

the same as post widths, and this is thought to be a more neutral way of 

reporting these distances. 


155

Areas were calculated for all structures by drawing a polygon 

between the centres of all features of the external post circle. The 

maximum area (distances between ‘missing’ features interpolated 

and excavation boundaries ignored) is used for all discussion 

as this is deemed a more sensible representation of actual floor 

space than minimum areas where excavation boundaries or missing 

features make the area artificially smaller. 

adjacent 

All structures, unless otherwise stated, are oriented so that 

the top of the page is due north. All structures, unless otherwise 

stated, are also reproduced to the same scale for ease of comparison. 

Each structure is presented, surrounded by the features not 

incorporated into the reconstruction. Hence the plan drawing of 

features immediately surrounding the structure is visible and the 

reader can see which features were included, and, just as importantly, which ones 

were excluded from the reconstruction. In the few cases where feature depths are 

not known, these are crosshatched. Solid lines indicate excavation boundaries, 

and, in the east, the edge of the cliff. Natural depressions in the bedrock, as well 

as artificial flattening of the bedrock are also marked on the plan drawings by 

solid lines (dark when relevant to a particular structure and lighter grey when 

not). 

The features in the plan drawings of the structures below are colour-coded according 

to depth. A division of features into three depth ranges has been made as 

this draws out the most important depth patterning and is visually comprehensible 

to the reader (more colours would be confusing). More subtle or extraordinary 

patterns will be illustrated separately where needed. For the depth legend 

for all the figures, unless otherwise stated, see Fig. 82. 

opposing 

adjacent 



adjacent 


adjacent 

Figure 81. Schematic drawing 

 

Solid lines represent cited distances 

between opposing and 

adjacent posthole pairs based 

on a westerly entrance (i.e. 

east-west orientation). Dashed 

lines, also between adjacent 

and opposing posthole pairs, 

are not so relevant given the 

preferred interpreted orientation 

and internal architecture 

(i.e. the tie beams and ring 

beam). 

5.2 Structure interpretations 

What follows is a description of each structure identified in the main unit. 

Particulars such as spatial and physical characteristics, feature fill properties, special 

finds from feature fills (those from the find layer are discussed in the Chapter 

6), history of abandonment, dating, associated features, overlapping structures, 

and shared features are discussed per structure. A synthesis of these characteristics 

is developed in a typology at the end of this chapter. How individual structures 

relate to each other and to the rest of the site is discussed in Chapter 6. 

Appendix 2 contains an overview of the main characteristics per structure, 

and Appendix 3, available as an online resource, provides a detailed breakdown 

of the features per structure. 

In total, 52 structures have been reconstructed. Most of these (n=40) comprise 

circular buildings. Additionally, a number of alignments and smaller post 

constructions can be recognized. 

2to20cm 

21 to 45cm 

46 to 116cm 

Figure 82. Depth (cm) according 

to colour. 

Structure 1 (Confidence Class: 1) 

Spatial and physical characteristics. The plan of Structure 1 is that of a regular 

post-built structure consisting of an outer ring of 46 postholes and a configuration 

of eight postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. The floor 

area is ca. 36m². This structure is 7m in diameter with an average span between 

external posts of 46cm (from centre to centre of the features), and an average 

span between opposing pairs of the internal posts of 4.57m and 1.94m between 


0 2 

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4 

Figure 83. Structure 1. 

the pairs. Postholes range from 13 to 74cm in depth and 10 to 50cm in diameter. 

An entrance occurs in the west marked by the widest spacing between the 

external postholes (90cm). Twelve features were excavated from this structure. 

The overarching characteristic of the floor plan is that of a building which 

flows from front to back beginning with a monumentalized entrance which diminishes 

to an increasingly lighter construction towards the back. This general 

concept incorporates another pattern of regular alternation between larger and 

smaller posts along the whole perimeter. These smaller patterns coalesce within 

the larger form. 

In terms of external form, nine features excavated from the outer ring (three 

from the south, east and north, respectively) were manufactured so that their 

posts would have been inclined towards the centre of the structure. This indicates 

that the outer ring consisted of slanting posts, secured at the top (terminating 

in either a cone- or beehive-shaped apex). 125 Other excavated features, 

including two internal posts and one entrance post, are vertical features, and 

would have supported vertical uprights. No other features were excavated from 

the west of the structure, so that it remains possible that not just the entrance 

posts, but also those flanking it (see more below) were vertical. In this case, one 

may envisage a vertical façade at the front of the structure, with the rest of the 

perimeter forming a sloping roof. Or if only the two entrance posts were vertical, 

then a portico-type entrance in a predominantly domed or cone-shaped form. 

The distribution of depths of the features throughout the structure forms a 

regular pattern in which features in the western third of the external ring, and 

especially the two postholes forming the entrance pair and the postholes flank- 

125 These features were deliberately dug to set the uprights at an angle and are not the result of 

erosive action of posts in their sockets. 


157

ing the entrance are set much deeper into the ground than the rest of the features 

in the ring. Postholes range from 13 to 74cm in depth, and 10 to 50cm in 

diameter. 

The symmetry of the feature dimensions at the entrance, both in depth and 

diameter is striking. The deep-set entrance pair (66 and 68cm deep), alternate 

with adjacent slenderer and shallower features (29 and 31cm deep), adjacent 

to each of which are again larger posts (63 and 64cm deep), followed by subsequently 

shallower (48 and 37cm deep), larger (52 and 59cm deep), shallower 

and again larger posts. This forms a regular pattern of posts radiating from the 

entrance, alternating between deeper/thicker and shallower/slenderer. This sequence 

is interrupted by a slightly wider spacing between the 7 th and 8 th posts 

in the series on both sides of the entrance. The features in the rest of the outer 

ring are smaller in diameter and set shallower in the bedrock, the majority also 

oscillating between alternating deeper and shallower posts. An exception and 

another point of symmetry are two pairs of opposing posts, north and south, 

which are also deep set (one of which in the south is the deepest perimeter feature, 

72cm). 

The internal configuration consists of eight deep and broad postholes. These, 

together with the entrance pair, are the largest features in the structure. The 

eight posts form adjacent pairs: two at the back (east), front (west), north and 

south. The adjacent pairs of internal posts align on the entrance and on the 

pairs of deeper set posts in the north and south of the perimeter. Each internal 

post also forms a pair by connecting to its opposing individual, most likely by 

means of horizontal roof beams joining the pairs of uprights: the northern with 

the southern and the front with the back pair. The opposing posthole pairs at 

the front and back are larger than those to the sides in the north and south. The 

pair of back posts are also slightly deeper than the rest and the widest features in 

the whole structure. This is emphasized by the fact that the front pair of internal 

posts, behind the entrance are set 45cm wider than the back pair. The opposing 

post pairs converge on the entrance and create a central horizontal axis through 

the structure, ending at the back wall. The average distance between the internal 

postholes and the exterior wall (centre to centre) is 94cm. 

It is unlikely that there was an access point in this back wall as the entrance 

and internal posts align on a post rather than any opening. The spacing between 

the features in the outer ring raises the possibility of more than one access point 

or entrance. From feature edge to feature edge the distance between the outside 

of some of the features is equal or greater than that between the outside edges of 

the entrance posts in the west. However, given that uprights may have been slenderer 

than their sockets, this may not be a reliable guide to the real spacing. A 

more objective guide is to take the span from centre to centre between the posts. 

In this case, that of the paired entrance posts in the west is the greatest at 90cm. 

An interpretation is preferred in which the structure had only one doorway. 

Feature fills. Most of the features had one or two different fills depending on 

the size. As remarked in Chapter 4, the difference between fills is attributable to 

pedological factors in which a gradual decrease of humus content and increase in 

sand occurs towards the bottom part of the feature. Fills of the twelve excavated 

features were similar and contained food remains such as marine shells, crab 

claws, fish, and mammal bones as well as pottery sherds. Up to 500g of pottery 

were recovered from the larger postholes (50 to 125L), as well as 100-300g of 

marine shell remains. One of the external postholes contained a Chicoid adorno. 

More Chicoid decorated sherds were recovered from the fills as well as a piece of 


pottery griddle. 126 Indications that the posts did not fit tightly into their sockets 

comes from the fact that the charcoal outlines of both the sectioned posts did 

not reach the sides nor the bottom of the postholes, and that other features contained 

large pieces of bedrock at the bottom of their fills and gravel throughout 

the fills. The excavated entrance posthole (85-50-F193) contained ca. 90g of 

charcoal, the back internal posthole (85-50-F156) more than 200g. 

Special finds. Beads were found in the fills of three features including both excavated 

internal postholes (a large green diorite bead with central perforation and 

two lateral indentations from a posthole behind the entrance, and a bone bead in 

one of the back postholes) as well as in the excavated entrance post (a blue/green 

disc-shaped stone bead). See Figure 154. 

Abandonment. One entrance and one back internal posthole were sectioned 

(something not possible for the majority of the features due to the constraints of 

the bedrock and posthole diameters). Substantial remains of burnt post stumps 

were visible in the sections of both postholes about halfway down. The fills of 

seven out of the ten other excavated features also contained charcoal. This indicates 

that the structure was burnt down. 

Dating. Charcoal from two burnt posts date Structure 1 to the early to mid-12 th 

century with a 95% probability that construction took place between AD 1020 

and 1180 (GrN-31417; GrN-31418). 

Associated features. Seventeen unassigned features occur within the perimeter 

of Structure 1. These are small features which cluster in front of the back internal 

posthole pair and around the inside of the perimeter. They do not suggest 

internal partitioning of any kind and may not even be related to the structure. 

Other small features just outside the perimeter, such as the row of four features 

in the south southeast which follow the curve of the perimeter wall, may represent 

repairs. 

Overlaps. Structures 9, 20, 21, 34, 38, 39, 40, and 52. 

Shared features. Six features are shared with other structures, including a feature 

from the central configuration. 


Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 2 is the plan of a regular postbuilt 

structure consisting of an outer ring of 34 postholes and a configuration 

of eight postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. Floor area is ca. 

43m². This structure is 7.4m in diameter with an average span between external 

the posts of 50cm, and an average span between opposing pairs of internal posts 

of 5.65m and 2.5m between the pairs. It has an entrance in the west-northwest. 

Twenty features were excavated from this structure, including all features of the 

internal configuration. 

126 Seeing as Structure 1 is securely dated from charcoal from posts, it would be worth comparing 

the pottery and other artefacts from its features. Based on the assumption that the pottery 

entered the posthole either as primary fill (i.e. when the posthole was first made) or as domestic 

debris during use of the house or after the fire (i.e. the postholes acted as artefact traps), this 

could help dating the ceramic style and contribute towards a finer chronology of the Chicoid, i.e. 

from the late-11 th to mid-12 th century. The same goes for pottery from the postholes of Structure 

6 (see footnote 127) and the indigenous artefacts mixed in layer 1 in the area of concentrated 

colonial pottery. Potentially one could compare 11 th -12 th -, 14 th - and late 15 th / early-16 th century 

Chicoid pottery. 


159

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4 

Both the internal and external post circles of Structure 2 were recognized and 

staked out in the field. Recognition of Structure 2 helped considerably with the 

in-field interpretation and visualization of other similar structures in the unit. 

Akin to Structure 1, the distribution of depths of the features throughout 

the structure forms a regular pattern in which features in the western third of 

the external ring, and especially the entrance postholes as well as the postholes 

flanking the entrance are deeper and wider than the rest of the features in the 

ring. Postholes diminish in depth and width towards the back of the structure. 

Features range from 6 to 80cm in depth, and 8 to 55cm in diameter. Two slightly 

anomalous features in the external circle are an irregular pit (85-59-F131), 40cm 

wide and 25cm deep, which are possibly two features. Lack of toolmarks and irregularity 

may indicate this is a natural depression, but it was probably used to 

accommodate a post given its position in the outer post ring. Another feature 

(84-59-F55), adjacent to one of the entrance posts in the outer ring, has a wider 

aperture at the top than the rest of the diameter of the posthole as if the decision 

was made to decrease the volume of the posthole during manufacture. 

The average distance between the internal postholes and the exterior wall 

(centre to centre) is 63cm, i.e. relatively close set. 

It is clear in the plan and in the field that there were lapses in the external 

post circle. This was the case in four places on the eastern portion of the circle. 

All those areas which “should” have contained postholes, were areas of (shallow) 

natural depressions in the bedrock, following the lines of the bedding planes. 

These depressions have similar depths to those of the postholes at the rear of the 

structure. Taking into account these depressions, which in all likelihood were 

used to support uprights, Structure 2 can be interpreted as having a full outer 

circle of posts. 



Unlike Structure 1, all excavated features are vertical. This indicates that posts 

were set upright into the postholes. This does not preclude the fact that these 

posts may have been the roof which stretched all the way down to the ground 

(as may be the case for Structure 1), but that they were not accommodated at 

an angle on manufacture. It may also be the case that the postholes supported 

uprights on which a roof structure was placed. 

Feature fills. Most of the eight internal features, ranging from 60 to 40L, had 

two or three different fills for the same reasons as mentioned above for Structure 

1. 

Fills of the eight internal features were similar and each contained small 

amounts of food remains such as marine shells (

Several small postholes and posthole configurations cluster around the perimeter 

of Structure 2, but a direct relationship is difficult to posit, although it is 

certainly the case that there are hardly any features at the back of the structure. 

Overlaps. Only Structure 16 intersects Structure 2. Structure 46, less than 10cm 

to the west, is considered to be too close to be contemporary. 

If one removes all the features assigned to other structures inside Structure 2, 

one is left with 16 features. Bearing in mind that this is one of the areas of the 

unit with the lowest feature density, this gives an impression of the low proportion 

of dug-down features not directly related to house construction. 

Shared features. None. 



structure with an extensive replacement phase. The plan of Structure 3 encompasses 

two almost exactly overlapping structures, with many of the features 

used in both incarnations. This being the case, it is not possible to separate them 

and both are presented together. Floor area is ca. 37m². Structure 3 consists of 

an outer ring of 72 postholes, and a configuration of eight postholes forming an 

inner roof-bearing construction, with additional posts dug adjacent to the most 

southwesterly internal post. This structure is 7m in diameter with an average 

span between the external posts of 49cm, and an average span between opposing 

pairs of internal posts of 4.45m and 2.04m between the pairs. It has an entrance 

in the west. Sixteen features were excavated from Structure 3. 

Posthole dimensions range from 12 to 116cm in depth and 10 to 44cm in 

diameter. Unlike Structures 1 and 2, there is not such a clear pattern in the distribution 

of depths across the features in the external circle, although deeper 


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4 


postholes occur at intervals around the perimeter, for example in the south as 

with Structure 1. Most external features, however, fall between 20 to 45cm deep 

and do not necessarily get shallower overall towards the back. The two entrance 

postholes are the deepest and widest (72 and 85cm) in the external circle, but are 

not obviously flanked by postholes of decreasing size as with Structures 1 and 2. 

A word of caution is necessary, however, as the excavated postholes were sometimes 

deeper than their “poked” depths. This was due to the stony fill. 

As with Structure 1, posts excavated from the external circle were slanting 

towards the centre of the structure. This was the case with nine of the 14 postholes 

tested for angle in the northeast, east, south, and west. The excavated entrance 

posthole, a deep posthole in the southern wall and three other possibly 

repair postholes from the southern wall were vertical. All five interior postholes 

excavated were vertical features. In all likelihood this structure would have had 

inward slanting walls. 

Over half the external perimeter of Structure 3 consists of a double post circle. 

This is especially the case in the northern half, which at first led to the reconstruction 

of two structures sharing the same internal configuration and entrance 

features. However, due to the fact that there were multiple (ca. eight) stretches 

along the perimeter of this second structure which appeared to be ‘missing’ features, 

a more likely explanation is that these features represent extensive replacement 

of most of the outside wall at some point in the structure’s history. The fact 

that not all perimeter postholes were reused, but internal postholes were, shows 

a preference for re-making smaller postholes, but re-using larger ones in this 

structure. The smaller postholes in the bedrock would have been available, and 

probably also visible for re-use, but this did not occur in the case of Structure 

3. It is possible that all features were contemporaneous and the doubling of 

the postholes represents a double-walled structure. A single row of posts in the 

southwest and east show that this was not the case all the way round, and in general 

a two-phase explanation is preferred as double walls are not seen elsewhere 

in the unit. 

The internal features of Structure 3 are arranged in a very regular pattern 

akin to Structure 1, with eight deep and broad postholes forming adjacent pairs 

which align on the entrance and on the pairs of deeper set posts in the north and 

south of the perimeter. Each internal post also forms a pair by connecting it to 

its opposing individual. The opposing posthole pairs at the front and back are 

larger than those to the sides in the north and south, but unlike Structure 1 the 

front pair of internal posts behind the entrance is more narrowly set (35cm) than 

the back pair. The deepest postholes in the structure are the front and back pairs 

of internal posts which are over one metre deep (112, 114 and 116cm). The exception 

is the north back posthole (85-61-F63) which was documented as only 

23cm deep. Seeing as this is the only one of the four postholes that was not excavated, 

and the other three contained four to more than 10kg of stone material, 

it is very likely that the poked depth was actually much deeper, but depth probing 

was impeded by compacted stone material. The average distance between the 

internal postholes and the exterior wall (centre to centre) is 105cm. 

Feature fills. The features in Structure 3 had one or two fills depending on size. 

Fill 2, towards the bottom of the largest features, showed an almost complete 

absence of humic material and an increase in bedrock content. Many of the features 

had large pieces of bedrock in their fills, especially deeper down (this accounted 

for the errors made when poking). In general fills of both internal and 

external features were similar and contained very little cultural material (

ple, the entrance post (85-51-F253) has a volume of over 100L containing ca. 

20kg of bedrock material and 160g of pottery, including decorated sherds of 

what appeared to be the same vessel which occurred at regular intervals throughout 

both fills, to the bottom of the feature. 

Special finds. A deep pink bead, made of Chama sarda shell, was recovered from 

one of the postholes (85-51-F142) in the southwest of the exterior. This bead is 

similar to three others: one found associated with the burial feature in 85-34- 

F06 on the coast, and two more from deposits above the burial feature. 

Abandonment. Some of the excavated features contained negligible amounts 

of charcoal (1g), the maximum being 7g in one of the entrance posts. This is 

not deemed enough to constitute burning of the structure, but represents residual 

charcoal in the soil matrix. As described above, the feature fills related to 

this structure were remarkably “clean”, with hardly any distinction between fills. 

Lack of post shadows in the larger excavated postholes and similar pottery occurring 

throughout the fills indicate that posts had been removed and the holes 

filled with clean sand. 

Dating. Chicoid. 

Associated features. It is possible that a large feature (85-61-F69) against the 

back wall is associated with Structure 3. This feature was excavated and showed a 

very clean, undifferentiated fill (similar to 85-51-F282). Remarkably, despite the 

size of this feature (over 150L), there was only one discernable fill – brownish 

sand with a few sherds and faunal remains. This gave the impression that rather 

than being left in situ, the post was removed and the hole filled in with relatively 

“clean” soil. This is the same scenario as envisaged for all excavated posts of this 

structure. The function of this large post in Structure 3 remains unclear, but it is 

similar in size to two other assigned (to other structures) features within the perimeter 

of Structure 3, and one unassigned feature just outside Structure 3. The 

density of unassigned features in this area of the unit is quite high, and therefore 

it is difficult to associate or exclude features from Structure 3. However, what 

arrangement of features is present in Structure 3 does not indicate any internal 

partitioning of space. 

Overlaps. Structures 23, 24, 29, 30, 32, and 37. 

Shared features. Five features are shared with other structures, including one of 

the features from the central configuration. 



structure with an episode of rebuilding or overbuilding. The floor area is 

ca. 81m² which makes it twice as big as Structures 1 to 3. It consists of an outer 

ring of 70 postholes and a configuration of eight postholes forming an inner 

roof-bearing construction. This structure is 10.55m in diameter. It has an average 

span between external posts of 57cm, and an average span between opposing 

pairs of internal posts of 8.11m and 3.06m between the pairs. Postholes range 

from 5 to 93cm in depth, and 10 to 55cm in diameter. It has an entrance in the 

west marked by the widest spacing between external posts (102cm). Fifteen features 

were excavated from this structure. 

The doubling of postholes, especially along the east and southeastern perimeter, 

seems to represent a rebuilding phase in which sections of the outer wall/ 

roof were replaced. 


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Four external excavated features are dug at a slant in the bedrock, angled towards 

the centre of the structure. Given the fact that other postholes excavated 

from the perimeter are vertical, the evidence about the form of the outer wall 

is inconclusive. In any case, the entrance posts and two postholes excavated on 

either side of the entrance were vertical. Four excavated postholes of the internal 

configuration were also vertical. 

The distribution of depths of the features throughout the structure, although 

not as consistent as in Structure 1, forms a pattern in which entrance features 

and flanking postholes in the external ring are set relatively deep into the ground. 

This is the same for the seven postholes in the north of the external ring and for 

features which align on each of the internal postholes. Features at the back of the 

structure tend to be lighter. 

The internal post configuration, consisting of eight deep-set and wide posts 

(53 to 93cm deep), is very regular in terms of its spatial layout. Front and back 

pairs of posts as well as north and south pairs form almost completely parallel 

roof supports. The front pair of internal postholes is deeper than the rear pair; 

in the case of the northernmost opposing pair this difference is only 10cm, but 

in the case of the southern pair this is 40cm. All other circular structures share a 

closer equivalence between the opposing pairs. However, the fact that the shallowest 

internal posthole is 53cm in depth (i.e. deep enough to support a heavy 

roof-bearing post), and that both pairs should have similar differences if this 

reflected a non-horizontal frame, the lack of equivalence (relative to other structures) 

is not thought to be significant for the overall shape of the structure. 

The average distance between the internal postholes and the exterior wall 

(centre to centre) is 70cm, i.e. relatively close set. 


165

The peaks of the bedrock have been artificially flattened over the majority of 

the surface inside this structure (especially in those areas indicated by the solid 

grey line). This was likely done to create a smoother living surface, although it 

may not directly be related to this structure (see Structure 11). 

Feature fills. The two large entrance posts (84-39-F127 and 142) as well as the 

four internal posts, all between 60 and 200L in volume spread over up to three 

fills, contain a similar fill matrix consisting of little pottery (20-660g), organic 

material including shells (40- >500g), bone fragments (2-100g) and crab claws 

(2-48g), and up to 15-20kg of stone material which may have been used as packing 

for the posts. Interpretation as packing material rather than as back-fill after 

abandonment is preferred due to the size of the stone material, half of which can 

be described as gravel, and the other half of pieces no larger than a fist. All other 

excavated features in the external circle had relatively gravelly fills. This also applied 

to some unexcavated features noted as difficult to depth probe due to their 

stony content. 

Postholes excavated in the external perimeter circle also shared fill properties 

of the others excavated: namely negligible pottery, an organic component 

(consisting of marine shell, bone and crab claws) and a significant proportion of 

gravel in the volume of the fill. 

Nine postholes contained charcoal. One of the entrance posts had 20g, and 

the other 90g, while four excavated internal postholes contained less than 10g 

each, and three others from the external circle less than 1g. 

Special finds. A bead was recovered from a posthole fill (85-40-F27) in the 

middle of the northern wall of the structure. This was a white stone, disc-shaped 

bead with a central perforation and two lateral indentations. 

Abandonment. Given the amount of charcoal in the fills of the larger features 

(10-90g) it is probable that this structure burnt down. Charcoal volumes are less 

than those of Structures 1 and 6, and the burnt post remains were not noted in 

the field (as is the case for Structures 1 and 6). Nevertheless, the high charcoal 

content of some of the feature fills was noted in the field. Perhaps the combustion 

temperatures were not as high as for the other burnt structures meaning 

that the posts were not burnt, i.e. carbonized, completely, and thus less preserved. 

Although not as clear-cut as for Structures 1 and 6, the interpretation of 

burning is reasonable. 

Dating. Presumably Chicoid. Charcoal samples were not dated and the pottery 

are undiagnostic. See Chapter 6 for its position within the El Cabo relative 

chronology. 

Associated features. There are less than 40, mainly very small, associated features 

occurring within the perimeter of Structure 4. These are not necessarily 

thought to be associated with the structure. Outside the structure, features 

cluster to the north, but as these are on the edge of the excavation unit, they 

are thought to belong to other structures. Features around the perimeter may 

represent repairs to other structures as there is quite a palimpsest of overlapping 

houses in this area. A curved alignment to the southeast is not thought to 

be related. As with Structures 2 and 3, there are hardly any unassigned features 

outside the back of Structure 4. 

Overlaps. Structures 5, 8, 11, 13, 14, 41, 44, 46, 50, 51, and 52. 

Shared features. Six of the external features are shared with other structures. 



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 5 is the plan of what appears to 

be a regular post-built structure. The plan is incomplete due to the fact that half 

the structure falls outside the excavation boundaries. The remaining half consists 

of an outer ring of 22 postholes, and a configuration of five postholes forming 

an inner roof-bearing construction, the details of which are not certain in places. 

The interpolated floor area of the complete plan is ca. 51m². This structure is 

8.3m in diameter with an average span between the external posts of 59cm. This 

spacing may be slightly inflated due to the fact that the outer circle appears incomplete 

in places. The span between the only revealed opposing pair of internal 

posts is 6m and the average between the pairs is 2.34m. Overall, features range 

from 10 to 23cm in diameter and 8 to 55cm in depth. There is no obvious entrance 

in the perimeter, which may fall outside the excavated area. Ten features 

were excavated from this structure. 

In terms of the size of the features, in general, the eastern portion of the perimeter 

has a more even distribution of shallow, slender postholes, in keeping 

with the other circular structures in the unit which are slighter towards the back 

(i.e. east). Elsewhere depths and diameters of the adjacent features are more 

regularly deeper. Features in the perimeter are generally evenly spaced with small 

gaps in the northwest and east. Four of the ten features excavated from the perimeter 

are dug into the bedrock at a slant. Two of these from the eastern wall are 

slanting towards the centre of the structure, the other two are features shared by 

other structures and their angles are unclear with respect to Structure 5. 


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167

The internal configuration consists of five large postholes, ranging from 23 to 

55cm deep. The average distance between the internal postholes and the exterior 

wall (centre to centre) is 80cm. These postholes are interpreted as representing 

the top (northern) pair and back (eastern) pair of roof-supports, as well as one 

of the front pair of postholes behind the entrance. 

Having said that, however, it is difficult to identify an entrance with certainty, 

given the incompleteness. The distribution and depths of the features in 

the eastern portion of the perimeter as well as lack of precedent seem to argue 

against one in the east. Entrances are usually designated by an adjacent pair 

of similarly deep-set and wide postholes, often creating the largest gap in the 

perimeter, sometimes, flanked by postholes of decreasing size and aligned with 

a pair of internal posts whose span is greater than that of the entrance span. 

Orientation is usually between west to northwest. The largest posthole in the 

perimeter is oriented west-northwest, and although lacking an obvious counterpart 

above or below it, could indicate an entrance which has been obscured by 

the excavation boundary. The alignment of the internal construction also favours 

this interpretation. Further excavation would offer a solution. 

Feature fills. The contents of the feature fills were similarly sparse and fluctuated 

according to the volume of the posthole. Two features contained no organic or 

pottery remains, only small amounts of gravel (

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4 


The general concept of construction is a large circular building with roof support 

coming from deeper set posts within the perimeter wall. The distribution 

of both depths and diameters of the features throughout the structure forms a 

regular pattern in which massive entrance postholes are flanked by an arrangement 

of smaller postholes, followed by deeper posts again. These deeper posts 

are the equivalent of the front pair of internal posts in the other circular structures 

discussed so far. Thereafter, in the southwest (the northern quarter of the 

perimeter falls outside the excavation boundaries) an alignment of six shallower 

posts (≤40cm), is followed by another deep-set (73cm) roof support, followed 

by seven shallower posts (≤47cm), and another deep-set supporting post (91cm). 

Another six shallower posts (≤45cm) follow, and then one of the back support 

posts (55cm), followed by seven slender and shallow posts (≤42cm), of which 

the middle is the deepest, and another back support post (97cm). Four shallower 

posts continue the perimeter before disappearing under the unit boundary. This 

effectual abandonment of a full internal post-circle as roof support increases the 

internal space. 

There is also a regular pattern in the diameters of the posts in the circle. The 

support features all have greater diameters than the other perimeter features, 

with those between the two back support posts being most slender in diameter, 

akin to the back of the other structures discussed. The great concern for symmetrical 

regularity in the plan is apparent in every aspect. 

Given the late dating of this structure compared to that of Structure 1 (see 

below), there is reason to believe that this type of support given by the external 

wall was a later development out of the earlier type which separated wall and 

support. All features excavated from the internal and external constructions were 

vertical. 


169

Analysis of charcoal samples from the two entrance features by Lee A. 

Newsom shows that the posts were from Sapotaceae (sapodilla family), matching 

with two different species of the Sideroxylon genus: S. salicifolium (L.) Lam. (syn. 

Dipholis salicifolia) and S. foetidissimum Jacq. (syn. Mastichodendron foetidissimum). 

This is a tropical hardwood, ideal for construction. It has been found in 

association with archaeological sites from the Archaic onwards in the Lesser and 

Greater Antilles (Newsom and Wing 2004). The tree produces edible soft fruits 

and is classified as a home-garden species by Newsom (1995). It can tolerate arid 

and saline conditions, making it an ideal resource in a setting such as the eastern 

coastal plains of Hispaniola. 

Feature fills. Of all the postholes excavated, only four did not contain charcoal 

and these were exclusively smaller postholes. Substantial remains of burnt post 

stumps were recovered from the two entrance features (84-29-F293 and F178). 

As discussed in Chapter 4, these showed signs of combustion at high temperature. 

Charcoal samples were collected for dating and for species determination, 

and a further 220g was recovered from the fills. The fills of both features also 

contained substantial amounts of burnt bedrock material (>10kg) and decorated 

pottery sherds. There were very little food remains in the entrance features (marine 

shell ≤12g and bone ≤4g). The same patterns are observed in the five excavated 

support posts at the front, back and south. All contain charcoal (2-136g), 

pottery (20-230g), bedrock with signs of burning (≤ 7kg), and minimal food 

remains (marine shell ≤84g, crab claws ≤5g and bone ≤4g). 127 

The smaller perimeter postholes contained negligible charcoal (0-16g), gravel 

(4g-≤2kg), pottery (0-23g), marine shells (0-18g), and bone (0-3g). 

Special finds. Two beads were recovered: one from the northerly entrance post 

(84-29-F293, fill 2) and one from the southerly front supporting post (84-29- 

F248, fill 1). These were shell or bone beads. 128 

Abandonment. This structure was burnt down. This is evident from the substantial 

remains of charcoal from burnt posts in the fills of the largest features. 

Two burnt patches (F371 and 372), where the bedrock had completely discoloured 

due to intense heat, occurred inside north of the entrance and in the 

southwest. It is interesting to note that despite the fact that the entrance posts 

had burnt right down to the bottom, no charcoal or only a few grams testified to 

this occurrence in the smaller perimeter features. This should urge caution with 

respect to identifying destruction, or not, by fire. 

Dating. Structure 6 was erected in the late 14 th century. Samples from two burnt 

posts give a 95% probability that construction took place between AD 1290 and 

1420 (GrN-30534 and GrN-30535). If one adds a third dated sample (GrN- 

29035) which is spatially associated with Structure 6, yet not part of its internal 

or external post arrangement, a somewhat younger date is suggested, and there 

is a 95% probability that construction took place between AD 1300 and 1440. 

The structure also occupies one of the cleanest areas of the unit. 

127 Notably, relatively many ceramic sherds, including decorated pieces were recovered from the 

two entrance features, as well as from the other support posts. As for structure 1, structure 6 

is securely dated from charcoal from posts which means that it would be worth comparing the 

pottery from its features. See footnote 126. 

128 Exact material unknown. 


Associated features. As mentioned above, Structure 6 is most probably associated 

with two areas of intense heat occurring as discoloured bedrock within its 

perimeter. The intensity of the fire which destroyed the structure at abandonment 

is visible in these areas. Limestone naturally weathers different colours, but 

here it was evident that fire was probably the agent. 

A posthole feature occurring inside Structure 6, towards the centre (84-39- 

F30) also contained the remains of a burnt post whose date range falls within the 

same range as Structure 6 (see above). Although not incorporated as a structural 

element in Structure 6, this posthole may have been part of an internal configuration 

which has not been reconstructed, although it may just as likely belong to 

another structure which falls outside the unit. 

One, and possibly two, separate secondary depositions of human bone material 

also occur within the perimeter of Structure 6: the deposition of bones 

(teeth, rib, skull, and long bone fragments) of a neonate in a small pit (84-29- 

F261) and the deposition of fragments of possibly a human tibia in a posthole 

(84-29-F16). 129 This posthole was not assigned as a structural element in any of 

the structures in the unit, and the bone material must have been deposited after 

removal of the post. Both depositions are located along a roughly east-west line 

across the centre of the structure, the neonate ca. 2.5m from the entrance and 

the tibia ca. 2.5m from the back wall. It should be noted that these bone deposits 

also occur within six other structures and it is not known which, if any, of them 

are related to the depositions. 

Besides these, there are several large features and many smaller ones which 

occur within the perimeter of Structure 6. A clustering of unassigned large postholes 

towards the centre of the structure may yet prove to be part of a central 

configuration, although this is not necessarily the case and any configuration 

lacks the regularity seen in the rest of the structure. Neither is there an ideal 

candidate for a central post. The dense clustering of unassigned features in the 

west is thought most probably to belong to other structures, and again, as in 

Structures 2, 3 and 4, there appears to be an empty area behind the structure. 

Overlaps. Structures 17, 22, 26, 27, 28, 31, 39, 42, 47, and 48. Structure 14 is 

too close to be contemporaneous. 

Shared features. Five features are shared with other structures. 



structure consisting of an outer ring of 32 postholes, and a configuration 

of eight postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. The floor area 

is ca. 40m². The features at the entrance and flanking the entrance are doubled 

up. This structure is 7.3m in diameter with an average span between external 

posts of 64cm, and an average span between opposing pairs of internal posts 

5.09m and 2.02m between the pairs. It has a narrow entrance in the west marked 

by the largest features in the exterior. Nine features were excavated from this 

structure. 

The features of the entrance and those in the internal configuration are the 

deepest and widest, although the entrance features are set at a shorter distance 

(56cm) apart than the average spacing between the external posts (64cm). These 

entrance posts and the two adjacent posts on both sides of the entrance appear 

to have been further emphasized by the addition of second posts next to them 

129 Pers. comm. Dr Darlene Weston. 


171

0 

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4 

so that the entrance configuration consists of six pairs of posts. Three of these 

pairs were set in intersecting postholes. Similarities in the fills of these features 

(see below) indicate that their abandonment processes were the same, and it is 

thought that they were contemporaneous rather than replacements. This would 

have had the effect emphasising the entrance by doubling the number of posts, 

as an alternative to using much larger posts as is the case for other structures. 

All of the excavated features were vertical and ranged from 7 to 30cm in 

diameter and 8 to 80cm in depth. The structure is oriented with the entrance 

facing west-northwest, just as Structure 2. The distribution of depths and diameters 

of the features throughout the structure forms a regular pattern with an 

emphasized entrance flanked by slender posts. Posts in the external circle at the 

top and bottom of the structure (i.e. north-northeast and south-southwest) are 

also heavier set and aligned on the internal postholes. Akin to Structures 1 and 

6, the front pair of internal posts is slightly more widely spaced (by 40cm) than 

those at the back. These features align on the entrance. The internal posts are set 

on average 84cm away from the outside wall. 

In the external circle, over one third of the eastern portion of the perimeter 

has large gaps. There are only four features along this stretch of the wall. No 

other nearby features can be incorporated into the reconstruction, and the excavators 

did not record any depressions in the bedrock which might account for 

these lacunae, as is the case for Structure 2. Although we occasionally missed features 

in the field (often due to sand and dust collecting in the crevices between 

dipping planes), this is not believed to be the case here, where multiple features 

appear to be absent from an otherwise very regular structure which was checked 

in the field for consistency. This may be a more minimal or extreme version of 



Structures 1 to 6 whereby the posts along the back wall are in any case the slightest 

of the structure. The posts at the rear of the structure may have been dug 

through the topsoil alone. 

Feature fills. Six of the largest excavated features contained small amounts of 

charcoal: less than 1g each in two internal posts and 16g spread over four entrance 

posts. The presence of such small amounts of charcoal in the feature fill 

indicates that the structure was not burnt down. 

The four posts, forming two pairs, at the entrance were excavated together as 

there was no distinction in the fills of the intersecting features. Their fills were 

almost identical. The same fill characteristics, only with less pottery, are shared 

by the two internal posts excavated (85-40-F130 and 84-49-F260). These six 

features contained 7-24g of bone material, 26-130g of pottery, 79-132g of marine 

shell and 4-12g of crab claws. The features also contained more than 1 to 

0 

2 

metres 

4 

Abandonment. Unknown. 

Dating. This structure can only be placed by proxy within a relative unit chronology 

based on the artefact density (see Chapter 6). 

Associated features. There are a few small features both in and around Structure 

8, although it is not thought they are related. 

Overlaps. Structures 4, 11, 13, 14, 41, 44, and 50. Structure 51 is too close to 

be contemporaneous. 





structure consisting of an outer ring of 25 postholes, and a configuration of 

eight postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. The floor area is ca. 


posts of 54cm (excluding a large gap at the back of the structure), and an average 

span between opposing pairs of internal posts of 6.08m and 2.64m between 

the pairs. It has an entrance in the west marked by a pair of broad and deep-set 

postholes. Five features were excavated from this structure. 

The distribution of depths of the features throughout the structure forms a 

very regular pattern in which features in the western half of the external ring, including 

the entrance postholes diminish in depth and width towards the back of 

the structure. Despite the completeness of the western half, there is a conspicuous 

absence of perimeter postholes in the eastern half of the structure, seawards. 

No depressions in the bedrock were documented in this area (although they were 

documented in the area just west of the projected back of the structure), which 


0 

2 

metres 

4 


in general is devoid of features. Again, one might posit a construction which had 

no need of wall or roof supports at the back, or they were so shallow that they 

were wedged into the thin covering of soil on top of the bedrock. 

The eight postholes of the internal construction range from 53 to 74cm in 

depth, with the exception of an unexcavated posthole at the back which was only 

25cm deep when probed. 

As well as conforming to the pattern of structures with a heavier-set western 

half, the depths and diameters of the features also oscillate between wide 

and deep and slender and shallow, as is very clear in Structure 1. The two entrance 

postholes are 60cm deep, flanked by shallow postholes (11 and 25cm), 

and thereafter by two deeper ones (39 and 44cm), and subsequently by smaller 

features, at which point gaps appear in the perimeter of the circle and posthole 

dimensions become more variable. The structure is oriented west-northwest and 

bears many resemblances to Structure 2, in terms of orientation, distribution of 

internal posts and the narrowness of the space between the outside wall and the 

internal construction (53cm). Features range from 8 to 74cm in depth, and 7 to 

47cm in diameter. 

Of the five excavated postholes, two in the external circle were documented 

as slanting. However, seeing as these angles were noted as slight, and the posts 

were not oriented towards the centre of the structure, the evidence suggests that 

features were generally vertically set into the ground. 

Feature fills. All the excavated postholes of Structure 9 had small amounts of 

charcoal in their fills. The two entrance posts (85-50-F108 and F109) as well as 

the excavated internal posthole contained ca. 2kg of bedrock material, probably 

packing material as well as relatively large proportions of small organic material 

such as marine shells (50-189g; including chitons, limpets, nerites, tritons, 


175

Purpura sp. and fragments of Cittarium pica), crab claws (8-24g) and bone (18- 

30g). The fills also contained 51-250g of pottery, including decorated pieces, 

and a griddle fragment of 117g in one of the postholes of the entrance. The two 

postholes excavated in the perimeter have similar fill contents, only in smaller 

volumes, both containing around 300g of gravel and negligible organic and pottery 

remains. 

Special finds. There was a medium-sized griddle fragment (117g) in one of the 

entrance postholes. 

Abandonment. This structure was not burnt down owing to the small quantity 

of charcoal in the fills. It is not possible to determine whether this structure had 

the posts removed, or whether they were left to rot in situ. 


Associated features. There are only 12 unassigned features inside Structure 9, 

a few of which may represent repairs to the structure. There are hardly any features 

occurring outside the immediate perimeter of the structure and none at all 

at the back. 

Overlaps. Structures 1, 16, 20, 34, and 39. 


the features from the central configuration. 


Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 10 is a configuration of eight 

deep-set and wide postholes in a regular configuration of opposed pairs. The 

structure is identical to the internal constructions of the other circular buildings, 

but lacks an outer perimeter wall. The diameter is ca. 6m with the mean 

span between opposing posts at 5.93m and 2.42m between adjacent pairs. It is 

comparable in size of internal structure to Structures 2, 5 and 9. Seven of the 

eight features were excavated. 

The excavated postholes are all 74-91cm deep, with the only unexcavated 

posthole of the eight-post configuration being documented by probing at 41cm. 

Given the fact that the excavated depths show remarkable consistency, three 

posts being exactly 91cm deep and two others 81 cm deep, it is likely that on 

excavation this feature would prove deeper. The probed depth of one of the excavated 

postholes (84-59-F69) was also much deeper on excavation. The depths of 

(excavated) opposing pairs differed by maximally 17cm. 130 All excavated features 

are vertical. 

A number of unassigned and loose postholes scatter the area around Structure 

10, but given the regularity of the eight posts, and the irregular and intermittent 

spacing of these smaller postholes, plus lack of any conceivable deeper entrance 

posts or patterns akin to any of the other circular structures discussed, it is 

thought more credible to reject an outer perimeter. This eight-post constellation 

stands alone as a wall-less structure. Was this perhaps an unfinished building? Or 

did it simply have a different function? The latter interpretation is preferred due 

to a number of similar structures in the unit. 

Feature fills. There is consistency between all the excavated fills of these features 

which range between ca. 50 to 90L in volume. All contain small organic matter 

including 18-53g of animal bone (including the upper jaw of an Islobodon sp.), 

130 These depths should be equivalent if they support the same horizontal beam. 


0 

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4 


80-300g of marine shell, 6-26g of crab claws, 1.5-5kg of stone material, including 

larger pieces for packing material, and negligible (0-10g) amounts of charcoal, 

incorporated into the fill rather than suggestive of burning of the structure. 

Features also contained 100-300g of pottery, some decorated pieces (Chicoid) 

and griddle pieces. 

Special finds. A dog’s tooth with a perforated root, possibly for suspension, was 

recovered from halfway down fill 1 of the northernmost postholes of the western 

pair (85-40-F125). A few other canine teeth were recovered from the unit, 

one less than 3m south of Structure 10 from layer 1. Another, from an internal 

posthole of Structure 2, and most strikingly another with elaborate Chicoid incision 

was recovered from a posthole in the northeastern part of the unit, from 

Structure 29. 

Abandonment. This structure was not burnt down. Posts were either left to rot 

in situ, or were removed and the features back-filled. 

Dating. The structure is in a relatively clean area of the unit, and the features 

contained Chicoid decorated pottery. 

Associated features. There are a very few small features which occur within and 

around Structure 10. A small posthole just northwest of the centre may be incorporated, 

but is preferably left out of the interpretation. This will be discussed 


Overlaps. Structures 7, 12, and 52. 



177



structure consisting of a slightly elliptical outer ring of 56 postholes, and 

an internal roof-bearing configuration of eight posts. The floor area is ca. 50m². 

This structure is 8.5m in diameter with an average span between the external 

posts of 56cm, and an average span between opposing pairs of internal posts 

of 5.65m and 2.51m between the pairs. It has an entrance in the west-northwest 

marked by the largest postholes in the perimeter. Features range from 7 to 

31cm in diameter, and 4 to 74cm in depth. Six features were excavated from this 

structure. 

The external circle is complete and very regularly spaced, with the exception 

of a small gap in the northwest. The width from front to back, is a metre 

shorter than that from side to side which accounts for its slightly elliptical shape 

as compared to more perfect circles like Structures 1 and 2. The distribution of 

posthole depths and diameters across the perimeter conforms very well to the 

pattern seen in other regular circular structures in the unit, with the entrance 

posts being the largest in the perimeter, flanked by deeper postholes on either 

side of the entrance at the front of the structure along about 40% of the perimeter. 

The rest of the postholes in the perimeter are smaller and shallower. In a few 

areas postholes have been doubled or occur very close to each other. This may 

represent repairs. 

Five postholes in the exterior circle were slanting. This includes features from 

the north, south and east. All were oriented towards the centre of the structure. 

The posts were thus placed into the ground at an angle. The only vertical posthole 

in the exterior was the excavated entrance posthole. 


0 2 

4 

metres 


The internal post configuration is very regularly spaced, with an average of 

90cm between internal and perimeter posts. The depths, however, are variable 

and range from 11 to 74cm in depth. The northeast posthole pair is especially 

shallow (11 and 18cm deep). However, spatial similarities to Structure 2 and 

the indication from other structures in the unit of the importance that regularity 

plays in construction suggests that these are indeed the internal postholes. 

Moreover, as none of these features were excavated, the possibility remains that 

stony fills prevented accurate depth probing. Indeed, the internal structure is 

considered very secure. 

The floorplan of Structure 11 corresponds exactly with an area artificially 

flattened bedrock. This is indicated in the plan drawing by solid lines. The peaks 

of the bedrock had been clearly lopped off within this area. 

Feature fills. There were negligible remains (0-3g bone material, 0-8g pottery, 

0-20g marine shell, 0-1g crab claws and 2-823g of gravel) in the features excavated, 

including the larger entrance feature (ca. 50L). No charcoal was encountered 

in any of the fills, except for 1g in the entrance feature. 

Special finds. None. 

Abandonment. The posts were probably left to rot in situ or removed. 

Dating. Unknown. 

Associated features. A number of small postholes occurring inside and outside 

the perimeter of Structure 11 may represent repairs of the wall. Otherwise there 

are very few other features spatially associated with this structure. 

Overlaps. Structures 4, 8, 13, 14, 41, 46, 50, and 52. Structure 12 is too close 

to be contemporaneous. 



Spatial and physical characteristics. This is a small structure consisting of a 

circular arrangement of 23 slender (10 to 20cm) and shallow (8 to 24cm) postholes. 

The circle formed is incomplete, especially in the southwest and east. The 

diameter of the circle is 6m, and it has a floorplan of 26m². There is no indication 

of a central or internal structure. Three features were excavated from this 

arrangement. 

This circular configuration bears similarities to Structure 8, which also consists 

of just a perimeter circle. However, there is less indication that it was ever 

intended to be a closed perimeter circle as the features form three alignments of 

more or less equal length and number of features (two stretches of eight postholes 

and one stretch of seven), with gaps in between over 1.5m. The mean distance 

between the features is 84cm, although this decreases to 62cm if one does not 

count the gaps between the three separate parts. The features are metrically and 

spatially consistent with each other and not assigned to any other structure. 

All three excavated features were vertically set into the bedrock. 

Feature fills. The excavated features contained negligible remains, in part due 

to their small volume (≤ 3L). All contained small amounts of gravel (≤77g) and 

hardly any organic remains or pottery (marine shell ≤3g, crab claws ≤1g, bone 

≤1g, pottery ≤6g). 


Abandonment. Unknown but not burnt. 


179

0 2 

metres 

4 

Dating. No diagnostic material or dated samples, but overlapping with Structures 

7 and 10 it is in quite a clean area of the unit. 

Associated features. Very few features are spatially associated with this 

structure. 

Overlaps. Structures 7, 10, 46, and 52. Structure 11 is too close to be 

contemporaneous. 





structure consisting of an outer, slightly elliptical, ring of 47 postholes and 

a configuration of eight postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. 

The floor area is ca. 48m². This structure is 8.2m in diameter with an average 


pairs of internal posts of 5.77m and 2.51m between the pairs. It has a probable 

entrance in the west (see more below). Features range from 7 to 42cm in diameter 

to 8 to 93cm in depth. Four features were excavated from this structure. 

The distribution of depths of the features across the structure is regular with 

a division between deeper set posts in the west, at the front of the structure, and 

shallower posts in the east, at the back of the structure. Features in the west, 

running ca. 40% of the length of the perimeter, are deeper-set and wider than 

those posts in the rest of the perimeter, especially the back. The central pair of 

features in this western front section are not particularly wide or deep (26 and 


0 

2 4 

metres 


39cm in depth, 14 and 18cm in diameter), 131 but are the most likely candidates 

for the entrance as they align on the internal structure in a westerly direction 

and are consistent with the patterning in the rest of the perimeter, forming an 

entrance façade at the centre of the deeper-set postholes. The spacing between 

them (68cm) is also larger than the mean spacing of the rest of the postholes in 

the perimeter (57cm). However, it is possible that the large entrance features of 

Structure 4 (which overlaps Structure 13 and shares the same orientation) may 

have been used to support larger posts for Structure 13 also. Slightly deeper 

postholes also occur in the north and south of the perimeter, aligned with the 

central configuration. A gap at the back of the perimeter aligns with the entrance 

and internal configuration. It is not clear whether this absence is an access point, 

or simply that the back was not in need of dug-in support. There is also a small 

gap in the north of the perimeter. 

The two features excavated in the perimeter were vertical, whereas another 

small one in the north wall (not excavated, but visibly slanting in level 1) was 

slanting towards the centre of the structure. Whether the perimeter postholes 

were manufactured at a slant is therefore inconclusive. Two excavated internal 

features were vertical. 

The internal configuration of eight large postholes is regularly spaced with 

depths ranging from 47 to 93cm. Depth information is not available for the 

front pair (crosshatched in Fig. 95), but at least the southern one is deeper than 

42cm (this is the depth of the smaller, adjacent feature). 

131 The southernmost entrance feature, 84-39-F143, appears as a small crescent on the plan drawing. 

However, this marks the modification of the bedrock at the top of the feature as seen in level 

1, and the actual feature is a circular posthole, intersecting the adjacent feature. 


181

Feature fills. The fills of the four features excavated comprised similar small 

quantities of organic and pottery remains consistent with their respective volumes. 

This comprised 1.5 to 3kg of bedrock material in the two internal posts 

(of which the back posthole is ca. 40L, the front unknown), 21-54g of marine 

shell, 1-7g crab claws, 0-6g bone material, 0-4g charcoal and 4-50g of pottery. 

The posthole excavated in the southwest perimeter circle contained all these categories, 

except charcoal, in negligible quantities. 


Abandonment. This structure was not burnt down. Posts were either left to rot 

in situ, or were removed and the features back-filled. 

Dating. Unknown, but see Chapter 6 for its position within the El Cabo relative 

chronology. 

Associated features. A number of smaller features are spatially associated with 

this structure, mainly inside the perimeter. However, it is not possible to associate 

them directly with Structure 13 as there are multiple overlapping structures 

in this area. 


Shared features. Six features are shared with other structures, including two 

from the central configuration. 



structure consisting of an outer ring of 60 postholes and a configuration 

of eight postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. The perimeter 

wall at the back has undergone replacement at some stage in the structure’s history, 

hence the high number of external features. The floor area is ca. 54m². This 

structure is 8.3m in diameter with an average span between external posts of 

64cm, and an average span between opposing pairs of internal posts of 6.09m 

and 2.83m between the pairs. It has an entrance in the west marked by deep-set 

postholes. Six features were excavated from this structure. 

The metric dimensions of the features across the structure share the same 

pattern as many of the other circular structures in the unit: heavy-set posts at 

the front and a lighter construction at the back. The spacing between the postholes 

is regular. Gaps are noticeable in the north of the perimeter and in wider 

spacing between postholes at the back. About 40% of the perimeter in the east 

has been replaced, appearing in the plan as a doubling of the back wall. It is 

not clear which, the inner or the outer, came first. Interesting in this respect is 

the repetition of the gap in the north wall and the wider spacing at the back, a 

2.5m gap broken each time by the addition of a posthole. This not only bolsters 

the interpretation that this stretch of features represents different phases of the 

same structure, but also that the gaps seen in the north and back of some structures 

may indeed represent additional access points. Larger postholes flank the 

entrance posts, with those adjacent to the entrance on either side being larger in 

diameter than the others. The rest of the postholes in the perimeter are slighter. 

The two perimeter postholes flanking the pair of back posts are deeper than their 

neighbours, in both phases of (re-) building. 

The entrance postholes in the west are the deepest and some of the widest 

in the perimeter. The northernmost is a double posthole where the features intersect. 

The westernmost of these has the same depth as its adjacent entrance 


0 2 4 

metres 


posthole to the south (58 and 59cm), the easternmost being slightly shallower 

(50cm). This feature may have been enlarged on manufacture to fit a particular 

post, or perhaps the positioning was slightly altered during manufacture, leading 

to the doubling. It could also represent a repair. The exact nature is inconclusive 

as these features have not been excavated. 

The spacing of the internal posts is very regular and aligns on the entrance of 

the structure. Depths are quite variable, however, and range from 25 to 75cm, 

with the front pair of internal postholes, behind the entrance, being smaller 

than the back pair (37:69cm and 25:69cm deep). Given that uprights supporting 

horizontal beams should be of roughly the same depth, and that this is the 

case for structures in which opposing pairs have been excavated (e.g. Structures 

1 and 2), either the probed depths are inaccurate, or the assigned features are 

not the correct ones. 

In general, features range from 4 to 75cm in depth and 9 to 35cm in 

diameter. 

Four postholes (of which two were not excavated but visibly slanting in level 

1) from different sides of the perimeter are slanting: two clearly towards the 

middle of the structure, one unclear and another one, shared by Structure 4, 

outwards. Two others are vertical. This structure therefore possibly had slanting 

postholes in the perimeter. 

Feature fills. Three internal and three external postholes were excavated from 

this structure. The back posthole pair, each ca. 60L in volume, contained similar 

fills consisting of relatively little organic remains (marine shell 29-98g, bone 2- 

12g, crab claws 3-5g, charcoal 1-2g), some pottery (16-141g) including an adorno 

in fill 1 of 84-49-F163, and 1.5-3kg of bedrock, probably used as packing 

material. Despite having a much smaller volume (20L), the southwest internal 


183

posthole has very minimal remains (2g marine shell,

0 

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4 

Figure 97. Structure 15a. 

0 

2 

metres 

4 

Figure 98. Structure 15b. 


185

In general, the distribution of depths and diameters of features across the 

structure are greater in the west, at the front. However, several of the features 

here are shared with other structures and may have become larger due to remodelling. 

Heavier set features are also seen in the southeast of the structure. 

Features at the back (east), north and southwest are slenderer. The overall impression, 

however, is one of a regular circular structure much like the others in 

the unit. 

Seven excavated postholes from the perimeter and from all phases of building 

were set at an angle in the bedrock so that the uprights would be leaning towards 

the centre of the structure. Seventeen were, however, vertical in the bedrock. One 

of the features from the internal configuration was also slightly angled southeast, 

something not seen elsewhere in the internal configurations of the unit. 

The internal eight-post setting is regular in spacing and diameter of its features 

with the exception of the small feature forming the most northern feature 

of the back pair (84-39-F172). This posthole is only 14cm in diameter and 

15cm in depth. 132 There is no alternative large feature nearby. As we can see from 

other structures in the unit, postholes with the same function generally share the 

same properties, and thus this small feature is an anomaly. This is especially the 

case given that five other internal posts are some of the deepest in the site (73, 

48, 97, 110, and 114cm). The southerly pair, however, are similarly also quite 

shallow (25 and 31cm), although considerably wider than F172. Nevertheless, 

these three features were not excavated, whereas the other deeper features of the 

internal setting were excavated. Moreover, the small feature is in the boundary 

area between units excavated in successive years, and consequently may have 

been overlooked. The structural logic displayed by the other structures in the 

unit suggests that the lack of a suitable feature here may be to do with excavator 

oversight. The possibility always remains, however, that this is an anomalous 

structure. 

Feature fills. Four large features (ca. 20-65L), excavated from the interior of 

Structure 15, had remarkably sparse remains in their fills. This comprised minimal 

organic (0-3g bone, 0-4g crab claws, 1-3g charcoal and 1-211g of marine 

shell) and pottery (0-15g) remains as well as

Associated features. A number of smaller features are associated with the inside 

of Structure 15, although these are more likely part of alignments which intersect 

the plan. There are very few features outside the structure. 

Overlaps. Structures 5, 6, 17, 31, 43, 44, 47, 48, and 51. 

Shared features. Ten features from the perimeter are shared with other 

structures. 


Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 16 is a post row consisting of 

41 posthole features running north-south and extending 53m along the whole 

of the eastern excavated part of the unit. This alignment is parallel to the coast 

and possibly continues beyond the unit boundaries in the north and south. It is 

the most easterly structure in the unit and runs slightly north-northeast in the 

south where it enters the unit, and curves further outwards, to the east, in a wide 

bow towards the north of the unit, before curving back in again and following 

the line of the cliff top and exiting the unit. Ten features were excavated from 

the post row. 

All features fall within similar relatively shallow depth and diameter ranges: 

6 to 25cm across and 5 to 44cm in depth, with a mean depth of 21cm. Of the 

ten features excavated, half were set at a slight angle in which the major orientation 

was south: either southwest or southeast. The angle was often very slight. 

In three of the four cases where adjacent features were excavated, one of the two 

features was vertical, the other set at an angle. All features excavated terminated 

in rounded bottoms, with a couple being noted as particularly regular. 

The mean spacing between the features is 132cm. However, this distance is 

decreased (to about one metre) if one omits gaps which coincide with depressions 

in the bedrock and another large span where there appears to be a break 

in the alignment. 

There doesn’t appear to be a strict pattern in the distribution of depths of the 

features along the alignment. Shallower and deeper postholes are interspersed 

with each other following a pattern of two to four shallower postholes, followed 

by one to two deeper postholes. But the range of variation in the depths is relatively 

small and this is not thought to be significant. 

A break appears after the first 25 features in the south of the unit which 

divides the northern portion of the alignment from the southern portion. The 

reconstruction assumes that the two portions are contemporaneous and that 

they were part of the same structure. However, this may not be the case and in 

the extreme north of the alignment there is some choice as to which features 

belong to it. Both portions, however, follow the same line, running along the 

cliff edge. Moreover, the east of the unit, nearest the sea and devoid of topsoil, 

does in places have an uneven micro-topography, eroded by exposure, which in 

places confounded the distinction between natural pockets and anthropogenic 

features. 

Feature fills. The features, owing to their relatively small volumes, do not contain 

much organic or cultural material (0-2g bone, 0-8g pottery, 0-20g marine 

shell, 0-3g crab claws, 0-1g charcoal, 1-200g bedrock). Two of the largest features, 

in the north of the alignment, contained the least amount of material. 

These features also occurred closest to the edge of the cliff and therefore are most 

exposed. 



187

0 5 10 

metres 

Abandonment. Unknown, but not burnt. 


Dating. Unknown, but see chapter 6 for its position within a relative 

chronology. 

Overlaps. Structures 2, 9, 39, and 52. 

Shared features. One feature is shared with another structure. 


Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 17 is an alignment consisting 

of 26 posthole features extending 10.3m in a slightly curved formation running 

north-northwest at the top of the unit and straightening to a more southerly 

direction where it exits the unit at the bottom. This post row possibly continues 

beyond the unit boundaries in the north and south. All but one feature was excavated 

from this post row. 

Of the 25 features excavated, over half (n=16) were manufactured at an angle. 

In the majority of cases postholes were oriented so that the posts would have 

been oriented southwest. 


The mean spacing of the postholes is 49cm; roughly twice as close as for the 

post row of Structure 16. Features are rather small and consistent within a narrower 

size range than for Structure 16: Diameters range from 8 to 20cm, and 

depths from 10 to 37cm. There is no other noticeable pattern within the distribution 

of posthole dimensions. In three places along the post row, features are 

doubled or trebled, possibly representing replacement, or repair. 

In general this was a closely set palisade structure with posts slanting to the 

southwest, following a slight curve. The curve indicates that we should not exclude 

the possibility that the alignment forms part of the eastern wall of a circular 

or oval structure. However, this would make it larger than any of the other 

structures excavated in the unit, and no internal posts can be securely assigned 

to its west. 

Feature fills. As for Structure 16, the small volume of these features also correlates 

to negligible remains. There was less than 6g of organic material and 11g of 

pottery in all postholes excavated, and less than 0.5kg of bedrock material. 


Abandonment. Not burnt, posts left to rot in situ or removed and back-filled. 

Dating. Unknown, but see chapter 6 for its position within the El Cabo relative 

chronology. 

Overlaps. Structures 6, 15, 28, 31, 43, 47, and 48. Structure 51 is too close to 

be contemporaneous. 



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189


Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 18 is an alignment consisting 

of 22 posthole features extending 14.5m in a wide curve, almost a semicircle, 

open to the north and east. It is located in the north of the unit, on the cliff-top, 

and appears to bracket off Structure 3. Twelve features were excavated from this 

alignment. 

The distribution of features across this structure is a configuration of 11 posts 

running east-west and 10 posts running north-south, with one, deeper, feature 

in the middle of the row, flanked by a wider spacing on either side (1.6 and 

1.3m). The mean spacing between the features is 76cm. Features range from 9 

to 25cm in diameter and 9 to 50cm in depth. The two postholes at the extreme 

ends of the alignment, plus those on either side of the central post are deeper 

than most other features in the structure, lending symmetry to the formation. 

Over half the excavated postholes (n=7), including the larger posthole in the 

centre of the alignment, appear to have been manufactured at a slant, oriented 

south in the east-west oriented portion, and east in the north-south one. This 

would have the effect of a palisade semi-circle in which the posts are splayed 

outwards, rather than inwards as is the case with the roof/walls of the circular 

structures. 

Feature fills. The features contained negligible organic material (0-5g bone, 

0-1g crab claws, 0-1g charcoal, 0-12g marine shell) and a few grams of pottery 

(0-13g), as well as varying amounts of stone material, dependent upon feature 

volume (6g to 1.5kg). 


Abandonment. Not burnt, posts left to rot in situ or removed and back-filled. 


0 2 4 

metres 


Dating. Contemporaneous with Structure 3. 

Overlaps. Structures 49 and 52. 



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 19 is a short post row consisting 

of six features of decreasing depth and diameter (17 to 11cm in depth and 19 

to 10cm in diameter), running from northwest to southeast. The alignment is 

2.23m long and the features are evenly spaced at an average 45cm apart. None 

of the features was excavated. 

Seeing as all features are rather shallow, the colour-coded depth ranges have 

been refined to bring out the incremental depth changes. In this case white = 11 

to 13cm deep, grey 14 to 16 and black = 17cm. 

This alignment is similar to four others in the unit (Structures 32, 33, 35 and 

36). Such alignments are visually arresting among the unit features because, unlike 

most of the other structures in the unit, they are linear formations. 

Overlaps. Structure 30. 





structure consisting of an outer ring of 21 postholes and a configuration of 



0 

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191

posts of 98cm, although the many lapses in the perimeter circle indicate that this 

may have been smaller in built reality. The average span between opposing pairs 

of internal posts is 4.59m and 1.9m between the pairs. It has an entrance in the 

west marked by the largest features in the exterior. Five features were excavated 

from this structure. 

The features of the entrance and the inner construction align and are the 

deepest and widest of the structure (21 to 56cm deep and 18 to 27cm wide), with 

the possible exception of one of the features of the southern pair of internal posts 

for which the depth is unknown. However, there is no reason to suspect that the 

latter feature is not of equivalent depth to the others given that it is equally wide 

and in the “right” place in the structure. The two west-facing entrance features 

are 42 and 45cm in depth and 75cm apart, and flanked by deeper postholes on 

either side. The southernmost entrance feature (85-50-F104) intersects another, 

deeper (62cm) feature to its southeast which was excavated separately. The latter 

feature has not been incorporated into the reconstruction of Structure 20. 

Overall, features range from 8 to 27cm in diameter and 9 to 56cm in depth 

and the distribution of depths across the structure from front to back is similar 

to those of other structures whereby features in the western, front half are deeper 

than the features in the rest of the perimeter, especially those towards the back. 

In the north and southeast of the perimeter, the spacing of the postholes is not 

as regular as that at the front of the structure. There are no features in the area 

which can be used to satisfy these gaps, and again one must conclude that either 

there were no wall features here or that the structure did not require support 

from foundations in the bedrock. In this respect it is useful to note that two features 

at the back of the structure were noted as being quite hard to distinguish 

in the bedrock and one was documented as possibly being a natural depression, 

used as a posthole. In desk-based reconstruction, this “possibly natural” feature 


0 2 

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4 


fits very well into Structure 20, lending extra credibility to the fact that some 

of the shallowest features at the rear of structures may have been missed in the 

field, or may have been indistinguishable from natural pits and scrapes in the 

bedrock. 

Both of the features excavated from the perimeter circle were vertical. 

However, as these were the smallest features at the back of the structure, this 

does not necessarily mean that the rest of the perimeter was vertical. The mean 

distance between the perimeter and the roof supports is 81cm. 

Feature fills. The two entrance postholes (85-50-F104 and F179) both contain 

relatively substantial amounts of organic material and some pottery. Interestingly 

enough, given its smaller volume (ca. 15 and 26L), F104 contains more than 

F179: bone material 11:17g, crab claws 1:8g, charcoal 2:3g and marine shell 

53:106g, pottery 17:85g (including decorated sherds in both features). Both 

features contain ca. 2.5kg of bedrock material with that of F104 being noted as 

consisting of larger rocks. An explanation for the difference in quantity of the 

fills might be that the adjacent feature F179 belonged to a later structure, and 

F104 was backfilled (with larger rocks) and with a more rich organic soil. 

The only internal feature excavated, one of the back internal posts (85-50- 

F136) which contained similar components as the entrance posts (6g bone, 1g 

crab claws, 1g charcoal, 40g marine shell, and 73g pottery, including a griddle 

fragment). The two postholes excavated from the perimeter at the back of the 

structure contained ≤1g of each material category. 


Abandonment. Posts removed and backfilled. 


Associated features. A few small features inside Structure 20 are not necessarily 

thought to be related. Very few features occur outside its perimeter, and none 

at the back. 


Shared features. Four features, including two from the internal construction, 

are shared with other structures. 



structure. The plan is incomplete due to the fact that the western half of 

the structure falls outside excavation boundaries. The remaining half consists 

of an outer ring of 24 postholes and a configuration of four postholes (and a 

fifth possibly indicating repositioning in the north) forming an inner roof-bearing 

construction. The interpolated floor area of the complete plan is ca. 49m². 

This structure is 8m in diameter with an average span between external posts 

of 56cm. The span between the only revealed opposing pair of internal posts 

is 5.57m and between the only adjacent pair is 3.24m. There is no obvious entrance 

in the revealed perimeter, and it is assumed that the entrance was in the 

unexcavated western portion of the structure (see below). One feature from this 

structure was excavated. 

The features in the perimeter of the structure show great uniformity in terms 

of size, all falling between 7 to 23cm in diameter and 9 to 28cm in depth. These 

are regularly spaced and relatively shallow features, concomitant with their interpretation 

as forming the back portion of the structure. 


193

The features of the inner construction, ranging from 42 to 61cm in depth are 

also regularly spaced and potentially align on a west-northwest facing entrance. 

The most northwesterly of the internal structures has an elongated form from 

which two depths were taken. It is assumed that this includes two features, the 

deeper perhaps a repositioning of the shallower one. 

As no features from the external post circle were excavated, it is not known 

whether these features are vertical or not. 

Feature fills. The only feature excavated was an internal feature from the southwest 

of the structure. This feature contained some organic remains (bone 5g, crab 

claws 4g, charcoal 3g, and marine shell 48g) as well as 70g of pottery and



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 22 is one of the largest structures 

excavated. A small part of the external circle falls outside the excavation 

boundaries in the north and south. Its plan is that of a regular post-built structure 

consisting of an outer ring of 32 postholes and a configuration of eight 

postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. Floor area is ca. 82m². 

This structure is 10.5m in diameter with an average span between external posts 

of 82cm, and an average span between opposing pairs of internal posts of 7.37m 

and 3.56m between the pairs. It has an entrance in the northwest marked by the 

largest postholes in the perimeter. Sixteen features were excavated. 

There are some marked differences between Structure 22 and other circular 

structures in the unit. First of all the entrance is oriented northwest, at a 

much more northerly orientation than those structures facing west northwest. 

Secondly, unlike the other structures, both the entrance postholes (84-29-F345 

and F364) were slanting so that their posts would have been angled to the southeast, 

i.e. towards the centre of the structure. These are both wide, flat-bottomed 

features, one with a large piece of quern stone used as packing material against 

the inside south wall. Of the ten features excavated from the perimeter circle, 

all from the eastern half, four were clearly set into the bedrock at an angle. All 

excavated internal features were vertical. Although the entrance postholes were 

slanting into the structure, it remains unclear whether this was the case for the 

majority of the postholes of the perimeter. 

The internal configuration of eight postholes is very regularly spaced throughout 

the structure, and aligns precisely on the northwest entrance. Depths range 

between 44 and 81cm. The difference in the span between the front pair (north) 

of internal postholes and the back pair (south) is almost two metres so that the 

0 2 

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195

pair flanking the inside of the entrance is much wider set than the pair at the 

back. This is an exaggerated repeat of what is seen in Structure 1 where this is 

also the case. Five of the internal postholes (and possibly another one in the 

northeast, but this falls outside the excavation boundary) also align on a deeper 

feature in the perimeter, as is the case with some other structures in the unit. 

This is not the case for the back pair of postholes (south). 

There are a few omissions in the perimeter circle which shows gaps in the east 

and west between otherwise regularly spaced exterior wall features. The perimeter 

itself forms a very regular circle. The lighter setting of the perimeter postholes 

contrasts with the heavy-set internal configuration. 

Feature fills. The two entrance features, both ca. 100L in volume, have fills 

very consistent with each other in terms of organic, pottery and stone content 

(bone 3-4g, crab claws 4g, marine shell 27-36g, charcoal 1-5g, pottery 31-43g, 

and 6.5-7kg bedrock material). This bedrock is interpreted as packing material 

(as is the quern fragment found propped against the side of F345). The three 

other internal excavated postholes contain similarly large quantities of bedrock 

material (>2-11kg) as well as some organics (1-3g bone, 0-3g crab claws, 2-44g 

marine shell, 1-5g charcoal). Two features contained minimal pottery (3-14g), 

with a third (84-29-F250) containing considerably more, i.e. 192g. Fills of ten 

external features contained remains consistent with each other and their respective 

volumes (gravel 80-1300g, ≤1-8g organic material, ≤1-14g pottery). The 

only exception is a feature from the southwest perimeter which revealed 94g of 

charcoal during cleaning of level 1 alone. This feature was not fully excavated, 

but given the large amount of charcoal in the top, probably contained the remains 

of a burnt post. In this respect it is anomalous with the rest of the features 

in the structure which contained minimal charcoal. Nevertheless, it is included 

in the reconstruction because of its place in the perimeter wall, and because its 

relatively large size indicates it could have been incorporated into more than one 

structure. Another large perimeter feature to the left of the entrance contained 

the spout of a Chicoid vessel, also recovered during the cleaning of the top of 

the feature. 


Abandonment. Posts removed, or left to rot in situ. Not burnt. 


Associated features. One, and possibly two, separate depositions of human 

bone material occur within the perimeter of Structure 22. These are the deposition 

of bones of a neonate in a small pit (84-29- F261) and the deposition of 

fragments of possibly a human tibia in a posthole (84-29- F16). These are the 

same bone deposits also spatially associated with the inside of six other structures. 

The features in which they occur are not structural elements of any identified 

structure. 

Otherwise, this structure occupies a location dense in unassigned features. 

It is not clear which, if any may be associated with the structure, although it 

is unlikely that any of them had a structural function as 22 is thought to be 

complete. 


Shared features. Three features, including one of the internal postholes, are 

shared by other structures. 





structure consisting of an outer ring of 29 postholes, and a configuration 

of eight postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. The structure is 

complete with the exception of the perimeter in the extreme west which falls 

outside excavation boundaries. The floor area is ca. 48m². This structure is 8m 

in diameter with an average span between external posts of 74cm, and an average 

span between opposing pairs of internal posts of 5.07m and 2.32m between the 

pairs. In all likelihood the entrance was in the west, but this area has not been 

excavated. Two features were excavated. 

Features range from10 to 87cm in depth and 7 to 50cm in diameter. Unlike 

many other structures in the unit, the features at the back are not the smallest 

in the perimeter. Instead, slightly larger features are evenly spaced all around the 

perimeter, mirroring each other in the north and south, and aligning with the 

postholes of the internal configuration. In the northern half of the perimeter 

these larger features are interspersed with two or three shallower and slenderer 

features. These smaller features are missing in the south and at the back, leaving 

the larger ones. Approximately four metres of the perimeter in the west are outside 

the excavation boundary. Given that there are no credible entrance features 

in the rest of the perimeter, and the internal features would align on a conventional 

west-facing entrance, it is assumed the entrance is here. 

The sole external excavated feature from this structure is from the back. This 

was dug at an angle into the bedrock and the upright would have leant west, 

towards the centre of the structure. One internal feature from the back pair was 

excavated and was vertical. 

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197

The internal configuration of eight deep and broad features forms a very 

regular load-bearing configuration akin to other structures. 

Feature fills. The feature excavated at the back of the structure (85-62-F22), ca. 

12L in volume, contained half a kilogramme of bedrock material, 10g of marine 

shell and 4g of pottery. The internal feature (85-62-F90) had 4kg of bedrock 

material spread through 37L, with most in the bottom in fill 2. This feature also 

contained 59g of pottery, including two decorated sherds and minimal organic 

material (2g crab claws, 2g charcoal, 16g marine shell). 




Associated features. A relatively high number of features of all size classes are 

spatially associated with Structure 23. This is an area dense in unassigned features, 

however, and it is not clear which, if any of them are related to this structure. 

Based on the apparent lack of non-structural dug-down elements in or immediately 

outside other structures, it is thought these features belong to other, 

unreconstructed, structures. 


Shared features. Structure 23 shares nine features with other structures: five internal 

postholes (with Structure 24) and four external features. 



structure consisting of an outer ring of 38 postholes, and a configuration of 



posts of 63cm, and an average span between opposing pairs of internal posts of 

5.26m and 2.62m between the pairs. The entrance is marked by two heavy-set 

postholes in the western perimeter. Eight features were excavated. 

Structure 24 shares most of the inner construction, except for the northern 

pair of postholes and one of the back pair, with Structure 23 which it overlaps 

with minimal spatial displacement between the two building episodes. 133 The 

two structures also share three postholes from the perimeter circle (not the entrance), 

and Structure 23 has a slightly larger floor area. The relative sequence of 

the structures is not known (which came first, 24 or 23?), but it is likely that one 

succeeded the other immediately the first was decommissioned. 

Features range from 9 to 56cm in diameter and 7 to 87cm in depth. The 

distribution of posthole depths and diameters shows a regular pattern across the 

structure, from front to back, whereby the postholes at the entrance and those 

flanking the entrance are some of the largest in the perimeter, and those at the 

back of the structure are the most slender and shallow ones. The northernmost 

entrance feature is a double posthole (85-52-F19 and F20) which mirrors the 

setting of a deep posthole next to its partner to the south. This entrance configuration 

(as well as that for Structure 23 which is missing) is exactly on the 

excavation boundary, and would be clearer with further excavation to the west. 

Deeper postholes in the north, south and at the back are interspersed with shal- 

133 It is possible that Structures 23 and 24 share exactly the same internal configuration, but the 

principle of not using the same feature twice in the presence of an alternative makes the latter 

preferable. 


0 2 

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4 


lower ones around the perimeter. One particularly large feature in the southeast 

(85-51-F282) may have been used to house a post in the exterior circle, but it 

was probably made for other purposes as it is extremely large (56cm wide and 

82cm deep) and bears similarities to two other large postholes in its vicinity (85- 

62-F100 and 85-61-F69). It is not known whether this posthole pre- or postdates 

Structure 24. 

Of the six postholes excavated in the perimeter, three are slanting. These would 

have supported posts leaning towards the centre of the structure. Interestingly, 

as for Structure 22, one of the slanting postholes is an entrance feature (85-52- 

F17), as well as the feature adjacent to it to the south. 

Feature fills. The excavated entrance feature and internal feature had very similar 

fills (taking into account their volumes, ca. 37 and 47L), both having small 

amounts of organic material (1-2g bone, 16-108g shell, 1-2g crab claws, 0-2g 

charcoal), some pottery (59-80g), including decorated sherds and 4-5kg of bedrock 

material. The same is true of the larger feature flanking the excavated entrance 

feature, which also contained 54g of pottery griddle. The other exterior 

features, reflecting their volumes, contained very small amounts of material, 

whereas the very large feature (200L) in the southeast of the perimeter will be 

discussed in the context of Structure 30 where it serves as an internal posthole 

the fill of which more likely reflects activities associated with this structure. 


Abandonment. Post removed or left to rot in situ. 

Dating. Late, possibly colonial, see Structure 30. 


199



however, and it is not clear which, if any, of them are related to this structure. 



unreconstructed structures. 


Shared features. Twelve features are shared with other structures, including five 

internal features with Structure 23. 


Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 25 is a regular but unique collection 

of eight posts in an oval configuration on the edge of the cliff. This structure 

is ca. 1.5 by 2.5m in diameter with an internal area of 3m² and an average 

of 82cm between each feature. Five features were excavated. 

Features range from18 to 26cm in diameter and 47 to 80cm in depth, and 

from ca. 15 to 30L in volume and sit in a relatively tight cluster with few features 

in the vicinity which bear a resemblance to them or could be interpreted 

as belonging to the same structure. Of the five excavated features, four were set 

at an angle in the bedrock. These were all slightly angled leaning out from the 

structure so the uprights would have splayed apart. The excavated fills are also 

extremely consistent with each other (see below) and not at all consistent with 

any other adjacent excavated features. The combination of these characteristics 

makes a good case for interpreting this as a structure, which given its position 


0 

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metres 


on the edge of the cliff may have been positioned to take advantage of the wind 

or the sight lines. Structure 25 is in an area where there was no layer 1 due to 

proximity to the edge of the cliff. 

Feature fills. The fills of the five excavated features are some of the richest in 

terms of organic and pottery remains in the whole unit. The mean contents 

of the features were 37g bone, 107g shell, 4g crab claws, 2g of charcoal, 198g 

pottery, and 3kg of bedrock material with a tight range between the individual 

figures. Three of the features also contained decorated sherds. One of the features, 

with almost 5kg of bedrock material in the fill, contained a large stone, 

horizontally placed, halfway down the fill. This indicates that the features were 

backfilled after the uprights were removed. 


Abandonment. Features backfilled after the posts were removed. 


Associated features. Structure 25 is a relatively isolated configuration with no 

features occurring within its small perimeter, and two larger features occurring 

to the east. It is not known how or if these relate to Structure 25. 

Overlaps. None. 



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 26 is the plan of what appears 

to be a regular post-built structure. The plan is incomplete due to the fact that 

more than half the structure falls outside the excavation boundaries. The remaining 

half consists of an outer ring of 13 postholes, and a configuration of three 

postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction, the details of which are 

not certain without more exposed surface area. The interpolated floor area of the 

complete plan is ca. 57m². This structure is 8.2m in diameter with an average 

span between the external posts of 84cm. The distance between the only revealed 

adjacent pair in the north is 3.28m. Overall, features range from 9 to 32cm in 

diameter and 7 to 75cm in depth. There is no obvious entrance in the perimeter. 

Two features were excavated from this structure. 

There is not enough evidence to draw conclusions about this structure. 

However, the metric and spatial properties of the external postholes are consistent 

with other more complete circular structures in the unit, being a slender 9 

to 13cm wide, with more close-set postholes in the west (consistent with a westerly 

entrance) and more wide-set in the east. Two of the internal posts are also 

metrically and spatially consistent, whereas the third one in the east is somewhat 

shallower (26cm) and also slightly angled to the southwest. It is possible that one 

of the larger postholes slightly to the west was used instead, although these have 

been assigned to other structures. 

Feature fills. The two features excavated were from the internal construction 

and the difference in their fills reflects their different volumes (ca. 60L vs. ca. 

7L), both containing 1g of bone, crab claws and charcoal, but the larger feature 

having 10g (as opposed to none) of pottery and 26g (as opposed to 1g) marine 

shell. Both features contained

0 2 4 

metres 

volume was from the larger feature. This may be explicable by the fact that 1kg 

of the dry-sieved fill from this feature (84-29-F193) was taken as a geophysical 

sample. 




chronology. 

Associated features. Few unassigned features are associated with this structure. 

Three larger features within its perimeter may belong to other structures. 


Shared features. Two perimeter features are shared with other structures. 



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 27 is the plan of a slightly irregular 

post-built structure consisting of an outer ring of 38 postholes and an 

internal roof-bearing configuration of eight posts. The plan is incomplete in 

the south where it extends beyond the excavated boundaries. The floor area is 

ca. 72m². This structure is 9.8m in diameter with an average span between external 

posts of 80cm, and an average span between opposing pairs of internal 

posts 7.02m and 3.06m between the pairs. It has an entrance in the northwest 

marked by the largest postholes in the perimeter. Features range from 6 to 46cm 

in diameter, and 8 to 63cm in depth. Twenty features were excavated from this 

structure. 


Structure 27 has a somewhat lower reliability score than the other structures 

due to the insecurities which exist within its inner structure in particular. It 

bears many similarities to Structure 22 in terms of orientation and positioning 

within the unit. However, the interior structure does not share the regularity of 

other examples. Nevertheless, a structure of this form and with these dimensions 

is deemed plausible, despite uncertainty in the details. 

The perimeter circle is a ring, flatter along the eastern portion, of regularly 

spaced postholes. Gaps appear in the perimeter on either side of the entrance in 

the northwest, formed by two deep-set postholes (58 and 45cm deep). Absences 

are present in the west portion also. Incompleteness in this area may potentially 

be due to the different, less compact, consistency of the bedrock here, which 

may explain the “loss” of smaller features. Unlike other structures, there is no 

striking distinction between the larger features at the front of the structure, and 

the lighter ones at the back. This is also the case for Structure 22, which is comparable 

in many aspects. In general, shallow and deep features are interspersed 

with each other, with deeper features relatively regularly spaced throughout the 

perimeter. 

The internal configuration of eight features consists of postholes of variable 

depths and diameters, including a small one (17cm deep) in the northeast which 

is shared by another structure. This was assigned for reasons of symmetry, being 

needed as a counterpart to its opposite posthole at the rear of the structure. It 

is not seen as a convincing option, however, although it is always possible that 

this part of the structure, being on the edge of the unit boundary, may have 

been morphologically different. Further excavation might resolve this. The other 

internal features range from 29 to 48cm in depth, and their somewhat variable 


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203

diameters and irregular plans are an indication of the different consistency of the 

bedrock in this area – i.e. it does not cut so cleanly as in other, more easterly, 

parts of the unit. 

Three features from the perimeter were found to be set at a slant into the 

bedrock. These were all from the eastern wall and slant towards the centre of the 

structure. However, other features excavated, including those from the entrance, 

were vertical. 

Feature fills. Three excavated internal postholes and the excavated entrance 

posthole, ranging between 10 to 50L, are consistent in terms of volumes of pottery 

and organic material (4-27g pottery, 0-2g bone, 1-12g marine shell, 0-1g 

crab claws). However, there is variability in the amount of charcoal in these features, 

ranging from negligible (1g) to significant (a sample of unknown weight 

was taken for species identification from 84-29-F249, >10g). The two features 

(the entrance feature and an internal posthole in the west) with the most charcoal 

were also those with significantly more bedrock material (7kg). This is interpreted as packing material for the post in both cases, as 

can be clearly seen in the section drawing of 84-29-F249 (Fig. 72). In particular, 

this feature is similar to the two features with burnt post remains from Structure 

6, and indeed F249 intersects with a perimeter feature of Structure 6. Charcoal 

from F249 was not dated as it was thought to be contemporary with the two 

other burnt features in the vicinity. However, seeing as these structures overlap, 

they cannot be exactly contemporaneous. The smaller features have similar fill 

contents: minimal remains (0-1g bone, 0-10g pottery, 1-6g marine shell, 0-1g 

crab claws, 0-1g charcoal, and 1-40 g gravel), also with the exception of a feature 

(84-29-F185) in the south of the perimeter, wider than adjacent features which 

contained 2kg of burnt bedrock material and had a very irregular bottom with 

signs of intensive heating and 6g of charcoal in the fill. 

Special finds. A tubular black and white diorite bead with a central perforation, 

ca. 2cm long, was excavated from internal posthole 84-29-F17. 



chronology. 

Associated features. One, and possibly two, separate depositions of human bone 

material occur within the perimeter of Structure 27. As mentioned before, these 

are the deposition of bones of a neonate into a small pit (84-29- F261) and the 

deposition of fragments of possibly a human tibia into a posthole (84-29- F16). 

These are the same bone deposits also spatially associated with the inside of six 

other structures. The features in which they occur are not structural elements of 

any identified structure. 

Otherwise, this structure occupies a location dense in unassigned features. It 

is not clear which, if any may be associated with the structure. 


Shared features. Three features, including one from the internal configuration, 



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 28, akin to Structure 10, is a 

configuration of eight deep-set and wide postholes in a regular configuration 

of opposed pairs. The structure is identical to the internal constructions of the 


Figure 111. Structure 28 

other circular buildings, but lacks an outer perimeter wall. The diameter is ca. 

4.6m with a mean span between opposing posts of 4.54m and 2.04 between adjacent 

pairs. Its internal structure is comparable in size to Structures 3 and 20. 

Seven of the eight features were excavated. 

The eight large postholes are all vertical in the bedrock and range from 47 to 

70cm in depth. The depths of the excavated opposing pairs differ by a maximum 

of 8cm, so very closely equivalent, and as expected, closer than that of the adjacent 

features. 134 The features are all very regular with flat or rounded bottoms. 

Feature fills. Fill information is available for six of the large features of the configuration, 

which range between ca.18 and 37L. Fills are generally equivalent, 

with 1g of bone, 2-28g pottery, 2-12g marine shell, 12-300g gravel, 0-1g of crab 

claws, and 1g of charcoal in two of the postholes. 


Abandonment. Not burnt, posts removed, or left to rot in situ. 


Associated features. The deposition of fragments of a possibly human tibia occurs 

in a spatially, but not structurally associated posthole (84-29-F16) with 

Structure 28. This is the same bone deposit also associated with the inside of six 

other structures. 

Otherwise, there are many features of all size classes which occur within and 

around Structure 28, including a small posthole in the centre of the structure, 

as is the case in Structure 10 of the same type, although this is thought not to 

0 2 

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4 

134 Again, these depths should be equivalent if they support the same horizontal beam. 


205

e related to the structure, as will be discussed below. This area on the edge of 

the unit is generally dense with unassigned features and these are not necessarily 

related to Structure 28. 





structure consisting of an outer ring of 41 postholes and an internal roofbearing 

configuration of six posts. The western quarter of the plan falls outside 

the excavation boundaries which accounts for the fewer than usual number of 

internal posts, and probably also the lack of an evident entrance configuration. 



pairs of internal posts 5.2m and 2.37m between the pairs. Features range from 

6 to 35cm in diameter, and 5 to 114cm in depth. Two features were excavated, 

both from the internal configuration. 

The visible portion of the exterior circle in the north, south and east consists 

mainly of shallow and slender postholes. Three or four larger postholes in the 

south and southeast are an exception to this, being much larger than the adjacent 

features and larger than most perimeter features in general. In the case of 

the two largest postholes in the south, this can be accounted for by the fact that 

these features are shared by other structures, performing a supportive function 

in these structures. A relative chronology of the successive structures is proposed 

in the following chapter. The other two large perimeter postholes may be accounted 

for by other, as yet unreconstructed, structures in this area of quite a 


0 2 

metres 

4 


high feature density. Moreover, a modern-day fence in this area may have made 

use of and enlarged indigenous postholes. The doubling of some postholes in the 

north and southeast may indicate repairs to this structure. No features have been 

excavated from the perimeter; therefore it is unknown whether the postholes 

were vertical or not. 

The six internal postholes form a regular setting of what would have been 

an eight-post roof-bearing structure. The two excavated features were dug vertically 

into the bedrock and are 61 and 76cm deep. The other features were in 

this range, except for the slightly smaller southwest internal posthole which was 

34cm deep. Its adjacent pair in the southeast is one of a cluster of three large 

postholes, remarkably regular and similar in their manufacture (85-51-F265, 

F266 and F267), the most easterly of which is incorporated into the inner configuration 

of Structure 3 (the third has not been assigned) (Fig. 153). These 

postholes intersect each other at the top, but thereafter maintain very thin (a few 

centimetres) walls between them all the way down their considerable lengths. 

Such large and well made postholes, all with similar toolmarks showing vertical 

chiselling on their inside walls, so close to each other, suggests that they 

were made with knowledge of the presence of each other. Their similarity and 

incorporation into different structures potentially indicates that a succession of 

similar structures on this spot took place either within a relatively short time of 

each other, within the lifetime of a building group, or that traditions were strict 

and well maintained. In this sense, postholes are like fingerprints. This will be 

discussed further in Chapter 6 in terms of renewal. 

Feature fills. The two postholes excavated from the internal configuration were 

from an opposing pair (ca. 40 and 54L in volume), both containing relatively 

large amounts of pottery, including decorated pieces (61g in one and >30g in the 

other, but the weight of ceramic concentration halfway down the feature is not 

included, so this would be more), as well as large pieces of bedrock lower down 

in the fills (both ca. 6kg), and minimal organic remains (1-11g bone material, 

14-49g shell material, 1-4g crab claws, and 1-2g of charcoal). Both features also 

contained pieces of what appears to be a sedimentary iron-rich mineral which 

appears also frequently in the layer 1 material in this area of the unit, next to the 

coast. At first these fragments were taken to be pieces of corroded iron, but on 

further inspection they appear to be a mineral of some sort. Their significance 

is unknown. 

Special finds. A perforated dog’s tooth incised with Chicoid motifs was recovered 

from fill 1 of the northeastern internal posthole (84-52-F94). The tooth 

is perforated in the root, and has anthropomorphic eye incisions on either side 

(Fig. 25). Stylistically it is identical to the cache of 3000 dog and seal teeth with 

incised decorative motifs found by local children in the 1970s near a rock overhang 

in the vicinity of the site (Ortega 1978a). This find is perhaps also related 

to the concentration of Chicoid decorated pottery found just below the tooth, 

upon which it was possibly laid when deposited. 

Abandonment. Posts were removed and back-filled. 

Dating. In a relative sequence with Structures 3, 23, 24 and 30. This is discussed 




however, and it is not clear which, if any, of them are related to this struc- 


207

ture. Based on the apparent lack of non-structural dug-down elements in or immediately 



Overlaps. Structures 3, 23, 24, 30, 32, 37, and 36. 


the postholes of the internal configuration. 




configuration of seven posts. The northwestern quarter of the plan falls 

outside the excavation boundaries which accounts for the fewer than usual 

number of internal posts. The floor area is ca. 60m². This structure is 8.8m in 

diameter with an average span between the external posts of 79cm, and an average 

span between opposing pairs of internal posts of 5.31m and 2.34m between 

the pairs. Features range from 6 to 56cm in diameter, and 9 to 82cm in depth. 

An entrance in the west is marked by two deep-set posts. Two features were excavated 

from this structure. 

The perimeter is a regular circle of postholes with wider and deeper postholes 

in the westerly section, with less regular spacing and gaps in the perimeter circle 

in the east of the structure. Two deeper postholes in the west are probably the 

entrance pair, with the southernmost feature of the pair being a double posthole. 

The perimeter immediately to the north is outside the excavation boundaries, 

obscuring the rest of the entrance facade. Given the perfect alignment of this 

putative entrance on the central configuration, however, it is likely this was the 

entrance, slightly south of west. The features are also part of a heavier-set section 

of the perimeter, as seen in the front of other structures. Slightly deeper 

postholes also occur in the north of the perimeter. The gap at the back of the 

perimeter is similar to that of other structures. However, the lack of postholes 

in the southeast cannot be explained by natural depressions or a rough bedrock 

surface (making smaller features difficult to identify), seeing as other small perimeter 

features from structures in the area were recovered. In the northeast, east 

and south, portions of the wall have been repaired or re-built. In the east, this 

has the effect of making the structure slightly bigger. 

One of the external postholes at the back of the perimeter, partially excavated 

due to a concentration of large base fragments of a pottery vessel, was found to 

be slanting west, towards the centre of the structure. Seeing as this structure 

bears similarities to other structures with slanting postholes, it was probably the 

case that the perimeter wall was slanting. 

The internal configuration of seven posts (the eighth falling outside the excavated 

area) is spatially very regular with postholes of similar depths forming the 

north and south opposing pairs. However, the back pairs, although of similarly 

large widths (48 and 56cm), are very different in depth, with the southernmost 

posthole being 82cm and its northern partner only 9cm deep. This posthole was 

not excavated and it may perhaps be that stones prevented effective depth-probing. 

Its excavated counterpart contained in excess of 10kg of stone material, 

another over 2kg. 

Feature fills. The two internal features excavated are of very different volumes 

(ca. 27 as opposed to 200L), yet contain the same fill categories and relative 

quantities. Both contain 26-44g of bone, 8-113g of marine shell, 1-16g of crab 

claws, 1-4g of charcoal, 6-83g of pottery, and as mentioned above more than 


0 

2 4 

metres 


2->10kg of bedrock material in one single fill. In comparison to other features 

there are remarkably few finds for such a large feature. In addition, two pieces of 

(fitting) glass of variable thickness (3 to 4mm) were also recovered from the fill 

of this feature, probably fragments of a bottle neck showing an iridescent sheen 

on the surface and opaque light green/brown in colour. 135 

Special finds. See description of the glass fragments above. In addition, the base 

of a vessel was recovered from layer 1 between features 85-62-F97 and F98. 

Abandonment. The stony single fill of the large internal features suggests that 

posts were removed and the features backfilled. 

Dating. Colonial, due to glass in the feature fill. 



however, and it is not clear which, if any, of them are related to this structure. 




Overlaps. Structures 3, 23, 24, 29, 32, 37, and 36. 

Shared features. Two features are shared with other structures, including one 

of the internal postholes which served as a perimeter posthole for another 

structure. 

135 This material needs to be further investigated and more precisely identified. 


209


Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 31 is the plan of a post-built 

structure consisting of an outer ring of 25 postholes and an internal roof-bearing 

configuration of eight posts. The northern portion of the perimeter falls outside 

the excavation boundaries. The floor area is ca. 56m². This structure is 8.3m in 

diameter with an average span between external posts of 84cm, and an average 

span between opposing pairs of internal posts of 6.72m and 3.02m between the 

pairs. An entrance in the west is marked by two deep-set postholes. Features 

range from 8 to 42cm in diameter and 10 to 88cm in depth. Eleven features were 

excavated from this structure. 

Although this is not the most regular structure in the unit, there are plenty of 

similarities between other circular structures and this combination of a perimeter 

circle, including entrance features and a regular central configuration. The 

southern part of the perimeter circle is complete and regularly spaced. However, 

gaps occur in the east, northeast and northwest. Two features in the west, 57 

and 61cm deep, are interpreted as the entrance with, to the north, another large 

posthole feature, and to the south small postholes continuing the perimeter wall. 

Hence, there is not the symmetry in the entrance configuration seen in other 

structures. An alternative perimeter configuration favours three smaller postholes 

northwest of entrance posthole 84-29-F260 instead of the northern entrance 

(84-29-F279) feature and its large adjacent feature. However, without 

further excavation the preferred interpretation is the former due to its more 

regular floor plan and convincing entrance configuration. 

The internal configuration is a regularly spaced configuration of eight large 

posts. There is inconsistency in the depth of some of these features, namely 

somewhat shallow features in the northwest and southeast. Of the northeasterly 


0 2 

metres 

4 


posthole there can be no doubt as this one was excavated to a depth of 27cm. 

The southeasterly posthole was 19cm when probed. The other internal posts 

range from 43 to 88cm in depth. 

All internal and external postholes excavated were vertically set into the bedrock, 

apart from a small one at the back. Six perimeter features were all vertical, 

however. Although the internal configuration is quite regular, it does not align as 

comfortably on the entrance as is the case with the majority of the circular structures 

in the unit, the southern front internal posthole being a metre more distant 

from the southernmost entrance post than its counterpart with the northernmost 

entrance feature. Nevertheless, there is in general a good fit between both 

the outer and inner construction. 

Feature fills. Fill information is available from four of the postholes of the internal 

configuration, three of which are ca. 9L and the one in the west ca. 100L. 

Interestingly, this larger feature was partially filled with stones and coral. The 

other features contained ≤210g of gravel. They all contained 1g each of charcoal, 

bone and crab claws, 3-11g of marine shell, and 1-6g of pottery. Fill information 

from three smaller postholes was consistent, with the larger perimeter feature in 

the northeast (ca. 25L) containing 39g of pottery, more than the others which 

contained 1g. 


Abandonment. Not burnt, posts removed or left to rot in situ. 


Associated features. The deposition of fragments of a possibly human tibia occur 

in a spatially, but not structurally, associated posthole (84-29-F16) with 



Otherwise, there are many features of all size classes which occur within and 

around Structure 31 as this area on the edge of the unit is dense with unassigned 

features. 

Overlaps. Structures 6, 15, 17, 38, 26, 27, 28, 39, 42, 43, 24, 47, 48, and 51. 

Shared features. Seven features are shared with other structures, including two 

from the internal configuration. 


Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 32 is a short post row oriented 

northeast-southwest, consisting of five features of decreasing depth (14 to 

20cm in diameter and 21 to 45cm in depth). The alignment is 1.9m long and 

the features are evenly spaced an average 47cm apart. None of the features was 

excavated. 

Seeing as all features are rather shallow, the colour coded-depth ranges have 


to 25cm deep, grey = 26 to 40cm deep, and black = 41 to 45cm deep. 

This structure is akin to four other similar post rows in the unit: Structures 

19, 33, 35 and 36. 



Overlaps. Structures 3, 23, and 30. 



211

0 

2 4 

metres 



northwest-southeast, consisting of four features of different depths (14 to 27cm 

in diameter and 25 to 47cm in depth), with the shallowest and deepest postholes 

at either end of the row as in Structures 19 and 32. The alignment is 90cm long 

and the features are evenly spaced an average 30cm apart. None of the features 

was excavated. 

Seeing as all features are rather shallow, the colour-coded depth ranges have 


to 26cm deep, grey = 27 to 40cm deep, and black = 41 to 50cm deep. 

This structure is akin to four other similar post rows in the unit: Structures 

19, 32, 35 and 36. 



Overlaps. Structure 3. 





structure consisting of a slightly elliptical outer ring of 29 postholes and 

a configuration of eight postholes forming an inner roof-bearing construction. 




0 

2 4 

metres 


pairs of the internal posts of 5.36m and 2.39m between the pairs. It has an entrance 

in the west-northwest marked by deep-set postholes. Three features were 

excavated from this structure. 

The perimeter circle is ca. 80cm wider in a north-south direction than from 

front to back. A probable entrance in the west-northwest is formed by two differently 

sized postholes, the northernmost one being wider and deeper than 

its southern counterpart (39cm wide and 55cm deep vs. 19cm wide and 21cm 

deep), yet nevertheless this pairing aligns very well on the internal configuration 

and no other features satisfy the criteria for an entrance. Moreover, the structure 

here abuts the excavation boundary and may therefore be slightly obscured. The 

perimeter is generally regularly spaced, but gaps are present in the eastern portion 

and also in the southwest, south of the entrance. The doubling of postholes 

in the north suggests some minimal repair and rebuilding. The two postholes 

excavated from the perimeter were vertical in the bedrock, one of which was 

deemed too shallow and irregular to be a posthole and was cancelled as a natural 

depression. Its position within the perimeter led to the reinstatement of this 

feature. 

The internal configuration of eight postholes is very regular in terms of spacing. 

It shares two postholes with other structures (Structures 1 and 20), and 

depths are variable with two postholes being only 19 and 23cm deep. However, 

these features were unexcavated and the structure forms such a consistent and 

convincing whole that this is not seen as a problem. Other internal features 

range from 31 to 60cm in depth with a good correspondence between opposing 

pairs. 


213

0 

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metres 

Feature fills. Two adjacent postholes excavated in the perimeter revealed similar 

amounts of organic and stone material (4-6g bone, 15-32g marine shell, 1g charcoal, 

3g crab claws, 198-500g bedrock). However, one contained 40g of pottery 

including a decorated sherd. The excavated internal posthole, also an external 

posthole from Structure 1, was relatively rich in organic and ceramic material: 

24g bone, 46g marine shell, 4g charcoal, 6g crab claws, 94g pottery (including a 

decorated sherd), and more than 1kg of bedrock material. 




Associated features. A few small features occur inside this structure. Many 

of these are thought to belong to other structures. There are very few features 

around the exterior and hardly any at all at the back. 


Shared features. Four features are shared with other structures, including two 

internal postholes. 


Structures 35 and 36 (Confidence Class: 3) 


north-northwest to south-southeast, consisting of five features of very variable 

depths (15 to 28cm in diameter and 1 to 62cm in depth), with the deepest postholes 

at either end of the row. The alignment is 2.3m long and the features are 

evenly spaced an average 58cm apart. Three of the features were excavated, all 

are vertical. 


Figure 118. Structures 35 

and 36. 

Structure 36 runs parallel to it, at a distance of 90cm to the west. This is another 

slightly longer alignment, 3.9m long, consisting of six features an average 

of 79cm apart. The features are 23 to 30cm in diameter and share a similarly variable 

range of depths: between 22 and 71cm deep. Again the alignment terminates 

in two of the deepest features. Two features were excavated, both vertical. 

The possibility was considered that the features formed east-west pairs rather 

than north-south alignments, but the very different depths between the pairs 

and their similarities to other alignments nearby in the unit (19, 32, 33) as well 

as impressions gained in the field cautioned against this interpretation. 

However, they share similarities in addition to their proximity and identical 

orientation: two features from Structure 36, on the left, and one from Structure 

35, on the right, bore very similar morphological characteristics on excavation: 

they had a very defined bottom edge, with a sharp transition from the walls 

to the bottom of the posthole, marked by a groove around the bottom. 136 The 

alignments may represent the re-building of the same small structure in different 

phases. 

It is the variability in the depths of the features of the alignments which is 

their most striking factor (a difference of 49cm between the shallowest and the 

deepest features in Structure 36, and one of 61cm in Structure 35). Uprights 

supporting horizontal beams should be of roughly the same depth, so clearly, as 

with the other similar alignments (Structures 19, 32 and 33) these are not alignments 

which support uprights, at least not along their whole lengths. An example 

of this is Structure 35, in which the middle feature (85-52-F147) is only 1cm 

deep! This is not an error of depth probing, as this feature was excavated and 

0 2 4 

metres 

136 This a characteristic also shared by one of the internal postholes in Structure 30, which interestingly 

enough aligns on Structure 36, although at a distance of 3.3m. 


215

found to be a very shallow, yet unmistakably anthropogenic, 15cm wide, and cut 

depression. Perhaps the decision was made to abandon the making of a posthole 

after it had been marked out in the bedrock. 

During fieldwork, the area outside to the west of the excavation boundary 

was thoroughly checked for the presence of more features in the same orientation. 

This was possible as only a thin covering of sand is present in this area. 

However, no features were found, and this is deemed to be the northern extent 

of these post rows. 

Due to the presence of more unassigned features in this area of the unit 

of comparable diameter, and the relative scarcity and functional uncertainty of 

these sorts of structures, it was tempting to extend the alignments southwards 

and incorporate additional features. However, there is not enough positive evidence 

to justify this at this point in time. The fact that they are contemporary 

features belonging to the same structure also cannot be ruled out. The possibility 

that they were additional elements of house Structures 29 and 30 in this area was 

also considered, but could not be justified. 

Feature fills. Structure 35 understandably only revealed finds from the two 

deeper postholes at either end of the alignment, and not the 1cm-deep feature in 

the middle. The largest one at the north end (85-52-F132), ca. 30L in volume, 

had relatively large amounts of pottery (84g), as well as a coral rubbing/grinding 

tool, a flint flake and in addition to 52g of marine shell, a circular disc cut 

from the thinner part of the lip of a Strombus sp. This disc was rough around the 

edges, as if a rough-out for something. Furthermore, the feature contained minimal 

organic remains (2g bone, 2g crab claws and 1g charcoal), and almost 5kg 

of bedrock material. The feature at the southern end (85-52-F125) contained 

similar amounts of bedrock material and, although not much smaller in volume 

(20L), considerably less pottery and organic remains (1g bone, 2g marine shell, 

17g pottery). 

The two features from Structure 36, ca. 9 and 14L, both contained ca. 1kg 

of bedrock material, 1g bone, 5g marine shell, ≤25g pottery, with the larger also 

containing very negligible crab claws and charcoal remains (1g). 

Special finds. Half manufactured Strombus plaque, very similar to those from 

Punta Macao (Olsen 2004a), see above. 

Abandonment. Posts removed and back-filled. 

Dating. Possibly contemporary with Structure 30 (posthole manufactured 

similarly)? 

Overlaps. Structures 24 and 29. Structure 23 is too close to be 





east-west, consisting of six features of similar depths (40 to 49cm) and diameters 

(15 to 20cm). The alignment is 6m long and the features are evenly spaced an 

average 120cm apart. None of the features were excavated. 

The first posthole in the alignment in the west was noted as being irregular in 

plan, with a straight side unlike the round plans of the majority of the postholes. 

This alignment also follows the same orientation and is in the vicinity of a contemporary 

fence, which controls livestock movements. It is therefore possible 


0 2 4 

metres 


that this post row is recent. Unfortunately, none of the features were excavated 

to get a better impression of the differences between pre-Columbian indigenous 

and contemporary or sub-recent postholes. Nevertheless, more features in this 

area were marked as possibly recent on the plan drawing due to their anomalous 

plan aspects. 

Feature fills. None available. 







Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 38 is the plan of what appears 

to be a circular post-built structure. The plan is incomplete due to the fact that 

half the structure falls outside the excavation boundaries. The remaining half 

consists of an outer ring of 11 postholes, and a configuration of four postholes 

forming an inner roof-bearing construction. Due to the structure’s incompleteness, 

a minimal reconstruction is preferred. The interpolated floor area of the 

complete plan is ca. 31m². This structure is 6.5m in diameter with an average 

span between the external posts of 94cm. This spacing is relatively large and reflects 

the irregular spacing of the perimeter postholes. The span between the only 

revealed opposing pair of internal posts is 5.09m and between the only adjacent 

pair 2.26m. Features range from 8 to 27cm in diameter and from 8 to 68cm in 


217

depth. There is no obvious entrance in the visible eastern half of the perimeter 

and given the strong precedent of the other circular structures in the unit, and 

the orientation of the central configuration, the entrance was probably in the 

west-northwestern portion of the perimeter. No features were excavated from 

this structure. 

The features of the perimeter half circle are all rather shallow (≤22cm deep), 

with somewhat irregular spacing between them. Nevertheless, they maintain a 

relatively constant mean of 68cm between them and a collection of four heavier 

set and wider postholes forming the internal construction. These postholes range 

from 34 to 68cm in depth. 

Despite the incompleteness of this structure, and the occasional gaps in the 

perimeter wall, its overall regularity, similarity to the other structures in the unit, 

and the good correspondence between the internal and external configurations 

make interpretation of this as a circular structure plausible. 

Feature fills. None available. 




Associated features. Very few unassigned features are associated with either the 

inside or outside of Structure 38. 

Overlaps. Structures 21, 34, and 40. Structure 1 is too close to be 



0 2 4 

metres 





Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 39 is a post row consisting of 24 

posthole features running east-northeast to west-southwest and extending 46m 

through the whole of the unit, with the last feature stopping 2.3m short of the 

edge of the cliff. This alignment possibly continues beyond the unit boundaries 

in the west. Features range from 6 to 28cm in diameter and from 5 to 40cm in 

depth. Five features were excavated. 

The majority of the postholes (75%) are

One anomalous feature (84-39-F97) in the alignment occurs about a third 

of the way along from the west and is much wider than it is deep (28cm wide, 

19cm deep). This is perhaps a larger posthole aborted in the early stages of 

manufacture. 

Given the fact that the orientation of this alignment is the same as that of 

the contemporary fence (marked for a part by the oblique unit boundary in 

the northwest, Fig. 47) which crosses the unit 13m to the north, and does not 

seem to take account of any of the pre-Columbian structures in the unit (unlike 

Structure 16 for example), it may be the case that these features belong to such 

a sub-recent fence. 137 

Feature fills. The excavated features contained negligible remains (≤1g bone, 

≤1g pottery, ≤1g charcoal, ≤1g crab claws, ≤20g marine shell, and ≤123g bedrock 

material). 



Dating. Recent. 

Overlaps. Structures 1, 6, 9, 16, 17, 23, 22, 27, 28, 31, 34, 40, 42, 44, 47, 48, 

and 52. Structure 7 is too close to be contemporaneous. 





configuration of four posts. About 40%, the western half of the plan, 

falls outside the excavation boundaries which accounts for the fewer than usual 

number of internal posts. Otherwise, and based on the remaining evidence, this 

structure is expected to have an internal configuration of eight posts. The floor 

area is ca. 100m², with a diameter of 11.6m. Only one set of internal opposed 

posts is exposed and these are 7.86m apart, with an average of 2.9m between 

the two pairs of adjacent postholes. The average gap between postholes in the 

perimeter circle is rather large, 1.2m, which reflects the fact that the spacing on 

the perimeter, especially in the east, is wide (otherwise this would be more in 

the range of 90cm). Features range from 6 to 29cm in diameter and 7 to 67cm 

in depth. No obvious entrance configuration is present in the exposed portion 

of the plan. An entrance is expected in the northwestern perimeter based on the 

example set by other similar structures in the unit, the small size of the exposed 

perimeter features and the alignment of the inner configuration. One feature 

was excavated from this structure. 

137 A note on the fence: when we began fieldwork in 2005, the fence was not there. However, in 

subsequent years it was erected to control the movements of sheep and goats. It stretched all the 

way from the edge of the cliff, back into the village. The livestock owner paid one of the men 

in the village to make and repair the fence, which he did several times during the course of the 

years we were there, once making a gate for us and our vehicles, and another time a structure 

with additional posts to help us clamber from one side to the other. The posts ranged from 10 to 

20cm in diameter and are possibly responsible for some of the postholes in the unit, especially 

in the northern part of the unit where the fence currently is. We mostly distinguished between 

these recent postholes and the pre-Columbian examples on the basis of regularity and circularity 

in plan view (the pre-Columbian postholes are more regular and round). 


0 

2 4 

metres 


The eastern, exposed, part of the perimeter is made up of predominantly 

shallow postholes, with two postholes aligned on the back pair of postholes, either 

side of a gap in the perimeter wall. This construction whereby a gap at the 

rear of the structure is flanked on the inside by a roof-bearing pair of posts is 

seen in other structures. 

The internal structure, consisting of five postholes, is very regularly spaced 

and depths range from 25 to 67cm. At first, an alternative reconstruction was preferred 

which indicated a west-facing entrance, but the more even spacing makes 

the current configuration preferable. One of the internal postholes is shared with 

Structure 1, and this feature also has a slightly elongated, oval form which lends 

more credence to the fact that it may have been re-dug at some point. 

Feature fills. The one excavated feature was one of the back postholes from the 

internal construction. This feature intersects with another feature assigned to 

Structure 20, and seeing as there was no distinction between the fills, these were 

excavated together, with a combined volume of ca. 24L. The feature contained 

moderate amounts of organic remains (19g bone, 116g marine shell, 5g charcoal, 

12g crab claws) as well as 100g of pottery, including decorated sherds, and 

3kg of bedrock material, including many large pieces, used as packing material. 




Associated features. A few, mainly small, features occur within and outside this 

structure, but mainly accumulate on the boundaries of the excavation unit indicating 

they probably belong to other structures. 


221


Shared features. Three features are shared with other structures, including one 

internal posthole. 




configuration of four posts. About 50%, the southern half of the plan, falls outside 

the excavation boundaries which accounts for the fewer than usual number 

of internal posts. Otherwise, and based on the remaining evidence, this structure 

may have had an internal configuration of eight posts. The floor area is ca. 

140m², the largest one in the unit, with a diameter of 13.5m. Only one set of 

internal opposed posts is exposed and these are 10.7m apart, with an average 

of 4.53m between the adjacent pairs. 138 The average gap between the postholes 

in the perimeter circle is rather large, 1.17m. Features range from 6 to 24cm in 

diameter and 6 to 36cm in depth. No obvious entrance configuration is present 

in the exposed portion of the plan. Seven features were excavated from this 

structure. 

Half this structure falls outside the excavation boundaries and the remaining 

portion of the external perimeter has at least four gaps in it, in different places. 

When compared to other structures this is not so unusual, but in this case it is 

united with an insecure internal configuration. This accounts for the low reliability 

score of the structure, which is nonetheless deemed plausible. 

As mentioned, the external semi-circle has gaps in the north, east and west. 

Features are within the size ranges for other perimeter features, although there 

is no clear pattern in depth variation across the structure. All excavated features 

are vertical. 

The four postholes of the putative internal configuration are somewhat more 

speculative and were selected based on spatial regularity rather than metric considerations. 

The only excavated feature is also the deepest (32cm), the other 

three being shallower (9 to 22cm). In terms of orientation, there is a preference, 

based on other examples, for a westerly facing entrance, although this cannot be 

said with security. 

The structure is slightly anomalous due to its large size compared to other 

structures in the unit. However, this neither strengthens nor weakens the 

reconstruction. 

Feature fills. Fill information is available for five excavated features. All except 

one contained very minimal remains (≤1g bone, ≤1g pottery, ≤1-5g marine shell, 

1g crab claws). However, a larger external feature (84-39-F232) contained 180g 

of pottery and 40g of marine shell. 


Abandonment. The difference in fill contents and richness of remains in layer 1 

as opposed to the cleanness of most of the excavated features points to the posts 

having been pulled out and the postholes backfilled. This may have been the case 

because a dense sweeping layer was noted on top of feature 84-49-F280, including 

large pieces of coral (probably a rubbing tool) lying in a horizontal position 

138 The span of all adjacent pairs was taken into account as too little of the plan is exposed to say 

with any certainty what orientation the structure has. 


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4 


a few centimetres above the top of the feature. The rest of the fill itself was clean 

(6g of organic remains and no pottery). Consequently, the posthole was filled 

with clean material and household residue gradually accumulated in this area. 


Associated features. A number of smaller features are scattered across the inside 

of this structure, although many probably belong to other structures. 

Overlaps. Structures 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14, 46, 50, 51, and 52. 

Shared features. One perimeter feature is shared with another structure. 




configuration of eight posts. The floor area is ca. 54m². This structure is 8m in 

diameter with an average span between the external posts of 77cm, and an average 

span between opposing pairs of internal posts 5.54m and 3.09m between 

the pairs. Features range from 7 to 33cm in diameter, and 3 to 90cm in depth. 

Exceptionally, this structure appears to have an entrance in the east, marked by 

two of the deepest and widest postholes in the exterior. Seventeen features were 

excavated. 

The perimeter circle forms a regular circle with an entrance façade consisting 

of postholes of decreasing depth and diameter moving away from the entrance 

postholes. Gaps appear in the perimeter in the north, south and west. In the 

west, features are not so evenly spaced as elsewhere. Seven postholes excavated in 

the eastern portion of the perimeter are slanting towards the centre of the structure. 

The two entrance features were vertically set into the bedrock. 


223

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4 

The central configuration of eight posts does not form so much of a regular 

configuration as other examples. Nevertheless, depths range from 28 to 90cm 

deep, and the structure aligns well on the entrance. The three postholes excavated 

from the internal structure are all vertical. 

Feature fills. Feature fills of both the internal and external features were pretty 

consistent with respect to their different volumes and contained minimal remains 

(bone ≤3g, marine shell ≤39g, crab claws ≤3g, charcoal ≤2g) and some 

bedrock material (≤4kg). Only the pottery varied notably in quantity among 

the features, with some containing none at all, and others containing moderate 

amounts (4-41g). Examples of features with pottery are both entrance features 

(24-32g). 


Abandonment. Not burnt. 


Associated features. One, and possibly two, separate depositions of human 

bone material occur within the perimeter of Structure 42. These are the deposition 

of bones of a neonate into a small pit (84-29-F261) and the deposition of 

fragments of possibly a human tibia into a posthole (84-29-F16). These are the 

same bone deposits also spatially associated with the inside of six other structures. 

The features in which they occur are not structural elements of any identified 

structure. 

Otherwise, this area is dense with unassigned features and it is not possible 

to say which may be related. 




Shared features. Four features, including one internal posthole, are shared by 



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 43 is the plan of a small postbuilt 

structure consisting of an outer ring of 25 postholes and a configuration of 

eight postholes forming an irregular inner roof-bearing construction. Structure 

43, akin to 16, is smaller than the other circular buildings in the unit, with a 

floor area of ca. 24m² and a diameter of 5.7m. The average span between the 

external posts is 71cm, between the opposing pairs of internal posts 3.82m and 

1.71m between the pairs. Features range from 8 to 27cm in diameter and 7 to 

49cm in depth. There is no clear entrance in the perimeter. Ten features were 

excavated. 

The external perimeter forms a rather irregular circle in places and there are 

many gaps, especially in the west and northeast. This would be partially solved 

by re-using features assigned to other structures, but a minimal reconstruction 

is preferred as this structure in general is not the most secure. Nevertheless, the 

extant parts of the perimeter are relatively evenly spaced and the size of the features 

is within what is expected for perimeter constructions (although there is 

one larger feature in the north). The gap in the perimeter in the east corresponds 

to similar gaps in the back of other structures, and the internal configuration 

aligns on this, although there is no positive direct evidence for an entrance configuration 

in the west. Again, however, if other already assigned features were 

incorporated this could be made stronger. Most of the features excavated from 

the perimeter were vertically set into the bedrock. 


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4 


225

The spatial correspondence between the perimeter and the likely internal 

construction is good, although overall the depths and diameters of the eight 

internal posts are variable (13 to 49cm in depth, 10 to 23cm in diameter), and 

they do not form as regular an eight-post configuration as in some of the other 

structures. 

Feature fills. The features contained variable and minimal remains. The one 

internal feature for which there is fill information contained 2g of bone, 1g of 

pottery and 7g of marine shell. All other features contained

0 2 

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4 


Feature fills. Two features excavated from the internal configuration contained 

1g bone, ≤1g of crab claws and charcoal, 1-39g of pottery, and 3-17g of marine 

shell. The perimeter features all contained

This structure is on the edge of the excavation unit and if the reconstruction 

is accurate, only 10% of the whole is revealed. Nevertheless, the combination of 

a regular arc of smaller features, combined with two larger features, corresponds 

well with other, more complete circular structures seen in the unit. Both putative 

internal features are vertical, and one of the external postholes is slanting, 

admittedly unusually outwards from the structure. The internal large feature in 

the east (84-39-F347) is actually multiple features consisting of an oval pit with 

clear toolmarks on its inside walls, extending beyond the excavation boundaries. 

This pit incorporates two deeper postholes within it. This feature had a very rich 

fill (see below). As one of the only non-posthole features in the excavation the 

fill, especially the pottery, merits more attention. 

Despite incompleteness, this reconstruction is plausible, although further excavation 

is necessary to determine the ultimate validity. 

Feature fills. Fill information is available for one feature excavated from the perimeter 

which contained some gravel (39g) and 1g of marine shell. The multiple 

features of the internal posthole were excavated together in two fills as there was 

no distinction between them. This was a very rich feature in terms of pottery, 

700g 139 , and organic material (5g bone, 12g crab claws, 2g charcoal, 441g marine 

shell) as well as nearly 12kg of bedrock material. 




Overlaps. Structures 5 and 26. Structure 27 is too close to be 




0 

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metres 

4 

139 Analysis of this pottery may give more of an indication of the type of deposit in this feature, i.e. 

whether this is a single-event cache or a very dense artefact trap from multiple phases. 


0 2 

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4 



Spatial and physical characteristics. This is a small structure consisting of a circular 

arrangement of 17 slender (5 to 20cm) and shallow (4 to 24cm) postholes. 

The circle formed is incomplete, with no southern portion. The diameter of the 

circle is 6.6m, and it has a floorplan of 22m². There is no indication of a central 

or internal structure. One feature was excavated from this arrangement. 

This configuration of postholes bears similarities to Structures 8 and 12. The 

only excavated feature was vertical in the bedrock. 

Feature fills. Feature 84-49-F211 was excavated as a small appendage to a large 

intersecting feature (F210), assigned to another structure. It contained 1g crab 

claws, 1g marine shell and 71g of gravel. 



Associated features. Several small features occur within the perimeter of this 

structure, especially to the south, although their potential relationship to the 

structure is unclear. 

Overlaps. Structures 4, 11, 12, 41, and 52. Structure 2 is too close to be 




229

Structures 47 and 48 (Confidence Class: 3) 

Spatial and physical characteristics. Structures 47 and 48 represent a minimal 

and a maximal interpretation: the first is a curving post alignment and the second 

a circular structure with internal post configuration akin to the other circular 

structures in the unit. 

Structure 47 consists of a curved alignment of 23 postholes, stretching for a 

length of 14.7m. Features range from 9 to 39cm in diameter and 6 to 38cm in 

depth. The features are arranged in descending depth from the beginning of the 

alignment in the west to the end in the east with a mean of 67cm between the 

features. Nine features were excavated. 

Structure 48 is an elaboration of this alignment, interpreted it as an elliptical 

structure, 9 by 7.6m, with a roof-bearing construction, the northern part of 

which falls outside the excavation boundaries. The heavy-set postholes in the 

west of alignment 47 and the semicircular disposition of the rest of the postholes 

bear resemblance to the entrances and perimeter arrangements of the circular 

structures in the unit, which was the motivation for reconstructing a circular 

structure on this spot. Moreover, a configuration of six larger postholes inside 

this arrangement can be interpreted as an internal, roof-bearing configuration. 

The perimeter thus consists of 30 postholes, the interior of six deeper postholes, 

with a span between opposing posts of 6.51m and between adjacent pairs of 

2.27m. 

The insecurities in this plan are caused by the fact that: (1) half the internal 

features (n=3) are already assigned to different structures 140 , (2) the large 

postholes of the putative entrance façade in the west are simply not mirrored 

by corresponding postholes to the north, and (3) there are gaps, following relatively 

evenly spaced features, along all of the northern portion. Given the orientation 

of the elliptical shape of the structure, one would also expect the inner 

configuration and the entrance to be slightly more oriented to the northwest. 

Interpretation is not aided by the fact that if this were a circular structure, the 

northern extremity and possibly some of the internal construction would be outside 

the excavation boundary. 

The entrance configuration consists of two large postholes 71cm apart, the 

northernmost one being shared by another structure. The northernmost posthole 

is much deeper than its counterpart to the south (72cm:38cm), although 

both features were partially filled with stones and coral, indicating that their 

volumes had been adjusted. As mentioned, the rest of the entrance façade to the 

north is missing, but to the south three postholes of decreasing depth are larger 

than the rest of the postholes in the perimeter. Thus, where present, the pattern 

of features across the structure is similar to that of other circular structures 

– heavy at the front and light at the back. The six postholes interpreted as the 

roof-bearing construction range from 38 to 80cm deep. 

All features from both reconstructions are vertically dug into the bedrock. 

Feature fills. As mentioned, the fills of the two entrance postholes contained 

substantial amounts of coral and bedrock (weights not recorded). In addition 

negligible other pottery (1 and 19g) and organic remains (11-16g marine shell, 

1g bone and charcoal, ≤1g crab claws) were encountered. The other excavated 

internal and external features similarly contain negligible organic remains (≤1g 

crab claws, bone and charcoal, 1-61g marine shell), but variable and moderate 

amounts of pottery (1-181g), including some decorated pieces. Also, most of 

140 This does not mean that they may not be re-used, but this is not a practice often observed in the 

unit. 


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4 


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231

the features contained less than half a kilogramme of bedrock material, with the 

exception of one of the internal features which contained 10kg, and the two entrance 

features which also contained considerable amounts. 


Abandonment. Based on the variable quantities of remains in the fills, the posts 

were possibly removed and the postholes back-filled. 


Associated features. The deposition of fragments of a possibly human tibia 

occur in a spatially, but not structurally associated posthole (84-29-F16) with 



Otherwise, a high number of features of different size classes are related to 

especially the western half of this structure, although it is located on the edge of 

the excavation boundary within a generally dense feature cluster, hence its relationship 

to these is unclear. 

Overlaps. Structure 47 overlaps with Structures 6, 15, 17, 22, 27, 31, 42, 43, 

24, 48, and 51. Structure 48 overlaps with Structures 6, 15, 17, 22, 27, 28 31, 

39, 42, 43, 44, 47, and 51. 

Shared features. Five features, including three from the central construction, 



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 49 consists of three parallel post 

alignments, entering the unit in the northwest and running in a southeasterly 

direction towards the edge of the cliff, stopping just short of small oval Structure 

25. The post rows maintain a relatively constant distance of ca. 1.5m between 

them. Two of the alignments are ca. 11m long, and the third one extends for 

13m. Features range from 8 to 36cm in diameter and 4 to 45cm in depth. The 

mean distance between the postholes is ca. 1m. Two features, from different 

rows, were excavated. 

The features do not adhere to any obviously discernible pattern in terms of 

succession in depth or diameter, with wider and deeper features interspersed 

with smaller, shallower features. The two excavated postholes were both set 

into the bedrock at an angle: both are slanting oriented in a westerly direction. 

Although generally regularly spaced, some gaps appear in the alignments, for 

example between the last two features of the southernmost alignment. However, 

this gap also coincides with a natural depression in the bedrock (seen in the plan 

drawing as a solid line). 

Especially in the northwest corner of the unit, where the features are most 

dense, there were multiple candidates for inclusion in the alignments. Indeed 

this is not one of the most plain and unambiguous structures in terms of the spatial 

and metric relationships between the features alone. In fact it was identified 

in combination with evidence from the artefact layer above it (see Chapter 6). 

The alignments seem to have acted as an artefact block, which not only confirms 

their contemporaneity with the archaeological deposits in layer 1, but supports 

the interpretation that these features form coherent structures which belong together. 

In other words, Structure 49 formed a linear barrier against which sweeping 

deposits accumulated over time. 


0 2 4 

metres 


In general, it is not clear what the relation is between these three similar 

alignments. The fact that they share the same orientation, run parallel at an 

equal distance from each other, are of similar lengths (albeit from what we can 

discern from the eastern ends), slant the same way, all indicates that they fulfilled 

the same function, either contemporaneously or as different phases of the same 

structure. 

Feature fills. Of the two excavated features, fill information is only available 

from one (85-51-F40), the largest feature in the alignments situated in the eastern 

end of the southernmost row. The other excavated feature was noted to 

contain Chicoid pottery, and the larger excavated feature contained 15g of pottery 

as well as a relatively large 11g of bone, 36g marine shell, 3g crab claws, 1g 

charcoal and more than 11kg of bedrock material. 

Special finds. Although not in the postholes themselves, the alignments are associated 

with no less than five items of Strombus sp. paraphernalia, including 

a shell bead, a key pendant (idolillo tabular), two pendants with incised frog 

leg motifs and a shell face, or guaíza, made of the spine of a Strombus. In addition, 

the largest trigonolith of the excavation was recovered from the bedrock 

depression in the southernmost alignment. Colonial material also accumulated 

against this southern border. As mentioned above, this distribution is probably 

due to the fact that the structure acted as an artefact barrier. This is discussed in 

Chapter 6. 


Dating. Late/colonial. 



233



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 50, akin to Structures 10 and 

28, is a configuration of eight deep-set and wide postholes in a regular configuration 

of opposed pairs. The structure is identical to the internal constructions 

of the other circular buildings, but lacks an outer perimeter wall. The diameter 

is ca. 8.15m with the mean span between opposing posts at 7.3 and 3.22m between 

adjacent pairs. Two of the eight features were excavated. 

The eight large postholes range from 19 to 36cm in diameter and ≤68cm in 

depth. The irregularly shaped feature in the southeast does not have any depth 

information and was thought to be a natural depression in the bedrock, which 

may have supported a post. This interpretation is borne out by its incorporation 

as part of this structure. The two excavated features were set vertically into the 

bedrock. 

An interpretation was made as to the orientation of the structure on the basis 

of correspondence between the depths of opposing pairs. The two most westerly 

postholes correspond very closely in depth with the easterly pair, and correspondingly 

the southerly pair with the northerly one (as opposed to a southwestnortheast 

pairing). These opposing pairs differed by a maximum of 5cm, very 

closely equivalent. This pairing is also spatially more regular than any other. 

Feature fills. The two excavated features, the western adjacent pair, have comparable 

volumes (ca. 47 and 37L), but whereas the slightly larger feature to the 

north has a very rich fill in terms of ceramic and organic remains (13g bone, 87g 


0 

2 4 

metres 


pottery, 478g marine shell, 2g charcoal and a huge 73g crab claws), its counterpart 

to the south has meagre remains (2g bone, 5g pottery, 15g marine shell). 

Both features have comparable amounts of bedrock material (3-4kg). 


Abandonment. Due to the variable remains in the fills, it is possible that the 

posts were removed and back-filled. 


Associated features. Several mainly smaller features occur within this structure 

and also between the eight large postholes. Although on the whole, due to their 

irregularity, it is not thought they are part of the structure. 


Shared features. Two features are shared with other structures. 



Spatial and physical characteristics. This is a structure consisting of a circular 

arrangement of 20 slender (7 to 17cm) and shallow (6 to 28cm) postholes. The 

circle formed is incomplete, especially in the south and north. In the north it 

is partially cut by the excavation boundary. The diameter of the circle is 8.4m, 

with an interior space of 57m². There is no indication of a central or internal 

structure. Ten features were excavated from this arrangement. 

This circular configuration bears similarities to Structures 8 and 12, which 

also consist of just a perimeter circle or curved sections of a perimeter such as 

in the case of Structure 12. The mean distance between the features is 99cm, excluding 

the gaps in the north and south. The features are metrically and spatially 

consistent with each other and cannot be assigned to any other structure. 

0 

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235

Two excavated features were set into the bedrock at a slant. 

Feature fills. One of the small features excavated (84-39-F59) contained 126g 

of pottery, the rest contained ≤1g of pottery and similarly negligible amounts of 

other remains. Most also contained some gravel (≤0.5kg). 


Abandonment. Due to the variable fills, posts were possibly removed and the 

postholes back-filled. 


Associated features. The smaller features occurring within the perimeter 

of Structure 51 appear to be part of unrelated alignments rather than this 

structure. 

Overlaps. None. 



Spatial and physical characteristics. Structure 52 is a post row consisting of 

24 posthole features running north-south and extending 45m along the whole 

of the eastern excavated part of the unit. This alignment is parallel to the coast 

and possibly continues beyond the unit boundaries in the south. In fact it closely 

mirrors Structure 16 to the east, whose curving form it parallels for most of its 

length, entering the unit in the south, and curving further outwards, east, towards 

the north of the unit, before stopping just shy of the cliff top. Potentially, had 

other features been assigned, the alignment could continue to mirror Structure 

16 and curve westwards again to follow the line of the cliffs. Without more evidence, 

however, a simpler reconstruction is preferred. Four features were excavated 

from the post row. 

Like Structure 16, all features fall within similar relatively shallow depth and 

diameter ranges: 5 to 23cm across and 6 to 41cm deep. Of the four features excavated, 

all were set vertically into the bedrock. 

The mean spacing between the features is 2.16m, with spacing in the south 

closer than that in the north. In the south some features are doubled, which may 

represent re- or over-building. 

There doesn’t appear to be a strict pattern in the distribution of depths of the 

features along the alignment. Shallower and deeper postholes are interspersed 

with each other, if anything following a pattern of a succession of similarly deep 

pairs (i.e. 41 and 27cm, 9 and

0 5 10 

metres 


Overlaps. Structures1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 20, 34, 39, 40, 41, 46, 

and 49. 


5.2 Remaining features 

Of the 2100 features in the main unit, 1609 have been assigned to structures. 

Roughly 200 features have been assigned more than once. These taken into account, 

this means that slightly over 70% of the features have been assigned to 

structures. 

The majority of the unassigned features (Fig. 135) are located at the boundaries 

of the excavated area, and thus it is lack of overall vision which impedes 

interpretation in relation to other features. The remainder of the unassigned 

features are on the borders of the excavation unit where one can often discern 

that their most likely form would be a circular formation. Examples are the five 

small features almost halfway along the south border of the unit which likely 


237

0 5 10 

metres 

form the top of a perimeter of a circular structure; or the curve of postholes on 

the most western edge of the unit; or those on the northwestern edge below the 

scale-bar; and finally the potential circular formations which can be discerned 

in the far north of the unit. For the sake of presenting only credible interpretations, 

and based on the fact that there is clearly a concern with regularity in all 

the structures which are identified as reliable, these will not be described further. 

Similarly, other potential alignments can be identified, but this was not done at 

this stage for the same reason. Alternatively there are smaller, possibly paired or 

clustered features, located outside structures, whose precise configuration is not 

known, and these have been discussed as “associated features” under the structures 

with which they are spatially associated, rather than in their own right. 

Figure 135. Plan view of the 

main unit with unassigned 

features highlighted (black), 

and assigned features faded 

(white). Over 70% of features 

are assigned to structures. 

5.4 Structure typology 

The structures in the El Cabo main unit fall into eight main types. Categorisation 

began as a process of cataloguing similarities and differences in functional and 

architectural characteristics and orientation during the descriptive phase of re- 


search. In later interpretive stages, types seemed to conform to differences in 

temporal and membership affiliations, and therefore the differences between certain 

(not all) types (notably between Types 1, 2 and 4) also correspond to indigenous 

types. The categories fall into four house types, two types of special-activity 

structure, a type which includes all post alignments, regardless of function, 

and a unique type of small structure clearly not belonging to any other type. 

Schematic representations based on distillations of the real plans are presented 

for illustration. Orientation (the top of the page is north) and scale are the same 

for all illustrations for ease of comparison. 

Figure 136. Schematic representation 

of Type 1 structures, 

indicating entrance (arrow) 

and pairs of opposing post- 

 

5.4.1 Type 1 

Type 1 structures (Fig. 136), of which there are 16, and as exemplified by 

Structure 1, are interpreted as houses. 141 These are very regular post-built structures 

with a perimeter circle of closely-set (mean = 64cm, from 12 of the most 

complete structures) postholes, and an internal post configuration consisting of 

eight heavy-set postholes forming opposing pairs. The opposing pairs align on 

the entrance, which in the majority of cases opens to the west. Internal postholes 

often align on heavier-set postholes in the perimeter circle. Entrances are relatively 

narrow, averaging 78cm wide, and ranging between 60 and 111cm. 142 This 

is the only evident access point in the structure. There are no internal divisions 

in the plan. Structures range from 6 to 10m in diameter. 

The postholes of the perimeter circle, except for those at the entrance, are 

dug at an angle so that the posts would have been oriented towards the centre 

of the structure and the roof and walls are one. The mean angle for the slant of 

these postholes is 70º, making the roof pitch a steep 40º. 143 This angle being 

assumed for the other Type 1 structures makes it possible to calculate the roof 

height and gain an impression of the profile of this type. Structures would have 

been tall with a bell/beehive/ogee-formed exterior, possibly not unlike Piaroa 

traditional houses (P. Oliver 1997:1740-41) or the traditional Trio mïnë (Rivière 

1995; Plate 6). 

The opposing pairs of the internal structure would have 

supported tie-beams and a ring-beam and rafters providing 

support to the roof. The mean distance between the roof-supports 

and the perimeter circle is 96cm. Mean posthole depth 

is 35cm; their mean width is 18cm. 

Overall, Type 1 structures are characterised by larger postholes 

at the front, running ca. 40% of the perimeter from either 

side of the entrance, decreasing to smaller postholes at the 

back. The entrance pair of postholes is especially large, often 

of comparable size to the roof-supports inside, and generally 

flanked by postholes of alternating larger and smaller sizes, 

but within a range that is bigger than those of other perimeter 

features. This forms a symmetrical and monumentalized entrance 

façade. 

The positive relationship between posthole depth and 

height of post indicates that Type 1 structures would have 

been low at the back and high at the front, and that the ver- 

141 See definition of this term in Chapter 2.1.3. 

142 This is the distance between postholes from centre to centre, so real entrances would have been 

narrower still. 

143 Based on measurements from Structure 1, which is seen as a good guide for calculating the roof 

pitch seeing as multiple postholes from every main perimeter orientation were excavated. 


239

tical entrance façade would have formed an entrance porch, jutting out of the 

roof profile. This would have formed an asymmetrical cross-section whereby 

the front of the house was much taller and loftier than the back of the house. 

Functionally, and because of the major orientation of Type 1 structures, the 

lower backs of the houses would have channelled sea winds up and over the roof, 

creating a sheltered area outside the front of the house. 

Structures of Type 1 increase incrementally in floor area over time, with the 

largest in any one sequence of renewal (i.e. between Structures 20 and 34, 3 

and 30, 15 and 4) being almost twice as big as the smallest (see Chapter 6 for 

sequences of renewal). Smaller Structures 15 and 43 (not included in the foregoing 

size comparisons) are categorised as Type 1 though they are much smaller 

(19-24m²) than the rest of the type, and their plan details not wholly clear (orientation 

etc.). Nevertheless, there are enough similarities to see these as architecturally 

more similar to Type 1 than to any other type, and also not to assign them 

as a separate type. Although, as will be discussed later on (Section 6.2.5 and 6.3), 

these smaller examples may have had a different function. 

5.4.2 Type 2 

Type 2 structures (Fig. 137), of which there are seven and as exemplified by 

Structure 2, are interpreted as houses. Again, these are very regular post-built 

structures with a perimeter circle, occasionally slightly elliptical, of closely-set 

postholes (mean = 57cm apart), and an internal post configuration consisting of 

eight heavy-set postholes forming opposing pairs. These opposing pairs align on 

the entrance, which in the majority of cases, opens to the west-northwest (i.e. 

an orientation different from that of Type 1). Internal postholes often also align 

on heavier-set postholes in the perimeter circle. Entrances are relatively narrow, 

averaging 68cm, and ranging between 56 and 77cm. 144 There are no internal divisions 

in the plan. 

The postholes of the perimeter circle are vertically dug into the bedrock, 

implying a cone and cylinder construction. Of course, regardless of the vertical 

postholes, the wall uprights may still have been tied together at the top as 

for structures in which the roof stretches down to the ground, also forming the 

walls, but this is not as explicit in the underground architecture as for Type 1. 

Structures range from 6 to 11m in diameter. 

The opposing pairs of the internal structure would have supported tie-beams 

and formed part of the roof-support structure. The mean distance between the 

roof-supports and the perimeter circle is 73cm, narrower 

than for Type 1. 

Overall, Type 2 structures are characterised by large postholes 

at the front, running ca. 40% of the perimeter from 

either side of the entrance, decreasing to smaller postholes 

at the back, which in some structures disappear completely, 

leaving apparent gaps at the back of the structure, which are 

nevertheless not necessarily interpreted as additional access 

points. The entrance pair of postholes is especially large, often 

of comparable size to the roof-supports inside, and gen- 





 

144 The narrowest of these, the entrance of Structure 7, at 56cm wide, had uprights set in it in the 

field to see how easily members of the field team could pass through it. Not a conventionally 

wide doorway in a Western sense, it posed no problems to walk through it. 


erally flanked by postholes of alternating size, as for Type 1, but larger than the 

other perimeter features. This forms a symmetrical and monumentalized entrance 

façade. 

Overall, posthole dimensions of Type 2 structures are marginally smaller 

than those for Type 1 structures, despite a similar average floor area (45m²). 

Mean feature depth is 30cm (5cm shallower than for Type 1) and 16cm wide 

(2cm narrower than for Type1). The difference in posthole diameter is mostly 

accounted for by the fact that Type 1 structures have wider entrance postholes 

than Type 2 structures. 

Similarly, as for Type 1, structures of Type 2 would have been low at the back 

and high at the front, and the entrance façade would have formed a porch-like 

structure, higher than the rest of the perimeter wall and jutting out of the roof. 

This would have formed an asymmetrical cross-section whereby the front of the 

house was much taller and loftier than the back of the house. Again, this would 

have created a sheltered area outside the front of the house, and channelled the 

sea winds over the top of the house. 





 

5.4.3 Type 3 

Type 3 structures (Fig. 138), of which there is only one example in the unit, are 

interpreted as houses. Instead of a separate perimeter and internal configuration, 

as for Types 1 and 2, the roof-supports are incorporated into the perimeter circle, 

akin to the reconstruction of the houses at Playa Blanca 5, El Bronce, and 

Río Cocal-1, Puerto Rico (Curet 1992a; Oliver 2003; Rivera and Rodríguez 

1991) and Oviedo’s description (1851: Ch.1;163-164). This would have created 

a large single-celled structure in which floor space was maximised by making redundant 

the separate inner ring seen in Types 1 and 2. At 10m in diameter, this 

structure is at the upper end of the scale for 

such unicameral constructions. 145 

The postholes of the perimeter circle 

are vertically dug into the bedrock, implying 

a cone-and-cylinder construction, the 

probability of which is stronger than implied 

for Type 2, because it is unlikely that 

the large perimeter posts would have been 

bent inwards and joined at the top. Instead 

they would have formed opposing pairs of 

vertical posts carrying tie beams, which in 

turn would have supported a conical roof. 

Type 3 is thus seen to be an evolution 

of house Types 1 and 2 in which the inner 

post circle has disappeared. This type 

did not wholly replace the former, which 

kept being built up to colonial times, but it 

does show that there was a range of technical 

solutions open to the indigenous builders 

and that sometimes it was preferable 

to create divisions in internal space, and 

sometimes it is not. However, there is no 

145 A diameter of 10 to 12m is the oft-cited limit for British and Irish prehistoric roundhouse 

architecture, after which an inner post ring is required to support the roof (Pope 2008). 


241

evidence to suggest that this type of structure 

had a different function than the houses already 

described. 

As for Types 1 and 2, a symmetrical and 

monumentalized entrance façade is formed 

by alternating smaller and larger postholes 

fanning out from two massive entrance postholes 

in the west. Although it should be noted 

that the post remains in these postholes 

did not fill the whole diameter of the postholes. 

The arrangement of depths and diameters 

of features throughout the structure is 

extremely regular and symmetrical. 

Mean feature depth and width are 38cm 

and 23cm respectively, although this is based 

on the one example of this type in the unit. 

5.4.4 Type 4 

Type 4 structures (Fig. 139), of which there 

are two examples in the unit, are interpreted 

as houses. These are circular post-built structures with a perimeter circle of vertically 

set postholes and an internal post configuration consisting of eight heavyset 

postholes. The spacing of the internal structure, although very regular in the 

most reliable example of this type, appears to be more focussed on the front 

and back of the structure, rather than being regularly spaced around the circular 

perimeter as for Types 1 and 2. Type 4 structures have a northwest-oriented 

entrance. The difference in orientation, spacing of the internal construction and 

larger floor area are the main distinguishing features of this type, although the 

clear difference in orientation is the only sufficient criterion. Structures are ca. 

10m in diameter. 

Although one of the examples of this type is very regular overall, the plan 

falls outside the excavation boundaries in certain critical places, namely near the 

entrance. This means that it is difficult to determine whether this type also has 

a monumental entrance façade consisting of more than just the two entrance 

posts. 

The mean entrance width of these structures is 88cm (90 and 85cm), with a 

mean distance between the perimeter and inner ring of 113cm. Posthole depths 

are on average 30cm deep, the same as for Type 2, and the mean diameter is 

17cm. 





 


of Type 5. Type 5 is 

interpreted as a sheltered special-activity 

hut, with closed 

walls. 

5.4.5 Type 5 

Type 5 structures (Fig. 140), of which five are identifiable in the unit, 

are identified as sheltered special-activity huts. They consist of circular 

or semi-circular arrangements of close-set (mean = 77cm, excluding 

the largest gaps in the perimeter) postholes with at least one or 

multiple gaps in the perimeter. Although resembling the perimeter 

circles of house structure Types 1 and 2, no internal configuration is 

identifiable. Postholes are generally of equal size and are on average 

smaller and shallower than for houses, and the structures have no 

consistent, identifiable orientation. Type 5 structures vary in size, but 

fall within the range of 6 to 8m in diameter. Excluding Structure 47, 



of Type 6. Type 6 is 

interpreted as a roofed specialactivity 

hut, probably with 

open walls. 

Figure 142. Schematic representations 

of Type 7 structures. 

The top example is a 

windbreak external to a house. 

which may actually be the perimeter circle of a Type 1 structure, mean 

posthole diameters are very similar for all Type 5 structures at 13cm; 

they are on average 21cm in depth. 

Presumably, posts were tied together at the top to form either a 

conical or domed (beehive) shell; a single-celled or semi-open structure, 

which would have afforded shade and protection from the wind 

and rain for the performance of certain tasks or activities, but not one 

which needed any major supports or uprights (for the roof, suspension, 

storage, hammocks, etc.). Neither could this structure bear any 

extreme live loads (i.e. intermittent forces such as wind; see P. Oliver 

1997:2179). Columbus describes constructions of wood and palm 

fronds (“atarazana”; Navarrete 1922:83, 86; Prieto Vicioso 2008) used 

to shelter canoes. Although this is probably not their purpose here, 

nevertheless such buildings served as protection against the elements. 

Type 5 structures are not interpreted as houses, but are rather ancillary to 

houses. 

5.4.6 Type 6 

Type 6 structures (Fig. 141), of which three are identifiable in the unit, are 

roofed special-activity huts, octagonal in plan. They may have been conically 

roofed with open walls, or alternatively the roof may have stretched all the way 

down to the ground. They consist of a regular arrangement of eight heavy-set 

postholes identical to the internal configurations of Types 1 and 2, which presumably 

bore a ring beam to support rafters for a roof. A perimeter structure, 

however, is absent. Structures range from 6 to 8m in diameter. 

Although in two of the three Type 6 structures it is possible to assign a slender 

central post, there is no positive reason to do this based on their conspicuous 

absence from other types. 

Type 6 structures vary in size, but fall within the range of adjacent and opposing 

spans of internal configurations for Types 1 and 2. The orientation of two 

of the three Type 6 structures is more akin to that for Type 1 structures, however, 

and the third larger example may have more of a Structure 2 orientation, 

although as these were possibly open on all sides, orientation may not have been 

of so much significance as for the houses. 

These structures, if open-sided, would have made them well ventilated and 

shaded; ideal for carrying out tasks which demanded good light and bearing 

loads from the posts for such things as the suspension of hammocks and other 

items. 146 Type 6 structures are not interpreted as houses, but are rather ancillary 

to houses. 

5.4.7 Type 7 

Type 7 structures (Fig. 142), of which there are twelve in the unit, are posthole 

alignments of various lengths and different functions. Some are interpreted 

as fences, windbreaks and structures which organize space. Shorter alignments, 

probably external to houses, represent domestic tools (drying racks, presses, etc.). 

Two examples of this type are probably sub-recent phenomena (37 and 39), and 

a further two structures are unidentifiable (35 and 36) due to extreme variability 

in adjacent depths. This broad type ranges from 1 to 53m in length. 

146 Margot Días uses a similar canopied structure for resting in a hammock at the height of the heat 

of the day in El Cabo village. 


243

5.4.8 Type 8 

The unique structure representing Type 8 (Fig. 143) consists of eight deep-set 

postholes forming a small oval. The postholes are set at an angle in the bedrock 

so that the posts would have splayed outwards. The location of this structure on 

the extreme edge of the cliff perhaps offers clues as to its interpretation which 

would either have been positioned to take advantage of the sea winds, or of the 

panoramic view of the coast and out to sea. One might envisage a structure used 

as look-out, lighthouse or communication tower (along the coast and to sea traffic), 

or for another purpose such as drying. 147 A structure with a communicative 

function is the preferred interpretation as its location seawards of a fence separating 

the houses from the edge of the cliff perhaps a torch or fire was placed on 

top of this structure. Although by no means conclusive, the fills of the features 

of this structure contained on average 2g of charcoal. 

Figure 143. Representation of 

Type 8 structure. 

5.4.9 Unassigned structures 

Five structures could not be assigned to a type. Although in these cases certain 

characteristics (i.e. orientation of the internal configuration, angle of perimeter 

postholes, completeness of the perimeter, and closeness of the internal and the 

perimeter postholes) may give an indication, none are sufficient to designate a 

type due to the fact that: (1) the majority of the plan or the most diagnostic 

parts (i.e. the entrance) fall outside the excavation boundaries, (2) an insufficient 

number of features were excavated, or (3) the reliability of the reconstruction 

is not high enough. This is the case for Structures 26, 31, 41, 44, 45. A further 

four structures are assigned to a type, but are not factored into the foregoing 

type descriptions (Structures 5, 21, 38, 40), again due to the fact that they are 

too incomplete. 


Chapter 5 presented the reconstruction methodology for interpreting the structures 

in the main unit of El Cabo. The spatial patterning of features in combination 

with visually represented depth and diameter information was found 

to be the best way of identifying structures. Confidence criteria which gave an 

indication of how convincing reconstructions were deemed to be were applied 

to every reconstruction for the sake of transparency. Structures were described 

in terms of the specifics of their archaeological plans, but also as far as possible 

in terms of their real built characteristics. Over 50 dwelling, special activity and 

organising (i.e. fences) structures were analysed and the peculiarities of their 

lifecycles and abandonment described. These structures could be broken down 

into eight types the essential and recurrent elements of which were distilled into 

graphic representations. Such types acted as templates for identifying less apparent 

structures in the unit, and may also prove useful for comparison with other 

sites in the future. Only a very few structures could not be assigned a type due 

to their partial state or unconvincing characteristics. The majority of structures 

were interpreted as houses, of which there are four types represented, all similar 

in their architectural qualities. 

147 With respect to a communicative function, Columbus, when sailing along the north coast of 

Haiti and elsewhere in Hispaniola described the lookouts (“atalayas”) to create fires and smoke 

signals which he took to for communication or warning (Columbus 1990:149, 157, 167). 


Chapter 6 

The house that Higuanamá inherited: 

Trajectories of social life in El Cabo 

In this chapter, instead of being taken as separate entities or types, the structures 

will be considered together with evidence from the artefact layer in order to construct 

a diachronic picture of domestic practice in terms of the development of 

the house, yucayeque and the history of its inhabitants. 

What emerges from discussions of the dating and chronology of structures 

in the main unit is a picture of remarkable continuity in which the deliberate 

renewal of house structures leads to the foundation and reproduction of institutions 

described as House Trajectories. It is hypothesised that the houses excavated 

here form the majority of one house group, and that houses within a house 

group develop parallel trajectories. On the site scale, outside the house group of 

the main unit, the late-phase yucayeque is made up of neighbouring but spatially 

separate house groups with parallel trajectories which endure for centuries. These 

domestic legacies, the material evidence of which are the House Trajectories, are 

inherited by successive generations of inhabitants. 

The House Trajectory is an institution which is deliberately perpetuated by 

successive generations for long-duration and from which identity and cultural 

values are derived and lent through membership. This will be discussed in terms 

of renewal, rituals and aesthetics of the house, rhythms of daily and longer-term 

practice and patterns of conviviality which promote cultural values and foster 

the proper conditions for successful social life. 

6.1 Dating and chronology of built structures 

In this section the chronology and phasing of the structures in the main unit 

will be discussed. Exclusively Chicoid material culture associated with 14C dates 

which start in the 9 th century, and end in the early 16 th century signalled by the 

presence of European imports, as well as absolute dates from two structures, 

provide starting points for working out a chronology of events in the main unit. 

A more detailed trajectory will be sketched below, but the broad picture, based 

on the reconstructed habitation sequence, dated structures and the artefact distribution 

(Section 6.5) indicates a linear arrangement of structures in the main 

unit, in alignment with the coast, that moved further inland from the cliff edge 

over time, with a continuity of building activities in the extreme north of the 

unit up to colonial times. 

At first glance, clustered concentrations of superimposed structures seem to 

indicate iterative building practices through time on the same spot (Fig. 144). 

This is particularly apparent for the two northernmost clusters, but to reveal the 

dynamics of this palimpsest other variables have to be taken into account such as 

orientation, difference in architectural styles and difference in function. 

Was only one (house) structure in existence at any one time, or were multiple 

(house) structures in close, contemporaneous habitation with each other? This is 

a significant question for interpretations of the composition of domestic groups 

The house that Higuanamá inherited 

245

16 

35 

36 

29 

30 

37 

3 

23 

24 

33 

18 

52 

19 

49 

32 

6 

0 

44 

5 10 

metres 40 

51 

13 

39 

4 

7 

38 

21 

10 

34 

1 

20 

9 

25 

22 

27 

42 

31 

28 

17 

47 

48 

15 

43 

14 

50 

8 

11 

46 

12 

2 

26 

45 

5 

and community social life. In trying to resolve these questions some suppositions 

are made regarding the reconstruction of the chronology of the structures. 

Firstly, it is assumed that different orientations at close proximity are an indication 

of non-contemporaneity. 148 Secondly, structures which differ in size, style 

41 

Figure 144. Outline of all 

structures in the main unit. 

Numbers refer to structure 

numbers. Floor plans extrapolated 

outside the unit 

boundaries. 

148 If these structures were further apart, or at different distances from the coast, or in different positions 

in relation to a focus of orientation (e.g. on different sides of a plaza), then structures with 

a different orientation might well be contemporaneous with each other. Different orientations 

of adjacent structures, however, may be taken as a strong marker of non-contemporaneity, as 

they reflect a change in the dominant orientation of settlement in response to a change of focus. 

In the case of the structures discussed above (namely Types 1, 2 and 4), other significant differences 

in terms of architectural style also support this interpretation. Differences in architectural 

style alone do not necessarily reflect chronological differences, and they should not be taken as 

a marker of chronological significance. Moreover, many structures of different functions and 

morphology can exist simultaneously. 


and function may well be contemporaneous with each other. Thirdly, it can be 

postulated that contemporaneous structures probably did not open directly onto 

the back of other structures. Lastly, the artefact distribution is seen as representative 

of the activities in the last phase of habitation. 

The presence of two long post alignments (Structures 16 and 52) running 

through the unit along the cliff edge from north to south is very informative 

in terms of the chronological sequencing and contemporaneity of the structures. 

These alignments, probably wind breaks sheltering the structures from 

the buffeting of the incessant sea wind or fences to stop children toppling into 

the sea, 149 bracket not individual structures, but multiple structures the length 

of the unit, and for an undefined distance to the south. This conclusively indicates 

that there was a row, at least 50m long, of contemporaneous structures 

along the cliff top. This picture of multiple contemporaneous structures is further 

confirmed and relationships between the structures nuanced by the presence 

of a short alignment, thrice repeated, running northwest-southeast between the 

northernmost cluster and the one directly below it (Structure 49). The fact that 

this alignment was thrice and the north-south alignment twice re-built and repositioned 

indicates the relationship between the clusters was renewed when the 

structures were re-built. 

Although interrelation of structures may be concretely proposed in some 

cases, in other cases potential relationships between structures are more debatable 

and assigned on the basis of the expectation that settlements incorporate 

diverse structures simultaneously. It is important to acknowledge that while the 

excavated area is relatively large (1030m²), it is undoubtedly small in terms of 

immediate living space (e.g. the real distance between a work hut and the house 

or a drying rack), and therefore many structures related to those inside the excavation 

boundary, probably fall outside the excavated area. In this sense, the 

only real boundaries we can be sure of are the cliff edge in the east and the top 

of the unit in the north. Nevertheless, and due to the lack of excavated house 

compunds in the Caribbean, it is often tempting to relate non-intersecting (and 

therefore possibly contemporaneous) structures to each other more than may 

actually have been the case. However, at this level of detail, the proposed relationships 

between structures are simply indications of what may have been possible. 

Therefore, the repetition of a special-activity structure in slightly different 

locations is an expected mirroring of the same iteration in the house structures. 

Whether a particular house structure belongs to a particular activity structure 

(and not one just outside the unit, or 20m further south) is a moot, ethnographic 

point. 

Phases 

Five phases are identified in the structures of the main unit. These phases are 

of unequal lengths and do not necessarily represent continuous habitation. 

However, they do define linked sequences of building and habitation. Phases can 

contain overlapping sequences of structures which may further be divided into 

sub-phases. The transitions between the phases are marked by changes in orientation 

(culturally significant) or location (chronologically significant). Therefore 

the transitions between the phases do not always represent culturally significant 

breaks, but may represent a series of activities which can be placed within a larger 

sequence. Indeed, often it is clear that there is continuity between phases. 

149 Rather than defensive stockades which would probably consist of deeper, or at least more closelyset 

postholes. 


247

A sequence of phases from a to e is proposed in which phases b, c and d are 

in a relatively secure chronological sequence. Phases a and especially e, however, 

are least secure in terms of placement in this sequence. Their positioning at the 

beginning and end of the sequence of phases will be discussed below. 

As mentioned above, settlement may not have been continuous. One could 

envisage periodic residential mobility in which settlement in the main unit was 

punctuated with episodes of absence. Households may have moved between different 

house locations (within or outside the site), to return again to the former 

location after a specified time. Such patterns of residential mobility would permit 

Phases a and e to fit into the intermittent absences occurring by punctuated 

settlement in Phases b, c and d, rather than at the beginning and end of the 

whole sequence. Moreover, some of the more partial or insecure structures not 

included in the ensuing discussion of the phases may also have been inhabited 

in these intermittent absences. 

There are several arguments which speak against this model of punctuated 

settlement however. Firstly, rebuilding almost always refers to a previous structure 

so that a house in a cluster is built on top of or next to its predecessor. 

Absence for one generation or less in which former house remains were still 

visible and the location remembered might be a possibility. However, the very 

close adherence to location and style of subsequent structures favours continuity 

rather than (even temporary) abandonment. 

Moreover, houses in Phases a and e are of a different orientation and type to 

those in Phases b, c or d. This physical realignment implies a social or cultural 

context for change, leading to the settlement as a whole undergoing some process 

of realignment. This is not likely to have happened each time a new house 

was built. It does not seem likely for example that a Type 2 house was succeeded 

by a Type 1 house, and thereafter a Type 2 again in intercalated succession. 

Without absolute dating, these contingent scenarios are hard to test. For the sake 

of presenting the simplest defensible scenario, and because the evidence favours 

it, it is assumed that the different phases were continuous, with no significant 

breaks. 

Six house structures (31, 40, 41, 44, 45, and 47/48) were not incorporated 

into the reconstruction of the sequence seeing as these were either partial or insecure, 

and also three short alignments which could not be confidently phased 

(Structures19, 32, 33). Choices are explained as transparently as possible. 

6.1.1 Phase a 

Five structures represent building and habitation activities in Phase a (Fig. 145). 

These are Structures 2, 7, 9, 11, and 13. Structure 5 may also belong to this 

phase and the arguments for and against are described below. 

All structures assigned to Phase a, except in the case of one structure with unclear 

orientation, are oriented west-northwest, have vertical walls and resemble 

each other to a great degree in terms of architectural style (i.e. they all belong to 

Type 2). None of the structures are deemed to be contemporaneous with each 

other, but follow each other in sequence. The supposition that only one structure 

was in existence at any one time is based on the reasoning that houses probably 

did not open onto the backs of other structures, nor were they built too close to 



0 5 10 

metres 

Figure 145. Phase a 

structures. 

Moreover, from the point of view that a new house might not be built with 

its entrance oriented on the back of an abandoned structure (where rubbish 

accumulates), it is suggested that the start of the sequence is on the cliff edge 

and moves westwards (inland) over time (a trend also witnessed in subsequent 

phases). 

The positioning of this Phase a at the start of the whole sequence is debatable. 

Arguments in favour of this are that unlike the other structures, none of 

the Type 2 structures seem to bear any relation to the north-south fence row(s), 

but appear to follow an unrelated yet coherent trajectory of their own. Seeing 

as building trajectories in subsequent phases are related to these fences and continue 

up to colonial times, and the settlement was more than likely abandoned 

in the decade after contact, it seems reasonable to place Phase a at the start of 

the habitation sequence in the unit. 

It is tempting to also assign Structure 5 to this phase (Fig. 146). The half 

which is exposed suggests this may be a Type 2 structure, and its location fits 

the pattern of displacement shown in the rebuilding of other structures in this 

phase. Evidence from artefact distribution, however, indicates that the location 


249

0 5 10 

metres 

of Structure 5 is one of the areas of latest habitation in the unit, as it is the 

cleanest. This is at odds with the arguments presented above for the placement 

of Phase a at the start of the habitation sequence. Only excavation of more of 

Structure 5 or recovery of dateable material from this structure would resolve 

this question, and therefore at this stage an interpretation is preferred which 

does not incorporate Structure 5 and which places Phase a at the start of the 

sequence. 

In a second variation of Phase a, four additional structures are added (Fig. 

147; Structures 8, 12, 46, and 51). These are more flimsy sheltered special-activity 

huts (Type 5), consisting of outer perimeter walls, but no internal structure. 

As stated in the structure typology, these structures are not deemed to be houses, 

but ancillary structures. There is no evident one-to-one relationship between the 

five main structures and the four work huts in the unit, although each house 

probably made use of such (a) hut(s). The reason to relate them to this phase is 

that spatially they concentrate in the same area as the Phase a houses. 

Figure 146. Phase a structures 

with the addition of Structure 5. 


0 5 10 

metres 

Figure 147. Phase a structures 

with the addition of sheltered 

special-activity huts. 

This phase is tentatively dated to the 9 th and / or 10 th century AD. This is 

based on indirect evidence from dated marine shell (GrN-29932, AD 748-983, 

95% probability) and the presence of exclusively Chicoid material culture in the 

unit. Both pieces of evidence, although not directly related to any of the structures 

of this phase, help define the start of habitation in this area. 

6.1.2 Phase b 

Phase b (Fig. 148) is represented by two structures: a Type 1 house (Structure 3) 

and an associated wind-break structure (Structure 18). 

The wind-break closely (< 1 to < 2.5m away) hugs the contours of the house, 

which was extensively re-built, using the same entrance and the internal and 

half the perimeter postholes. The windbreak structure for an individual house is 

later replaced by a more extensive structure shielding multiple houses in the next 

phase (see below, Phase c). 


251

0 5 10 

metres 

6.1.3 Phase c 

Phase c (Fig. 149) sees an expansion along the edge of the cliff, in which seventeen 

additional structures 150 were built behind the longest fence in the unit, 

Structure 16, built either to shelter the expanding village from the sea winds, 

or to prevent people toppling off the top of the cliff. Although it is not possible 

to narrate the precise sequence of events, at least three distinct sub-phases can 

be distinguished in Phase c which are nevertheless seen as related events in one 

phase because the structures are renewals of each other and belong to the same 

types. 

A possible sequence is described as follows: Whilst Structure 3 was still inhabited 

(maybe in its 2 nd phase of re-building), Structure 20 was erected over 5m 

away to the south. Subsequently, both Structures 3 and 20 were twice renewed 

with some lateral movement inland, continuing the legacy of the Type 1 structures 

on these two spots (Structures 23, 24, 1, and 34). The fact that these two 

Figure 148. Phase b 

structures. 

150 Structures 1, 3, 4, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 20, 23, 24, 26, 28, 34, 42, 46, and 49. It may also be 

the case that the enigmatic alignments 35 and 36 belong to Phase c also, due to their seeming 

relationship with Structures 23 and 24. 


0 5 10 

metres 

Figure 149. Phase c 

structures. 

sequences were contemporaneous is indicated not only by the windbreak/fence 

(Structure 16) which brackets both sets of structures, but by the erection of three 

successive post alignments of unknown function or significance which nevertheless 

signalled a relationship between them. 

Six additional Type 1 house structures also existed during the aforementioned 

sequences, as well as four ancillary structures. It is proposed that Structures 14 

(in the middle of the unit) and 42 (in the west), of which the latter unusually 

opens to the east to face it, may have been contemporaneous with each other and 

also with the early sequence structures to the north (i.e. Structures 3 and 20). 

The octagonal canopied Structure 10 may also have belonged to this stage. If the 

Type 5 sheltered special-activity huts also belong to this phase (and not Phase a 

as suggested above), then Structure 12 may also have been in use before or after 

Structure 10 in this phase. 151 

151 Although not replacing each other seeing as these are clearly different sorts of structure (see 

structure typology). 


253

Thereafter, Structure 14 was renewed as the larger Structure 4, and canopied 

Structure 10 was replaced by Structure 28 to the west. The east-facing Structure 

42 was abandoned and other house structures, for example Structure 26, replaced 

it. To the north, the renewal sequences continued with Structures 24 

(replacing Structure 3) and 1 (replacing Structure 20). This was all happening 

sometime in the 11 th and 12 th centuries AD based on the dating of Structure 1 

between AD 1020 and 1180 (95% probability). 

The last stage in this phase is the habitation of Structures 23 and 34, along 

with at least two stages of rebuilding of smaller Type 1 Structure 15, possibly 

functioning as a house, or perhaps connected to one or multiple of the 

other, larger Type 1 houses for housing the ancestors and community valuables 

(Structure 15 is the location of two pieces of stone collar, see 6.2.5). Sheltered 

ancillary Structure 46 may also belong to this phase (if, as mentioned above for 

Structures 12, it doesn’t belong to earlier Phase a). 

6.1.4 Phase d 

In the same way that sequences of renewal began to emerge in Phase c, continuing 

the Type 1 structure from Phase b, so Phase d sees continuation of these same 

sequences in the later-14 th , 15 th and early-16 th century settlement (Fig. 150). 

Eleven structures 152 are assigned to this phase, which can be further divided into 

two sub-phases. 

The long fence Structure 52 is erected as a replacement of the earlier coastal 

windbreak (Structure 16), but displaced a maximum ca.14m inland. This provides 

protection for the structures built behind it, namely the renewals of the 

two northern sequences (29 and 30 to the north and 21 and 38 to the south), 

still separated from each other by a fence. 

Now, however, a smaller Structure, 25, appears on the sea side of the fence. 

The reason to suggest it belongs here instead of in Phase c is that it was probably 

positioned to take advantage of the lookout or other properties of the cliff edge 

location. In Phase c it would have been behind the fence, rather than in front. 

Of course, this structure may have belonged to earlier or later Phases a, b or e, 

but seeing as Phases c and d represent most expanded phases of development in 

the unit, and given its potentially strategic location, it seems reasonable to assign 

it to this phase. 

Further south in the unit, canopied structure 50 and the large Type 3 house 

(Structure 6) appear. Structure 6 is dated to the late 14 th century, so we should 

envisage the activities described in this phase taking place in and around the 

decades of the 14 th and early 15 th centuries. 

In a later stage of this phase, a small Type 1 structure, Structure 43 appears 

as a renewal of structure 15. And again, if the sheltered ancillary structures of 

Type 5 belong to this phase rather than to Phase a, this would be snug against 

the fence (in fact, the existence of multiple possible postholes of the fence here 

suggest it may even have been displaced to accommodate Structure 8). 

The bottle glass in one of the posthole fills of Structure 30, the last in the 

northernmost sequence of house renewals, indicates that this phase takes us into 

the colonial period and possibly the first decade of the 16 th century. 

152 Structures 6, 8, 21, 25, 29, 30, 38, 43, 49, 50, and 52. 


0 

5 

metres 

10 

Figure 150. Phase d 

structures. 

6.1.5 Phase e 

Three structures, Structures 17, 22, and 27, are assigned to Phase e (Fig. 151). 

These are a house structure of Type 4, and a renewal of the same (Structures 22 

and 27) and an inclining windbreak associated with these structures (Structure 

17). Due to the change in orientation to a northwesterly entrance, they merit 

placing in a different phase. The very thin artefact density in this area of the 

unit, thought to be related to these structures due to the fact that the sweeping 

distribution respects their boundaries, places this phase at the latter end of the 

sequence. However, seeing as the colonial material associated with the Phase d 

structures is thought to mark the latest phase, and also the end of habitation in 

El Cabo, this is problematic. It may well be that the structures in Phase e actually 

relate to the first phase of habitation in the unit and are oriented northwest 

because this is the direction of the earlier, Ostionoid habitation (Fig. 80). 

Moreover, as was remarked earlier, the west of the unit had a minority of earlier, 

pre-Chicoid ceramics. The relative chronology of phase e is therefore the least 

secure of all five phases. However, the difficulties associated with this phase ultimately 

have minimal impact on the overall interpretation as we shall see below. 


255

0 5 10 

metres 

6.1.6 Discussion of phases 

The structures in the main unit appear to represent continuity in habitation 

from the 9 th /10 th to the early-16 th century. What started as a succession of single 

houses, possibly, but not necessarily in isolation from others, developed into a 

group of multiple contemporaneous houses arranged in a linear pattern, parallel 

to the cliff edge. 

As can be seen from the above descriptions of the various phases, despite synchronic 

uncertainties, a clear picture emerges of diachronic continuity, whereby 

structures are replaced by other structures of the same type. This starts in Phase 

a, whereby five (and possibly six) house structures of the same type succeed each 

other in adjacent or overlapping plots. The next three Phases (b, c, and d) see 

more iteration of building practices whereby the same type of house is renewed 

in the same location again and again over a longer period of time. Directionality 

of house moves and reiteration of post alignments indicate renewal occured in 

tandem with neighbouring houses. In the clearest case, structures in two clusters 

in the north of the unit occur ten times so that basically the same house is 

rebuilt or minimally displaced five times each on either side of a series of post 

Figure 151. Phase e 

structures. 


alignments. This happens in other locations in the unit such as with the small 

Structures 15 and 43 rebuilt over Phases c and d, or the renewal of structure 14 

with Structure 4, and the renewal of Structure 22 with 27 (or vice versa) in Phase 

e. Such rebuilding not only occurs for house structures: special-activity structures 

also undergo the same replacement, as do fences. 

Table 4. Structures per House 

Trajectory (HT) and an indication 

of the phases to which 

they belong. Note the table 

divisions are not strict indications 

of contemporaneousness. 

For example, Structure 3, 

which was rebuilt, may have 

existed contemporaneously 

with Structure 20 in the next 

phase. 

6.2 Longevity of the estate: House Trajectories in a 

diachronic perspective 

In this section, the durable institutions referred to as House Trajectories will be 

described. Examining the structures as House Trajectories frees us from problems 

of relative chronology (i.e. which structure came first, second and so on), 

and instead highlights one of the most significant aspects of the data patterning: 

The way the house structures reproduce themselves again in identifiable clusters. 

Multiple house structures are rebuilt again and again which over time develop 

as institutions of considerable material and thus social longevity. The diachronic 

continuity, seen in the development of related sequences of houses reproduced 

by successive households especially in Phases a to d, leads to the renewal of what 

is in effect the same house. What emerges is a long-lived entity which is more 

durable than its inhabitants; in effect, it is the material manifestation of the perpetuation 

of an estate. The architecture of the estate, including the house, related 

structures and relationship with other houses is periodically reproduced as a conscious 

action of renewal by its inhabitants. “Renewal” is used here to describe 

the periodic and planned foundation of a new structure as a new incarnation of 

the house. Renewal is distinct from rebuilding or replacement as it emphasises 

an agent-led decision based on cultural and social norms, rather than an action 

born of functional necessity (maintenance). Given that house sequences move in 

tandem in several cases, the renewal of houses appears to mirror each other. It is 

suggested that renewal was a coordinated process, in which not just one house, 

but also its neighbours were relocated and reincarnated in planned sequences 

with each other. 

The entities which emerge and are perpetuated through the centuries can 

be usefully referred to as House Trajectories. In El Cabo we clearly see the development 

of several House Trajectories, some more durable than others and 

some with clear relationships between them (Fig. 152). Table 4 indicates which 

house structures (not including ancillary buildings) belong to the six House 

Trajectories identified, and also gives a generalised indication of the phases in 

which the individual structures occur. 

House Trajectories will be described from north to south, rather than in 

chronological order as was the case in the last section on phasing. More detailed 

characteristics, including the nature of the relationships between the House 

Trajectories and their similarity to other houses across the site will be discussed 

in later sections. Moreover, the House Trajectories discussed in this section are 

Phase a b c d e 

HT 1 3 23 24 29 30 

HT 2 20 1 34 21 38 

HT 3 2 7 9 11 13 

HT 4 14 4 

HT 5 15 43 

HT 6 22 27 


257

those which show evidence of their deliberate renewing. This includes most 

(84%) but not all house structures. An obvious omission is Structure 6, which 

overlaps with House Trajectory 6, but is of another type and phase. 

The structures excavated in the main unit will be placed in the context of the 

whole late-phase site later in this chapter (Section 6.6), however, for now it suffices 

to state that the structures in the main unit represent the majority of one 

habitational cluster, referred to as a “house group”. Although there are clearly 

structures which fall outside the boundary of the excavated area, the surrounding 

area has a lower artefact and feature density. Evidence presented later on suggests 

that house groups functioned as households. 

6.2.1 House Trajectory 1 

House Trajectory 1 consists of five superimposed Type 1 structures in the north 

of the unit which range from 37 to 60m² (Fig. 152). None of the structures is 

directly dated, but the largest structure of the cluster (Structure 30) bore two 

pieces of glass in one of its internal postholes, and therefore can be assumed to 

have been abandoned sometime in the first decades of European contact. We 

could place this after AD 1504 (just after the wars of Higüey), or perhaps a few 

years later. The size of the structures increases over time so that the smallest, 

Structure 3, was the first in the sequence and the largest, Structure 30, the last. 

The similarities with the other Type 1 structures from House Trajectory 2 to the 

south, one of which is dated to the early-12 th century, and the fact that these 

House Trajectories seem to have developed in parallel fashion due to the thrice 

repeated post alignment between them indicates that this House Trajectory may 

have endured for up to 500 years (see description of House Trajectory 2, below, 

for the origins of these houses). Several other items of European import were 

encountered in the location of this House Trajectory, although in general, hardly 

any other material was recovered from this area due to surface erosion. 


House Trajectory 2 consists of five superimposed Type 1 structures which range 

from 31 to 50m² (Fig. 152). Unlike for House Trajectory 1 there is no linear 

increase in size through time. Here, the latest house, Structure 38, is also the 

smallest in the sequence. Structure 1 dated between AD 1020 and 1180 (95% 

probability), is one of the early houses in the sequence, but given its location 

possibly not the first. Hence, the possibility that House Trajectory 2 had its origins 

in the early 11 th century. House Trajectory 2 is spatially associated with the 

majority of the colonial material (see later Section 6.5.7.4) which collects around 

the back of the latest structure in the sequence (Structure 38) and was prevented 

from spreading to the north by the alignment between House Trajectories 1 and 

2. House Trajectory 2 is also spatially associated with some of the most elaborate 

examples of Chicoid material culture recovered in El Cabo, including the largest 

trigonolith and the guaíza, found close to each other in a small natural depression 

in the bedrock just in front of the fence and outside the perimeters of the 

house structures (Figs. 162 and 165). 

There is an assumed close and contemporary relationship between House 

Trajectories 1 and 2, which may have been renewed in synchronous cycles with 

each other. The nature of the alignments between them, although expressing this 

relationship, is ambiguous. 


1 

0 

5 

metres 

10 

2 

3 

6 

5 

4 

Figure 152. House structures 

shaded according to the six 

House Trajectories. 


House Trajectory 3 consists of five generally non-overlapping Type 2 houses in 

the southeast of the unit (Fig. 152). Structures are closer in size, between 43 and 

50m², than the previous House Trajectories. There was a preference in House 

Trajectory 3 to move to a new spot, 1 to 4m away, when the house was renewed, 

unlike for the previous trajectories in which there was a preference to build on 

more or less the same spot each time so that foundations show considerable 

overlap. 


House Trajectory 4 consists of two overlapping Type 1 Structures, 54 and 81m² 

in floor area (Fig. 152). The larger Structure 4 is a renewal of the smaller Structure 

14. House Trajectory 4 was probably contemporaneous with one or more of the 

manifestations of House Trajectories 1 and 2. 


259


House Trajectory 5 consists of at least two and possibly more renewals of Type 1 

structures (Fig. 152). Whether the structures of House Trajectory 5 were actually 

dwelling structures is questionable due to their particularly small size in comparison 

to other Type 1 house structures, 153 and their lack of striking entrance 

features so common to the other houses. House Trajectory 5 structures have 

deep-set or hidden (i.e. difficult to identify from the plans) entrances. Structures 

making up House Trajectory 5 are 19 and 24m², whereas other Type 1 structures 

encompass between 30 and 60m² in floor area. The small difference in floor size 

between the renewals of this structure indicate that it was not simply a young 

house (for a small household), but purposefully remained small throughout its 

history. In summary, these are long-lived, small structures with possibly obscured 

entrance ways. Moreover, their unique association with certain community 

valuables also sets them apart. It is proposed these structures had a distinct 

function as cemí houses (Section 6.3). 


House Trajectory 6 consists of two renewals of Type 4 houses (Fig. 152). It is 

possible that more examples of this type occur in the area, but as these are large 

houses (72-82m²) in a narrow area of the unit very dense with posthole features, 

only two are secure. House Trajectory 6 is one of the least well understood in 

terms of chronology and the context of the houses with respect to the others in 

the unit (Section 6.1.5). 

6.3 The development of estates and their interaction 

It was proposed above that House Trajectory 1 may have been in existence for 

500 years. The same is also proposed for House Trajectory 2. House Trajectories 

4 and 5 also endured throughout multiple phases, and House Trajectories 3 

and 6 are of unknown duration, but rebuilding suggests multiple generations. 

This implies that unlike the maximum fifteen years life expectancy of vernacular 

architecture in Amazonia (Hugh-Jones 1979; P. Oliver 1997:1621; Schinkel 

1992), each house in El Cabo embodied considerable continuity, and theoretically 

may have endured for several decades to anything up to a century. This is 

based on a defensible estimate that if each house in a trajectory were inhabited 

for an equal amount of time, and the longest House Trajectories (1 and 2) each 

consist of five houses and spanned a period of 500 years (based on C14 dates 

from one of the earliest structures and the presence of European material in a 

posthole of one of the latest), then this would imply that each structure could 

have been in use for about 100 years. Of course this is a crude calculation to 

underscore the longevity of the structures, and may not reflect the real temporalities 

of foundation or abandonment. Nevertheless, it highlights that the 

lifespan of a house is not dependent on the wood-life of a post. It is dependent 

on cultural choices. It is quite possible that new timbers replaced old posts in 

the same holes in the solid bedrock. Replacement of structural elements to prolong 

the life of the house has been documented for Los Buchillones (Pendergast 

et al. 2002). These time spans indicate that when it comes to Caribbean houses 

ethnographic projections from Amazonia may not always be appropriate. This is 

153 Small size in itself is not problematic; it simply has implications for the number of inhabitants. 

The small structures (ca. 5m diameter) from MC-6, for example, are perfectly acceptable as 

dwellings. 


not just due to the drier, coastal conditions of many Caribbean settings which 

increase lifetimes of structures but also because of cultural differences which led 

to the development of large and continuous settlements in the Caribbean. El 

Cabo and Los Buchillones do not provide the only example of long-lived pre- 

Columbian houses. Structures from the Tutu and Golden Rock sites are estimated 

to have lasted 10-50 years (Righter 2002a:336; Schinkel 1992). Yet evidence 

from the El Cabo House Trajectories is perhaps the most compelling evidence 

to date that pre-Columbian Caribbean architecture and social institutions were 

more durable than on the mainland. 

In the trajectories above, we can see the deliberate perpetuation of multiple 

estates. Evidence such as the alignments between houses, architectural similarities 

and contemporaneity suggests certainly two, if not four of these estates coexisted 

(House Trajectories 1, 2, 4 and 5). We see for example the development 

of parallel estates over time; starting with Structure 3 (Phase b) which later on is 

joined by the neighbouring Structure 23, several metres to the south. Subsequent 

renewals of both these houses on their different but neighbouring spots move 

in parallel fashion, so that their subsequent reincarnations mirror each other. 

These houses, throughout their considerable history are divided by three separate 

rebuildings of the same post alignment (Structure 49). This barrier is very interesting. 

The desire for privacy or the partitioning of space in Amazonia is rarely 

expressed in physical boundaries, 154 so its interpretation as evidence for an antagonistic 

relationship between the two neighbours is unlikely. The alignments 

are 11 to 13m long and not particularly regular. They may represent domestic 

tools. But whatever their function they indicate these houses were intimately 

linked throughout their 500 year co-histories. 

House Trajectory 5 has a unique association with cemí artefacts; two stone 

collar parts have been found along their inside walls (Fig. 165). Moreover, these 

are smaller structures with possibly obscured entrances. Pané mentions that cemí 

idols resided in the same houses as people, but that others were accommodated 

in houses erected especially for them. That House Trajectory 5 was the residence 

of cemís, or the repository of regalia should be considered. If this was so, then 

the question remains how was this cemí house related to other House Trajectories 

in the house group or to the whole yucayeque? Was there an affiliation between 

a particular House Trajectory and this cemí house? Or was this a communal 

storeroom for the house group’s sacra? Although speculative, it is proposed that 

House Trajectory 5 may have been affiliated to one or more of the existing House 

Trajectories 1, 2 or 4 which at some point in their sequences accrued and maintained 

a cemí house. Evidence from the survey (presented in Section 6.6) further 

strengthens this proposal as it suggests that the houses in the main unit form 

most of one discrete house group rather than just one part of a large nucleated 

habitation area. The fact that the community was divided into spatially separated 

house groups implies close relationships between houses in a group and 

a likelihood that regalia was accessed by or functioned within the whole house 

group. 

In the next section the dynamics of renewal will be discussed in terms of the 

lifecycle of the House Trajectories. 

154 This being generally expressed conceptually or through avoidance and body language. In the 

case of contact-period Hispaniola, Las Casas remarks with incredulity that when the Spaniards 

arrived at a village, the inhabitants put a few thin sticks in front of their house doors – as if this 

was a significant barrier (Las Casas 1875: Bk 2. Ch. 99:31)! Clearly what was being expressed 

was a refusal of hospitality, not the construction of a barricade. 


261

6.3.1 Trajectories of renewal: The life cycle of the House Trajectory 

The lifecycle of the House Trajectory is described in terms of the foundation and 

abandonment of individual structures within the bigger cyclus. Individual structures 

are stages within a longer narrative, and as such whenever “new” houses 

are built it is always in reference to forebears, and when “old” houses are abandoned, 

they are reincarnated in subsequent structures. Conscious and deliberate 

choices were made periodically to renew the house. This has implications for the 

indigenous conceptualisation of domestic temporality, cosmology, for the creation 

of place and for the transmission of social and cultural values. Trajectories 

of renewal can be described in terms of a chaîne opératoire to elucidate the various 

stages of construction/renewal, living, abandonment, closing, and again, 

renewal. 

6.3.1.1 Construction/Renewal 

As seen in the last section, houses of the same type were built over each other 

again and again. House design remained the same, and house sizes did not 

change significantly between structure renewals (significance here is calculated 

in terms of inhabitant numbers, see Section 6.8). Hence the builders could have 

used the same postholes. Instead the inhabitants favoured starting from scratch, 

relocating, by as little as 50cm to a few metres. So refusal to re-use has to be explained 

by other than functional means. As mentioned, this practice is referred 

to as renewal. Renewal is different from rebuilding or repair, as it results in making 

a new foundation out of cultural (not functional) necessity. Renewal was 

not an act of maintenance; it was an act of reincarnation, and can be seen as the 

materialization of estate propagation. This is now described in more detail: 

Of the 52 structures, over 40% (n=21) do not share features with any other 

structure. This leaves 31 structures which do re-use features. The re-use of features 

seems to have been incidental, rather than a persistent strategy. In most 

cases, structures share very few of their features with other structures (usually in 

the range of 1 to 5 features). 155 

One might wonder why re-use did not occur more often. In particular in 

the case of the large features in the bedrock, it would have saved considerable 

effort to reuse postholes. Instead the inhabitants favoured starting from scratch 

to a carefully chosen plan regardless of existing postholes, rather than departing 

from this to exploit former features. This is evidenced by the occurrence of many 

double or triple intersecting features (rather than re-use of an adjacent feature), 

which in the majority of cases relate to separate building events, rather than as 

composite structural elements of the same building (for support posts etc.). See 

Figure 153 for an example of this. 

An obligation to periodically renew the structure does not mean that timbers 

were not replaced. It is quite possible that new posts were put into the same 

holes within the lifetime of one particular house structure. The permanence of 

postholes in the bedrock mean that posts could be replaced multiple times into 

old sockets. This means that although at certain junctures in the historical course 

of the House Trajectory the structure was renewed, there may have been multiple 

episodes of replacement in which new posts were put into the same postholes. At 

155 In terms of reconstruction methodology, it is often evident which features can be assigned more 

than once as these are postholes with non-circular, often oval plans, which are larger than expected 

for the position they occupy within a particular structure. In other words, what appear 

as large perimeters features in one structure, can serve as entrance or internal features of another 

structure (this for example is the case with the large perimeter features in Structure 29). 


Figure 153. The two largest 

postholes on the right hand 

side supported roof-supports 

for two non-contemporaneous 

structures in a House 

Trajectory (Structures 3 and 

29). Their proximity and the 

fact they intersect at the top 

indicate builders were aware 

of the presence of an existing, 

equally large (30cm diameter) 

and functional posthole in the 

area, but chose to make another 

instead of reusing the 

existing one. 

the site of Caguana, Puerto Rico, the detailed descriptions of burnt posts in two 

house areas in the early investigations by Mason reveal some postholes with the 

remains of three and four burnt posts in them (1941:247). Mason supposes that 

the features represent successive houses, occupying the same place (ibid. 237, 

244). Bright hypothesizes that this may have been the case at Anse à la Gourde, 

Guadeloupe, where certain postholes in the bedrock may have been used again 

and again (Bright 2003:54). 

Archaeological evidence which indirectly supports replacement of timbers at 

El Cabo is that the most common abandonment practice was removal of posts, 

so clearly the placement of a post its socket was not seen as a fait accompli, but 

potentially as one stage in a process of multiple replacement. Moreover, it was 

noted that whereas many postholes bore visible toolmarks, for others this was 

not the case. It may be that where toolmarks were not visible, long-term use 

and multiple replacements of posts may have worn these away. However, this 

remains uncertain and experimental assays would shed light on this practice. 

Periodic replacement may go some way to explaining how it is possible that individual 

house structures lasted up to 100 years. 

Conversely, there may also have been numerous occasions when old posts 

were put into new postholes, i.e. when significant posts, such as those from the 

entrance or internal structure of the house were curated across several houses, 

becoming “heirloom-ed” in the process and embodying the continuity and 

longevity of the House Trajectory. These posts were emblematic of the House 

Trajectory in that they marked the ongoing relationship between the former 

house structure and the renewed, reincarnated house, the next one in the sequence. 

Such curation of wooden house elements is suggested at Los Buchillones 


263

where a suite of dates in one particular, well-dated house structure spans 360 

years which the authors interpret as evidence for conservation and re-use of earlier 

timber (Pendergast et al. 2002:70). 

Moreover, there is evidence that making postholes was a significant activity 

in and of itself. This is suggested by the extreme regularity and care with which 

postholes have been manufactured, and also the careful symmetry of the different 

sizes of the various elements of the plan (an outstanding example is Structure 

6). Generally speaking, vernacular house foundations, even when highly standardised, 

display irregularities. Disregarding post-depositional processes which 

can effect archaeological preservation, variation is often due to such factors as 

the different capabilities or body dimensions (used for measuring out parts) of 

the builders or different dimensions of construction materials. Imperfections not 

tolerated in steel and concrete buildings can be accommodated by the flexibility 

and yielding qualities of organic building materials. Why therefore are the foundations 

of the structures in El Cabo executed with such scrupulous exactitude? 

Again, this is not simply a functional concern, but points to the importance of 

the processes of manufacture and renewal. Construction itself was a significant 

activity. 

The rules and norms governing house renewal are not known. However, the 

archaeology of the structures gives insight into many of the details of the process. 

The overlapping floor plans indicate that old houses were abandoned before new 

houses were begun, instead of being inhabited until the new structure was ready 

as if often the case in the tropical lowlands. Moreover, the synchronous renewal 

of multiple houses suggests that the happening was a coordinated, multi-house 

phenomenon. This suggests that the temporalities of renewal do not follow human 

biographical timescales such as generations, as has been suggested for house 

lifecycles in other areas of the world (Gerritsen 2001). House renewal was probably 

not related to the death or birth of household members. Comparable coordinated 

practices of house abandonment and reconstruction at Cahokia are 

interpreted as meaningful familial and communal activities (Pauketat and Alt 

2005). It has been suggested that cyclical, coordinated renewal may have been 

related to cycles of ritual events and determined by these timescales (Peter G. 

Roe pers. comm. 2009). However, this remains a matter for future research. 

6.3.1.2 Abandonment 

Various abandonment practices are documented for the structures in the unit. 

Three structures were burnt down (Structures 1, 4, 6). Other structures (n=14) 

had their posts removed and the postholes back-filled. For a further 18 structures 

it was only possible to say that they had probably not been burnt on abandonment. 

The posts of these structures may have been left to rot in situ, removed and 

the postholes left open, or removed and the postholes back-filled. The remaining 

17 structures have unknown abandonment sequences due to the fact that not 

enough features have been excavated, or not enough large features are excavated 

to draw conclusions. 

So for 17 structures there is positive evidence of a particular abandonment 

practice, involving either burning or removal and back-filling of postholes. For 

the 18 cases of uncertainty, the option that the posts were left to rot in situ is 

not seen as likely given the palimpsest of building activities which meant that no 


plot would have been left empty for long, the space being used for another structure. 

This suggests the proper way to leave a structure involved dismantlement 

by removal of house posts, and exceptionally destruction by burning. 156 

Evidence for the removal of house posts makes the practice of recycling, as 

referred to above, more likely. 

6.3.1.3 Closing rituals 

There is evidence for acts of structured deposition occurring in postholes of 

structures from all phases. Ten structures have items of bodily adornment or ceramic 

adornos in their features. Reasons to believe that these items were part of 

deliberate and structured practices are that: (1) their distribution is confined to 

the postholes of house structures (in nine out of ten cases), (2) that they occur 

in specific locations within the house: either entrance or internal postholes, or 

in perimeter postholes aligned on the internal postholes, usually in the north or 

south wall, and (3) they consist of specific types of artefacts, namely beads and 

pendants. 157 

Structure 1 for example has stone and shell beads in the front and back postholes 

of the internal configuration, as well as a stone bead in an entrance posthole, 

and a ceramic adorno in a posthole in the middle of the northern perimeter 

(Fig. 154). 158 

Other structures have one or two such finds related to them. 159 The only nonhouse 

structure to yield comparable finds is Structure 10, a canopied activity 

hut, one posthole of which contained a dog’s tooth, perforated for suspension 

through the root. 

Three Chicoid adornos and two pieces of European bottle glass are also considered 

probable deliberate depositions due to the fact that they conform to the 

depositional locations of the beads, whereas other artefact types (such as tools 

and decorated ceramics or griddle pieces), do not. 

The question which arises is at what stage in the lifecycle of the house did 

deposition occur: at foundation or abandonment? Were these depositions intended 

to “dress” (i.e. give culture to) the house at the start of its life as part of 

the necessary cohort of rituals accompanying construction? Or were these abandonment 

deposits, left in exchange for the posts removed for the construction of 

a new house and to mark closure of the old house? 

In the case of five of the ten structures with evidence for posthole deposition, 

it is thought that the posts were removed and the postholes back-filled on abandonment. 

The beads, adornos and bottle glass from these structures would then 

be best interpreted as abandonment deposits. This is especially clear with regard 

to Structure 29 in which a perforated and decorated dog’s tooth was found halfway 

down the posthole shaft, on top of a large fragment of ceramic vessel. The 

post would have to have been removed before this item was placed inside. Two 

other structures with teeth in the postholes were also probably abandonment de- 

156 In the case of burning, this is seen as part of a planned abandonment practice, rather than an act 

of misadventure. Other possible scenarios might be burning as the result of a raid (Arie Boomert 

pers. comm.). 

157 Rather than the trigonoliths, shell inlays, plaques and stone collar fragments which make up the 

majority of the paraphernalia found in layer 1. 

158 A description of the other finds and their locations can be found in the description of individual 

structures, see Chapter 5.2. 

159 In some cases this may be a reflection of the number of postholes excavated per structure. Structure 

1 was intensively investigated, hence the relatively high number of such finds. Structure 2 was 

almost completely excavated, and revealed one bead and a dog’s tooth in a posthole fill. Overall, 

the sample discussed here is believed to be representative. 


265

posits, otherwise these items would have been fragmented by 

the movement and pressure of the upright in the socket. This 

also goes for the shell beads. On the whole therefore, the 

preferred interpretation is that of abandonment deposits. 

This then begs the question: what was the significance 

of deliberate deposition on abandonment? The character 

of the depositions will be discussed at greater length in 

the section on house aesthetics (see 6.4.5), but for now it 

is important to address their significance in terms of the 

lifecycle of the house and House Trajectory. Literature on 

abandonment deposits generally sees these as acts of closure 

or termination (see contributions in Boteler Mock 1998). But 

closure should not be considered in terms of its finality, but 

rather as a stage in a lifecycle which also incorporates rebirth. There 

is a conceptual link between the death of one structure, and future 

regeneration. This future regeneration is the renewal of the House 

Trajectory in subsequent house structures (Garber et al. 1998 in 

Mesoamerica, and see Brück 2005 for an example of this in the British Bronze 

Age). The house is animate and vested with personhood in the sense that it also 

goes through cycles of life, death and rebirth. Such cyclical and structuring principles 

of lifecycle stages connected to domestic and monumental architecture 

are an accepted feature of the Mesoamerican worldview where layered caches in 

buildings are interpreted as dedicatory or termination rituals often associated 

with reestablishment or founding (Boteler Mock 1998; Garber et al. 1998). 

Replacement trajectories of Classic Maya buildings, in which the house and 

human ancestors are in a metaphoric relationship, are interpreted as animating 

events in which new buildings became ensouled, like a newly baptized infant 

(Schele and Freidel 1990:428, cit. Boteler Mock 1998:11). In this sequence each 

new building becomes the replacement or substitute for the ancestor, and the 

monuments accrue power in the process (ibid.). 

The abandonment deposits in El Cabo postholes literally and symbolically 

close foundations which were in use for multiple re-buildings of the same house 

in the same postholes. It is fitting that the most prominent and important postholes, 

those which supported the largest and possibly curated posts (“ritual attractors”), 

are those which are commemorated and marked with depositions by 

inhabitants. As we have seen, it was not just the posts which were important, but 

also the postholes themselves. 

6.3.1.4 Innovation (lack of?) and continuity 

In mainland South America, according to the standard model, the physical 

house structure rarely last longer than 15 years. This is due to multiple reasons 

including pests, death and fission. The relocation and rebuilding of a house 

provides an opportunity to adjust social relations (Hugh-Jones 1979; P. Oliver 

1997:1621; Schinkel 1992:188-189). Among egalitarian societies of Amazonia, 

cyclical community fission as a way of doing this is common. 

To the contrary, in El Cabo there is remarkable continuity in which the 

House Trajectory remained the same, or practically the same for centuries. There 

is change in house size within certain trajectories, but no one house in any trajectory 

is even twice as big as any other. House Trajectories 3, 5 and 6 show remarkable 

uniformity in house size, and even for those trajectories in which more 

variation is apparent (i.e. House Trajectories 1, 2 and 4) this can hardly be said 

to be significant in terms of inhabitant numbers (see Section 6.8). If there was 

0 2 

metres 

4 

Figure 154. Plan of Structure 

1 with the postholes in white 

indicating the location of closing 

deposits. 


any attempt to innovate, or readjust social relations, this is not expressed in the 

materiality of the House Trajectory, which appears to be a highly conservative 

institution. In the cycle of renewal described above, there is a conscious attempt 

not to produce any rupture between past and present. The house should continue 

as it had always done since time immemorial. The spatio-temporal arena 

of the quotidian was sustained by reproducing the house as it had always been. 

A similar concern with replication has a cosmological explanation among the 

Yekuana of Venezuela whose houses are an exact copy of the first roundhouse 

built by the culture hero Ättäwanadi (Wilbert 1981:45-47). 

However, on the synchronic level of the house group in different phases there 

is considerable development: houses increase in number over time, beginning in 

Phase a with possibly one house structure and developing with the appearance 

of multiple bigger and smaller structures in subsequent phases. This is especially 

the case in Phase c, from the 11 th or 12 th centuries, during which there is 

an explosion of new structures. In Phases c and d the smaller cemí house, fence 

structures and small communication platform make their appearance indicating 

greater functional diversity and development within the house group. And 

already from Phases b and c, when Type 1 structures first appear, house size becomes 

more variable from 33 to 81m², so that the largest house in this phase 

has twice as many inhabitants as the smallest house (although not within the 

same trajectory). This variation continues in Phase d with a house size range between 

31 and 77m², implying again that the largest house has potentially twice 

as many inhabitants as the smallest house (see discussion of house demographics 

in Section 6.8). Therefore although House Trajectories are stable institutions 

through time, the house group as a whole develops and changes through each 

phase, especially from ca. AD 1000. 

6.3.2 Summary of renewal 

In summary (Fig. 155), a house structure was occupied until cultural norms 

incumbent on the inhabitants made it necessary to renew the house. Evidence 

suggests that this was a cyclical event undertaken jointly by multiple houses simultaneously. 

This could either have been on the level of the house group, or 

potentially the whole yucayeque. One particular observation from Columbus’ 

diary of the first voyage supports this phenomenon. On December 16 th the admiral 

visits a settlement on the coast of Hispaniola and remarks that the village 

appeared newly established because all the houses seemed new (“que parecía ser 

de nuevo hecha, porque todas las cacas eran nuevas.” Cit., Prieto Vicioso 2008:118; 

Navarrete 1922:104). Here it may not have been the case that the village itself 

was new, but renewed. 

In any case, when the time was right, the house plot was levelled and cleaned 

and the posts of the former house were dismantled. Significant posts of the 

former structure, those considered “ritual attractors” (Fox 1993), most likely 

from the entrance and internal supports, were kept. Items of personal significance 

to the inhabitants were then deposited into the postholes and filled up 

with clean material. An entirely new foundation, with slight lateral displacement, 

was dug in the bedrock for the new house. The curated posts from the old 

house were placed in the new rows of postholes as symbols of continuity and 

successful reproduction of the House Trajectory. The whole process of renewal 

was clearly a significant corporate activity. The house was not merely a dwelling 

structure, it embodied the concerns and values associated with cultural transmission 

and social reproduction of the whole community. This is something which 

is also reflected in the aesthetics of the house, discussed below. 


267

6.4 House aesthetics and “the beauty of the everyday” 

Native peoples of Amazonia place a lot of stress on “the beauty of the everyday” 

(Overing and Passes 2000:12), the ornamentation and elaboration of everyday 

items of material culture and the most common household objects such as containers, 

cooking utensils and tools such as axes (an outstanding example of this 

is Yecuana basket weaving, Guss 1989). This extends to every aspect of life such 

as body ornamentation and posture, speech, harmony and order in the domestic 

space and skill in craft production. Of course the way this is manifested differs 

enormously. Nevertheless, the creation of an auspicious, tranquil and harmonious 

environment in which to happily conduct daily life, leading to the growth 

and prosperity of the community in which work is pleasing and children are 

correctly raised, is linked to the language of aesthetics and the practice of beautifying 

behaviours (Overing and Passes 2000). Morality and aesthetics are profoundly 

linked so that good and beautiful are indivisible concepts and necessary 

to social life (Overing and Passes 2000 and in the same volume Belaunde 2000; 

Kidd 2000). “…it is only by acknowledging aesthetics in the broader sense of its 

meaning, where beauty in daily practice is understood as an expression of moral 

and political value, that anthropologists can begin to perceive the characteristics 

and affective conditions of everyday social life in Amazonia…” (Overing and 

Passes 2000:18). 

As far as house aesthetics are concerned, value is placed on the size, cleanliness 

and order of the house. These are signs of community strength and cohesion, 

and of a leader’s prestige (see also Helms 1979 with respect to precolonial 

Panamanian bohíos). Architectural detail and decoration is not so important. 

Surface decoration for example is rare in Amazonian houses and house exteriors 

are often unkempt (Hugh-Jones 1979:248; P. Oliver 1997:1621). The layout 

Figure 155. Summary of 

House Trajectory. From bottom 

left the main stages in 

the cycle of house renewal are 

schematically represented: digging 

foundations; construction; 

habitation; abandonment 

and curation of posts; closing; 

 

starting anew. 


and organisation of space, and the way individuals negotiate space is important 

however, with the layout of the house and/or settlement an idealized representation 

of the human and natural world and embodiments of the proper order of relations. 

Fronts of houses are particularly important and points of entry and exit 

are kept clean, and posts, paths and doorways receive ritual treatment (ibid.). 

That this was true of societies in Hispaniola is documented in the material 

culture and historic sources. Often cited examples are aspects of life related to 

elite practices such as the control and storage of elaborately crafted wooden 

artefacts by the cacica Anacaona, or the composition and knowledge of areitos 

by caciques. That this sense of the aesthetic filtered though all aspects of life 

is apparent in the historically and archaeologically documented clean, ordered 

and well-appointed houses with their patterned walls of woven, coloured bejucos 

(vines), cotton drapes, items suspended from the beams, the elaborateness 

of household ceramic vessels and the material culture of the house in general 

(Section 2.4.2). It is against this cultural background that the clear preoccupation 

with house aesthetics and beautifying the house in El Cabo should be 

understood. This can be seen in house depositions, spatial regularity and architectural 

embellishment. 

6.4.1 Entrances 

The front is the most dominant feature of the house in El Cabo. In general entrance 

facades of house structures were monumentalized and marked by heavierset 

and wider uprights, which in some house structures are as massive as the 

roof-supports inside. Entrance postholes are invariably flanked by more substantial 

features (in terms of depth and diameter) than the majority of the other 

postholes in the external ring, and these larger posts run for ca. 30% of the perimeter. 

This forms an outer wall which is asymmetrically balanced towards the 

west, and makes the front, or the face of the building the most imposing aspect 

of the structure. All activities such as the arrival and departure of household 

members and guests took place through this entrance, as it probably formed 

the only access point in the houses. Moreover, the monumentality of entrances 

provided shelter from the sea wind creating a still area outside the front of the 

house where people probably congregated and worked. It is not known whether 

the entrance façades of the houses were additionally decorated. However, if any 

part of the house were decorated, this would be the most likely spot. In the rare 

cases of house decoration in South America, it is usually the front which received 

such treatment. 160 Underscoring the importance of the entrance features are the 

abandonment depositions which occur in these postholes, possibly indicating 

their character as “ritual attractors” and those parts which may have been recycled 

across multiple structures. 

The embellishment of entrance facades does not mean that doorways themselves 

were big. On the contrary, these are relatively narrow openings (on occasion 

narrower than the average spacing between external posts) which would not 

have allowed more than one person to pass through at any time. As well as being 

narrow, the colonial documents also indicate that doorways were low. Both 

Hernando Colón and Martir de Angleria state that doorways were hardly big 

enough to let the inhabitants in and that one was obliged to duck (Hernando 

Colón and Martir de Angleria cit. Prieto Vicioso 2008:129). Door width in 

160 This is the case with the front ends of Barasana (Colombia) and Tukano (Vaupés) malocas 

(Botelho Malhano 1997; Duly 1979; Hugh-Jones 1979; Hugh-Jones 1995). Occasionally interior 

walls are decorated (Wilbert 1981: Fig.22). 


269

El Cabo is on average 72cm, and slightly wider for larger house structures. An 

estimate of doorway heights based on colonial documents is 1.25m tall (Prieto 

Vicioso 2008:145). The small doorways within the large faces would have further 

enhanced the imposing façade. 

6.4.2 Orientation 

There is a consistent orientation in the circular structures. Entrances face away 

from the sea, but within this broad functional rule there are three major orientations. 

Houses in the same phase share the same orientation. So all houses in 

Phase a are oriented west-northwest, whereas those in Phases b, c and d are oriented 

due west, and those in Phase e northwest. 

6.4.3 Regularity 

There is a great concern for regularity in the house structures. This is one of the 

major factors which helps identification. This is manifested in a general concept 

of construction from big to small, from front to back materialized in a monumentalized 

entrance which diminishes to an increasingly lighter construction towards 

the back. In some house structures this over-arching concept incorporates 

another pattern of regular alternation between larger and smaller posts along the 

whole perimeter. These smaller patterns coalesce within the larger form. 

Internal configurations of the circular structures consist of eight deep and 

broad postholes. In general, these are the largest features in a structure. The eight 

posts form pairs: two at the back (east), front (west), north and south. Each pair 

connects to its opposite pair, most likely by means of tie-beams joining the pairs 

of uprights: the northern with the southern pair and the front with the back pair. 

The design is basically the same in Structure 6 in which the perimeter incorporates 

the roof-supports. 

This design results in a front-back dichotomy within an axial layout. This 

front-back dichotomy can be seen in many Amazonian and Orinocan societies, 

for instance in Yecuana and Tukano houses (Hugh-Jones 1979; Hugh-Jones 

1995; Rivière 1995), where the communal and ceremonial part of the house is 

at the front, and the rear of the house is the place of the hearth, intimate socializing 

and food production. This is often combined with a second organizing 

principle of space, that of a concentric order (Hugh-Jones 1979; Schinkel 1992). 

This concentric order, although experienced at construction in the circular floor 

plans of the El Cabo houses, is absent in the experience of them as living spaces 

as is discussed below. 

6.4.4 Circular arguments and asymmetry 

The structures in El Cabo, although very regular and circular in plan, are asymmetrical 

in section. In contrast to what is believed about the symmetrical, concentric 

properties of roundhouses worldwide, structures in the main unit probably 

had sloping roofs: high at the front and low at the back. 

The structures in El Cabo have no central pole(s) providing a support function. 

This does not necessarily mean a centre point was not marked. For example 

Wayana community houses have slender central poles, sometimes two poles, one 

attached to the top of the other, with no load-bearing function, to attach the 

ceremonial and decorative roof disc (pers. comm. Renzo Duin). In such a way, 

the house is centred by way of an axis mundi through its physical centre. The 

presence and symbolism of the axis mundi is important in the standard model of 

tropical South American architecture (Boomert 2000; Roe 1982; Schinkel 1992; 


Wilbert 1981). This has been proposed for Saladoid houses in the Caribbean, 

and assumed for Late Ceramic Age houses in the Greater Antilles (Jansen and 

Dorst 2007; Siegel 1992; Stevens-Arroyo 2006:130). Although as we have seen, 

central posts are a rare feature of the few published house plans (Section 1.4.1.2). 

The possibility of central features was nevertheless investigated in El Cabo. Of 

the 37 circular structures in the unit with their middle points inside the excavation 

boundary, 16 have features within 50cm of the centre point of the floor 

plan. 161 These features were, with one exception, less than 25cm deep. However, 

seeing as in the majority of cases these features arguably appear to be part of 

other, separate alignments (as yet unreconstructed), rather than belonging to the 

surrounding circular structure, these structures are not assigned central features. 

Indeed, in the most reliable reconstructions in areas of the unit with lowest feature 

density (i.e. Structures 1 and 2) central features are conspicuous in their 

absence. Therefore, the structures in El Cabo have no archaeologically visible 

acknowledgement of a centre point commensurate with the physical centre of 

the floor plan. 

As is concluded above, this supports the notion that a front/back dichotomy 

within an axial layout, rather than a centre/periphery ordering of space characterized 

the house structures. This differs from what Rivière (1995:194) terms 

a Pan-Amazonic pattern of “concentric dualism whereby the centre is opposed 

to the periphery, front to the back and the inside to the outside.” In turn these 

spatial relationships are related to non-spatial structuralist distinctions which 

he lists as men : women, public : private, sacred : secular and essence : process 

(ibid.; Hugh-Jones 1979; Roe 1982:136-139). Although the conceptualization 

of spatial divisions may be very different to the way they are physically defined, 

and the distinctions themselves contextually and temporally sensitive, or limited 

to the ideal domain, rather than proposed as rigid rules (Hugh-Jones 1979; 

Hugh-Jones 1995; Overing and Passes eds. 2000; Tanner 1991), these physical 

concentric principles of Amerindian architecture are absent in the house structures 

in El Cabo. They were however present in the floor plans at the time of 

construction. Thus, whether a house was conceived as circular, or lacking circularity 

would have been dependent on the stage of renewal. Construction/renewal 

and abandonment emphasise circularity, living in the physical space of the house 

would have emphasised the front: back divisions. 

6.4.5 Depositions: Dressing the house in closing rituals 

As mentioned earlier, postholes of house structures were the focus of deposition 

of items of bodily adornment, adornos and occasionally other items. This has 

implications for the aesthetic conceptualization of the house. 

Oudhuis (2008) on the iconography of the ceramic adornos from El Cabo, 

has suggested that these ceramic vessel appendages - each one a unique re-combination 

of a repertoire of iconographic elements referencing human, animal 

and geometric “characters”, may have been deliberately detached from the vessel 

(as has been suggested for La Caleta by Herrera Fritot 1946). In this respect, 

ceramic vessels and their unique identifiers, the adornos, can be seen as unique 

artefacts iconic of household identities (see Lopiparo 2007 for a similar discussion 

on ceramics and houses in Terminal Classic Honduras). Ceramic vessels, 

used in the storage, preparation and serving of food and drink are intimately 

bound up with the identity of the house and the domestic cycle of its inhabitants. 

Moreover, each household probably either produced its own pottery, or 

161 Structures 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 20, 28, 29, 30, 31, 38, 43, 48, and 51. 


271

eceived vessels from other households in reciprocal flows which sustained social 

relationships (through exchange within or outside the village). Production, use 

and discard of such household confection is integral to household reproduction. 

It is therefore highly appropriate that such items were considered fitting 

for deposition, as they would not only inscribe the house with the identity of its 

inhabitants, but refer to the quotidian activities of communal food preparation 

and sharing which occurred in and around the structure. 

Beads and pendants were also selected to be deposited into key postholes 

within the house. According to the chronicles cibas, or stone bead necklaces, 

were important personal possessions of the indigenous inhabitants of Hispaniola 

at contact (Pané 1999). This is underscored by the burial record of Hispaniola 

in which these items are sometimes present in otherwise modest assemblages, 

or form part of caches. Beads and pendants, as items of bodily adornment, are 

markers of the cultured and identitied body. The deposition of such items into 

significant locations in the house indicates two important relationships: that 

like the body, the house should be culturally and personally inscribed (see Mills 

2008 on the ritual dressing of the house in the American southwest), and that 

the identities of the household were tied up with that of the house. This suggests 

a society in which inhabitants and house, and body and house are related and 

reference each other. Although the symbolic equation of the house with the body 

does not necessarily mean that components of the house were referred to by 

anatomical names, it does make it probable. Peoples of the upper Xingu for example 

reference house space anatomically, thus the house has earrings (wooden 

pegs) which pierce the ears (timbers) (Botelho Malhano 1997:1629). Similar to 

ceramic adornos then, certain bodily adornments can be seen as unique artifacts 

iconic of household identities. 


In summary, the archaeological evidence suggests that a cultural aesthetic of domestic 

beauty existed in El Cabo which focussed on the structure of the house. 

This was identified by focussing attention on various aspects of the lifecycle of 

the house such as the coordinated, joint effort and exacting execution of house 

foundations, the monumentality of the house façade, dressing of the abandoned 

house like the dressing of the human social body and the responsibility to replicate 

or renew the successful house for perpetuity. In other words, the house is 

a joint enterprise which emerges from the collective community values of order, 

beauty and continuity. Although a specific model of house life developed in El 

Cabo which was absolutely Antillean, this picture can be enriched by ethnographic 

comparisons which highlight certain shared dispositions which nevertheless 

have a specifically local and historical manifestation. That this relationship 

is axiomatic, i.e. that there is an equivalence between indigenous domestic 

aesthetics and morality (prescribed social norms), can also be glimpsed from the 

historic documents. 

The ideals of harmony, peace and happiness are precisely the virtues attested 

to the indigenous people of Hispaniola by Las Casas in the Apologética Historia 

Summaria (Churampi Ramírez 2008). In this text, Las Casas sets out to prove 

the being human of the indigenous population, arguing that they possessed 

the qualities to pursue a rational political and social life in accordance with an 

Aristotelian template. One of the most important elements of this model was the 

ability to live in a state of civil happiness, which implies the capacity to govern 

oneself and others, to live in peace and virtue and to multiply. This is echoed in 

Overing’s statement about Amazonian sociality that it “is more about the issues 


of fecundity than those of status, role and property”, i.e. a happy village is one 

where good/beautiful people can be created and many babies are born (Overing 

and Passes 2000:17). 

So, although as Churampi Ramírez points out, one can deconstruct the lascasian 

vision of the perfect republic of Hispaniola as an application of Aristotelian 

ideals, nevertheless indigenous society clearly inspired Las Casas to see the classical 

and ideal Christian virtues in Hispaniola, lacking in late medieval Europe. 

6.5 Daily life and the temporalities of the domestic realm in 


The aesthetics of the house express domestic ideals. The activities of everyday life 

however express a domestic reality. The artefact distributions from the main unit 

represent a spatio-temporal layer which is the result of cumulative processes and 

one-off acts. These archaeological deposits were deemed to have good archaeological 

integrity and are interpreted as representing sweeping and living remains 

and deliberate depositions. As mentioned in Section 4.2.4 the find layer is a 

shallow humic layer, usually 10-20cm thick, with no discernible stratigraphic 

distinction. The accumulations are all one archaeological event (which does not 

necessarily imply short-term deposition). 

6.5.1 Ceramic distribution 

There are very clear distinctions in the ceramic weight distributions across the 

unit. The distributions are interpreted as being archaeologically significant (i.e. 

representative of past human activities) except in the north and along the edge of 

the cliff where material was not recovered from every square due to the scarcity 

of remains in this, the most exposed and weathered part of the promontory. 

In general there are less than 750g of ceramics per square in the western half 

of the unit, and more than 750g and generally more than 2kg of ceramics per 

square in the eastern and northeastern parts of the unit. 

The transition between the low and high density areas are gradual, so that a 

halo of higher density deposits fan out from a circular clean area on the border 

between sectors 39 and 49 (Fig. 156). This is especially visible in the east and 

northeast where more surface area has been excavated. Sectors 40 and 50, and 

49 and 59 are the areas of densest deposits where ceramic weights are generally 

between 750g to over 5kg. This can be seen in the three or four adjacent and 

contiguous darkest areas in the map. This rapidly dwindles to nothing on the 

edge of the cliff and in the north where the erosion is most extensive. Within 

the dense area, another, more irregularly shaped, “cleaner” area can be defined in 

Sector 50, and again to the north in Sector 51. 

The question is not only what activities are reflected in these discard patterns, 

but also to which period does the material and its accumulation contours 

pertain, in how much detail can the patterns be interpreted, and what is the 

direction of the movement? A reasonable assumption would be to suggest that 

the distribution contours relate to maintenance activities in the latest phase of 

habitation, with the cleanest areas correlating with the insides of structures and 

the dirtiest areas representing the refuse zones from these structures. 

The composition of the material itself may be temporally mixed. Material 

related to earlier phases may have moved around in the same area, with later 

material, for a long period of time. Therefore the differentiated accumulations 

of ceramic discard – evidence of daily household activities and consumption of 


273

53 

5262 

51 61 

30 40 50 60 

29 39 49 59 69 

0 5 10 

metres 

household goods – can be used to assist in a relative chronology at the latest end 

of the scale, but caution should be exercised in terms of relating all material to 

this phase. 

At this stage one can propose that structures in the cleanest area are related 

to the latest phases of habitation. However, unexcavated structures outside the 

excavation boundary may also be the source of some of the deposits, especially in 

Sectors 40 and 50 which are areas of dense deposits on excavation boundaries. In 

general, one can see that the distributions represent the activities of inhabitants 

who swept their rubbish to the back of the structures so that it accumulated on 

the edge of the cliff. 

Evidence which corroborates the hypothesis that the distribution contours 

are representative of the latest phase of habitation is seen in the distribution of 

average sherd weight across the unit (Fig. 157). 162 

Figure 156. Ceramic weights 

in four classes from lighter 

to darker (1-150g, 151-750g, 

751-2000g, 2001-6000g). 

White indicates no available 

data. Inset indicates sector 

numbers referred to in text. 

162 Ceramic weight per square is divided by the number of fragments recovered, giving the average 

weight per sherd. 


0 5 10 

metres 

Figure 157. Average sherd 

weight in three classes from 

lighter to darker (1-5g, 6-10g 

and 11-44g). 

Across the majority of the unit (65%) the sherds are small and trampled 

(≤5g). Slightly larger sherds (6-10g) are located in the same three or four main 

adjacent concentrations seen in the ceramic weight distribution map. So, larger 

sherds occur in the areas of highest ceramic density. These are areas of lowest 

trampling. The fact that the average sherd size is larger in the areas of most 

ceramic accumulation suggests that these deposits are the result of the latest 

phase maintenance activities, i.e. they contain relatively large pieces of pottery 

which have not been exposed to crushing and further breakage by subsequent 

habitation. 

In addition, another interesting observation can be made concerning the largest 

sherds (>11g), which make up a very small minority (2%). Although some 

of the largest sherds unsurprisingly occur in the areas of highest ceramic density 

discussed above, the majority are located in areas of middle to low density ceramic 

distribution, in the southern half of Sector 39 (see darkest squares in Fig. 

156). This suggests that spatially concentrated discard also occurred in otherwise 

clean (i.e. activity or living) areas. This perhaps indicates that deposits in the 


275

0 5 10 

metres 

unit are so detailed as to be able to distinguish between expedient toss zones and 

systematic sweeping accumulations. Moreover, the size and shape of the deposits 

indicate the size and shape of activity areas or structures (Wandsnider 1996). 

Figure 158. Griddle weights 

in three classes from lighter 

to darker (1-50g, 51-200g, 

201-600g). 

6.5.2 Griddle distribution 

The distribution of griddle fragments mirrors more or less precisely that of the 

general ceramic distribution (Fig. 158). Griddles have an almost complete coverage 

of the unit, with the exception of an area of ca. 8×5m from where no griddle 

fragments were recovered. In general, this is the area of least finds in the unit. 

It should be noted that there are no large discrepancies in the size (average 

sherd weight) of griddle fragments across the unit. The areas of densest accumulations 

tend to be the areas where the largest sherds are located, but in general, 

distribution contours indicate that the density clustering is not a result of discrete 

discard locations of whole or largely whole griddles, but that griddle fragments 

are mixed through and have accumulated with the rest of the debris. 


0 5 10 

metres 

Figure 159. Marine shell 

weights in four classes from 

lighter to darker (1-50g, 51- 

250g, 251-750g, 751-2030g). 

Note: data on marine shell 

densities are missing from the 

area excavated in 2005. 


The distribution of marine shell, the majority of which are small marine molluscs 

(Nerita spp., chiton, limpet, with some larger shells of Cittarium pica and 

Strombus spp.) is interpreted as largely the result of discard of food residue (Fig. 

159). In addition to their meat content, larger molluscs, such as Strombus spp. 

and Cittarium pica were used for shell raw material. This may also be the case 

with the very few bivalve remains recovered, the majority Codakia orbicularis, 

which were probably collected for tool use rather than food. Use-wear traces, 

visible as a polish on five of the 17 bivalves examined showed that they were 

probably used for scraping siliceous plants such as calabash, reeds and liana (de 

Ruiter 2009). Further analysis is needed before subsistence/tool distinctions can 

be made in the data here, however. 

163 Data from marine shell are missing from 2005, represented by the white rectangle in 84-29/39. 


277

Again, the marine shell coverage forms a continuous carpet, with areas of 

density and scarcity which match that of the ceramic distribution. The majority 

of the unit (63%) has less than 250g of shell per square, whereas areas in the 

northeast and southeast have clusters of over 750g. A more dense area of deposits, 

not so pronounced in the ceramics, occurs in the northwest, in Sector 30. 

Figure 160. A selection of shell 

paraphernalia from the main 

unit. Actual size. Illustrator 

Erik van Driel. 

Figure 161. Distribution 

of paraphernalia, including 

trigonoliths (triangles); beads 

and other items of bodily 

adornment (small circles); 

fragments of stone collars 

(large ovals); social valuables 

such as the guaíza and inlays 

for cemí statues (stars). 

0 5 10 

metres 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Figure 162. Trigonolith of 

local sandstone with incised 

face and frog legs. Scale 75%. 

Illustrator Erik van Driel. 

Figure 164. Shell teeth inlay. 

Actual size. Illustrator Erik 

van Driel. 

6.5.4 Bodily adornments, community regalia and cemí items 

Figure 161 shows a distribution map indicating the location of items recorded 

as “paraphernalia” in the field. These include items of bodily adornment such as 

beads and ear plugs of shell, stone or bone, and other small objects, mainly of 

shell, with holes for suspension such as pendants, tabular and keyhole-shaped 

plaques, an anillo and tincklers (Fig. 160). 

Among the items of paraphernalia are also more potent portable artefacts 

such as trigonoliths, stone collar fragments, durable parts of cemí statuary and 

a guaíza. 

The trigonoliths, some fragmented, range from micro-trigonoliths with bases 

of a few centimetres, to larger examples (up to 12cm base length). These have 

been made from local (sandstone and coral) and exotic (quartz and other harder 

non-local rock types) materials, some undecorated, others with incisions round 

the base points (Fig. 172) and the largest one incised with frog legs and a face 

(Fig. 162). 

Two fragments of stone collar (Fig. 163) made from non-local green-grey igneous 

rock, deriving from the same artefact and fitting together, were recovered 

within 4m of each other from within the boundaries of the structures of House 

Trajectory 5. Two other pieces (25m to the south and 8m to the north) were 

recovered in other units or on the surface. Cursory visual inspection suggests 

that they too are from the same material, if not the same artefact as the first two 

pieces. 164 If added to the portion (not from the same artefact) recovered in earlier 

investigations (Ortega 1978a) some 50m to the north on the coast, this makes a 

total of five stone collar fragments from the site. 

Shell inlays depicting the bared-teeth motif (horizontally incised line with 

vertical cross-hatching) are interpreted as parts of cemí icons, once having been 

part of larger, composite, artefacts including wooden stools, carved wood and 

cotton figurines, trigonoliths and cohoba stands. Indeed, one of these inlays (Fig. 

164) from the south of the unit was a small wedge-shaped inlay suggesting insertion 

into the beak of an ornithomorphic piece such as (but much smaller than) 

the bird-headed Figure from Jamaica (which is curated in the British Museum, 

Anon. 1803; Joyce 1907). 

164 This has not been corroborated. 


279

Figure 163. Two pieces of 

gether. 

Recovered from inside 

Structure 15. Actual size. 

Illustrator Erik van Driel. 

Finally, a Strombus sp. guaíza, with fully fleshed cheeks and nose, bared-teeth 

and wide round eyes was recovered (Fig. 165). 165 This had a smoothed but irregular 

underside and no holes for suspension, suggesting that it may have been 

mounted in something or simply carried. The guaíza was recovered two metres 

away from the largest trigonolith, both associated with natural depressions in the 

165 The stylistic similarities between the El Cabo guaíza and two adorno head lugs on a vessel 

of manatee bone in the Museo del Hombre Dominicano are striking (Bercht et al., eds. 1997: 

Pl.112). 


Figure 165. Shell guaíza. 

Actual size. Illustrator Erik 

van Driel. 

bedrock. A further guaíza was collected 100m to the south during the surface 

survey. This one was of cruder execution and was made of a brown quartz-like 

material. Mol (2007:130-131) observes that all finds of guaízas with contextual 

information in the Greater Antilles come from habitation areas. 

The items described above are mostly concentrated in areas with the highest 

densities of finds. The smaller items in particular, such as the beads and bodily 

adornments, were swept and accumulated in the same way as the ceramic and 

shell residue, and adhere to the contours of these accretions. This is also the case 

with the small inlays and micro-trigonoliths. 

Some of the larger items however, reveal a discrepant distribution. They were 

not recovered in the areas of densest deposits, but from the cleanest areas. This 

is the case with the two fragments of stone collar (350 and 275g) and a trigonolith 

(144g, base of 8.2cm, Fig. 162 and 163). The guaíza and the largest 

trigonolith (346g, Figs.162 and 165) were associated with natural hollows in 

the bedrock which may have acted as artefact traps, or may have been used to 

deliberately deposit the items. This will be discussed further in relation to the 

house structures. 

6.5.5 Tools 

The category “tools” in this dissertation is very broad, and includes formal tools, 

tool fragments, some with signs of recycling, informal artefacts interpreted as 

possible tools or modified forms which may be by-products or debris of manufacture 

or crafting. A broad definition is preferred and a detailed study would 

shed more light on specific functions and activities. 

The majority of artefacts discussed are made of stone and coral, including 

whole or fragments of green stone ground tools (mainly petaloid axes and adzes), 

coral and stone crushing or grinding implements, and a small number of bone 

and shell implements such as bivalves with visibly modified edges, and various 

points and modified shell and stone material (Strombus spp. discs, shell tincklers, 

half fabricated or unidentifiable conch fragments, flaked stone, etc.). 

Tool distribution follows that of the ceramic and shell deposits, interpreted 

as sweeping refuse from maintenance of the structures in the habitation area. 

These are usually small objects which would have been discarded and swept with 

the rest of the pottery and food remains. 

Another possibility is that the patterns represent the location of in situ crafting 

and production activities given that some tools and modified materials occur 

in areas of low artefact density or on the edges of the artefact spreads. In particular, 

the tools recovered from the “cleanest” area in the unit include a number 


281

0 5 10 

metres 

of almost complete green stone axe fragments. On the whole though, these artefacts 

are thought to occur outside structures and represent secondary disposal 

rather than primary deposition representing in situ tool use (Fig. 166). 

Figure 166. Distribution of 

shell, stone, coral and bone 

tools in the artefact layer. 

6.5.6 Colonial material 166 

The assemblage of European material from El Cabo is reasonably large when 

compared to that of other extensively researched indigenous sites in the Greater 

Antilles such as En Bas Saline, Haiti, and El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba (17 and ca. 

300 pieces, respectively, Deagan 2004; Valcárcel Rojas 1997; Roberto Valcárcel 

Rojas pers. comm. 2009). 

166 I am grateful to Dr Kathleen Deagan, Florida Museum of Natural History, for providing 

the initial identification from emails and photos of the European material recovered during 

excavation. 


0 5 10 

metres 


colonial material in the main 

unit, including olive jar (black 

squares); white glazed ceramics 

(white stars); glass beads 

(white dots); glass table ware 

(black star). 

The colonial material discussed here mainly comprises European glazed ceramics. 

These, together with several glass beads are securely indicative of early 

contact exchange. Other objects which may be related to the last phase of the 

indigenous village of El Cabo such as bone fragments suggesting the presence of 

European animals (mainly pigs) and other items of glass and metal have not been 

included in the distribution map (Fig. 167) because without specialist study 

their presence cannot be securely associated with indigenous activities in the 

contact and colonisation periods, but may belong to later, sub-recent periods. 167 

It should be noted, however, that the material not included is minimal. Two 

postholes which contained glass and metal in their fills are also discussed here. 

Olive jars are Spanish storage vessels, used as shipping containers and secondarily 

as construction material, which are common across the Spanish American 

colonies (Arduengo García 2008; Deagan 2002:30-34; Goggin 1960:8-11; 

167 Research is ongoing, including isotopic analysis to identify the possible local or exotic origin of 

the remains (Jason Laffoon, pers. comm.). Implications of the presence of imported European 

animals will be discussed later. 


283

Florida Museum of Natural History historical archaeology database). Olive jars 

have been recovered from early Spanish sites in Hispaniola such as Concepción 

de la Vega, Puerto Real and La Isabela (Deagan 2002a; Deagan and Cruxent 

2002a, 2002b), and from indigenous sites, including sites in the Higüey area 

such as Playa de Bávaro (Olsen 1978a) and Playa Sardinera, Isla de Mona (Dávila 

Dávila 2003). 

The olive jar from El Cabo is typical of the early style, handled variety (Fig. 

168). It dates between AD 1500 and 1550. Most pieces have a characteristic 

green lead glaze on the inside. Approximately 80 sherds were recovered from El 

Cabo, with most squares containing one sherd, and one square containing five 

sherds. These mostly comprised body sherds, but also a part of a handle and rim 

fragments. Sherds range from one to several centimetres in size, with old breaks, 

but show no discernible modification or wear on the edges. 

The second most commonly occurring colonial pottery type recovered in 

El Cabo is majolica with a white glaze, possibly Columbia Plain. Produced in 

Spain from AD 1490 to1650, it was used for both utilitarian and tableware. 

About twenty pieces of this type were recovered from El Cabo, again the majority 

rather small body and rim sherds (from a plate or bowl?), a few several centimetres 

across, and many showing hairline cracks in the shiny grey-white glaze. 

The breaks appear old with no significant modification or wear. 

Five glass beads or glass bead fragments were recovered: three glass beads of 

the Nueva Cadiz type, two complete, and one with a recent break (Fig. 169; 

bottom). Two pieces of a cobalt blue glass bead were also recovered which may 

belong to the same item. The complete Nueva Cadiz beads are approximately 

3cm long and an iridescent blue/green/white in colour. The blue bead fragments 

show faceting on the ends. All the beads have square cross sections and round 

holes. 

A hand blown piece of ornamental glass, seemingly a rim piece with raised 

vertical ribbing on the walls, possibly from a decanter, vial or liquid containing 

vessel, was also recovered (Fig. 169; top). The glass is an opaque iridescent pink 

colour and consistent with either Spanish or Venetian fine glassware from the 

early sixteenth century (Kathleen Deagan pers. comm. 2009). 

These diagnostic and identifiable items of early European material culture 

occur predominately in the main unit, the only exceptions being an olive jar 

sherd and a white glazed sherd in one of the 2×2m units (85-41) adjacent to the 

main unit, and two olive jar sherds 60m north of the main unit in one of the 

most northerly 2×2m units (85-27). Seeing as the northern part of the site is the 

most under-explored, the extent of this material to the north is unknown, but it 

is remarkable that nothing was recovered in the surveyed area to the south, and 

that the European imports have a very tightly circumscribed distribution in the 

unit. 

Figure 168. Rim and handle 

fragments of olive jar. Scale 

75%. Illustrator Erik van 

Driel. 


The majority of the material clusters in the northwest in Sectors 50 and 51. 

Interestingly, each type has a unique position within this distribution: the olive 

jar forms the core and is flanked by two small distributions of white-glazed 

sherds, one on the coastal side, and a more dispersed cluster to the west. The 

beads and the Venetian-style glass lip are dispersed to the east of the olive jar distribution. 

Although there is some overlap, it is remarkable that such detailed distinctions 

can be observed, perhaps representing discrete, though closely timed 

episodes of discard or maintenance. 

When overlain with other artefact distributions, the confined distribution of 

European material is clear, although it coincides with the dense accumulations 

of ceramic and other deposits in the north of the unit. However, the European 

material also extends slightly further north where other deposits dwindle. 


These data represent sweeping accumulations from the living area, with possible 

incidences of primary context finds. Most of the patterning in deposit density 

is the result of maintenance activities. The variety in material culture suggests 

that there was little to no differentiation in the activities occurring across the 

unit, i.e. the discard of ceramics, food remains, tools, modified items, and bodily 

adornments occurred in all excavated areas. 

The accumulations comprise small artefacts from a wide spectrum of material 

culture: griddles, ceramic containers, a variety of shell species, valuable and 

personal items, and also bone and coral objects (the distribution of which is not 

included in this discussion). The general shallowness of the deposits implies that 

this may not have been the main or final dumping area, but represents sweeping 

accumulations of domestic debris. Given the accretions seem to adhere to cer- 

Figure 169. Fragment of 

glassware (top) and two glass 

beads, type Nueva Cadiz (bottom). 

Actual size. Illustrator 

Erik van Driel. 


285

tain fixed contours, it appears that production and use or consumption and discard 

were occurring in the same, immediate area. Living activities created swept 

debris which accreted around individual or clusters of individual structures. 

It is proposed that the distributions are directly related to structures from the 

last phase of habitation. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the areas 

of lowest trampling and European material are to be found in the high density 

areas, indicating more precisely the location of the latest discard activities in the 

unit. Discrepancies in the general pattern of artefact distribution can be seen 

in the location of some items of paraphernalia such as stone collar parts, trigonoliths 

and possibly the guaíza, as well as one area of discrete accumulation of 

ceramics. In Section 6.5.7.2 these will be discussed in terms of their relation to 

particular structures. 

Lastly, if the domestic area was the primary disposal area, with regular removal 

of bulk refuse to other areas, where were these located? One possibility 

is that the material was used as compost for horticultural plots, in the house 

gardens of the yucayeque. This would have supplemented the poor karst soils, 

and potentially explains the almost unbroken thin carpet of ceramic and shell 

debris across the entire site (see Section 6.6). Another option is that the waste 

was simply tipped into the sea. Several kilograms, including over 30 fragments 

of polished green stone tools and about 50 sherds of pottery, were collected from 

the seabed by local fishermen immediately below the Cabo promontory. The dynamic 

coastline and rocky sea floor meant that ceramics especially were ground 

down and hard to spot, but the high number of tools collected in just a few, 

short dives is remarkable. The finds were concentrated along a stretch of about 

30m, starting parallel with the top of the unit (y axis =5540), and ending halfway 

down parallel to the unit (y axis = 5510). The divers reported that beyond 

this small stretch there was little material. Similarly, they did not venture more 

than ca. 10m out to sea. Whether this was because the morphology and depth 

of the seabed changes here is unclear, but in any case it gives the impression of 

a concentrated and dense band of finds in the sea directly below part of the domestic 

area. These finds are consummate with refuse dumping. 

6.5.7.1 Chronology of the deposits 

Further evidence on the temporality of the deposits comes from the structures 

themselves. The fact that deposits are related to activities in the latest phase of 

habitation is borne out by the unit phasing and distribution data together (Fig. 

170). The later phases of habitation (c, d and e) correlate with the cleaner areas 

to the west. The densest accumulations of deposits, especially in Phase d, collect 

around the exterior of the structures. Finer distinctions in the distribution can 

be seen in Phases c and d, where the long fence Structures (16 and 52) act as artefact 

traps so that clusters of deposits collect in parallel concentrations in front 

of them. This indicates that it is not only the very latest maintenance activities 

which can be distinguished, but also earlier episodes of discard, if they are seawards 

of subsequent habitation. Of course, not all the deposits in the unit are 

related to structures in the unit. For example, the dense accumulations of material 

in 85-40 are probably related to structures to the west, outside the unit. 

As mentioned in Section 6.1, Phases a and e are least secure in terms of placement 

in the chronological sequence of the unit. In particular, Phase e’s positioning 

at the end of the sequence of phases is based on artefact distribution rather 

than absolute dating. Phase a structures occupy areas of both light and heavy 

deposits, and whereas accumulations seem to adhere to the contours of especially 

Structures 11 and 13, possibly the latest structures in this phase, these patterns 


Figure 170. Structures per 

phase (a-e) shown together 

with ceramic weights distribution 

in four weight classes (see 

Fig. 156). Note that, where 

deposits are intact, earlier 

structures are associated with 

denser deposits, and later with 

thinner, indicating accumulations 

relate to maintenance 

activities in chronologically 

later phases. 

can also be related to later structures in this palimpsest location. For reasons discussed 

in Section 6.1, these structures belong to one phase, and it would seem 

reasonable based on their lack of relation to the deposits, to place them at the 

start of the sequence. 

The two house structures and fence from Phase e are a little more enigmatic. 

The Phase e structures occupy a low density artefact area, indicating that they are 

late. However, this sector has one of the highest feature densities, and also many 

unassigned features which complicate the picture. Unlike other structures, the 

Phase e houses are oriented with entrances to the northwest, so the backs of the 

houses are towards the south. Due to the constraints of the excavated area, the 

associated refuse deposits are not visible, although the cleanliness of the northwest 

corner and the density of remains in the extreme southwest corner of the 

unit also indicate this. Their temporal relationship with the young Phase d structures, 

associated with colonial material, is thus interesting. There is not enough 

hard evidence to propose that the Phase e houses were colonial period dwellings, 


287

and a far earlier position at the start of the sequence is equally plausible. The 

presentation of both sets of data (from the structures and artefact assemblage) 

warns against over-determination of either set on its own. 

The relationship between the artefact assemblage and the features can also 

shed light on the use of space in the past. A general observation can be made 

about continuity in this respect. The areas with the least deposits, i.e. the cleanest 

areas (84-29/39/49), are the areas with the highest feature density (3.3/m²), 

whereas the areas with most deposits (84-49/59, 85-50/60 and 85-51/61) have a 

comparatively lower feature density (1.4/m²). This suggests that there was stability 

in the areas used for building and the areas used for discarding refuse, even 

on a small scale. Despite overlap (of course there are some features under dense 

sweeping accumulations) these areas are sufficiently differentiated to be distinguishable. 

This observation is significant for interpretations of data at the site 

level later on (6.6.6). 

6.5.7.2 House Trajectories and their assemblages 

So far we have seen how the artefact distribution temporally relates to the latest 

phases of habitation in El Cabo. But the artefact assemblage also relates to 

the individual House Trajectories. Due to the renewal and continuity of House 

Trajectories in the same or nearby locations, it may be possible to assess the 

quality and character of these institutions and the nature and status of relations 

between different House Trajectories by looking at the artefact assemblage as it 

relates to the individual estate. 

Firstly a number of items of regalia such as cemí icons, trigonoliths, and stone 

collar parts are clearly associated with House Trajectories (Fig. 171). This is the 

case for the two fragments of a stone collar related to House Trajectory 5 and the 

guaíza and the largest trigonolith, sandwiched between fence Structure 49 and 

structures of House Trajectory 2. Smaller trigonoliths, portable valuables, are a 

frequent occurrence in the main unit. Pané reported that three-pointed stones 

in northern Hispaniola were believed to cause cassava to sprout (Pane 1999: Ch. 

xix). Whether all trigonoliths were related to vegetative propagation, and what 

other specific functions or significance such items had is not known. In all ten 

trigonoliths were recovered from the main unit, of which several are fragmented. 

All of these are spatially associated with house structures; either immediately 

inside their walls, or just outside. This may be due to the fact that many of 

them are small items swept to the edges of houses through acts of maintenance. 

However, several may be in primary, rather than secondary position. This has 

already been mentioned for the trigonolith associated with House Trajectory 2, 

but is also probably the case for a medium-sized trigonolith recovered adjacent 

to one of the internal roof supports behind the entrance of Structure 4, House 

Trajectory 4 (Fig. 172) and two small stone trigonoliths found flanking the entrance 

of Structure 2, just behind the front pair of internal roof supports. The 

architectural elaboration and frequent deposits of personal items into the postholes 

of the entrance of houses has already been mentioned, and therefore such 

items are unsurprising in this context. Most of the other Phase a structures of the 

same type (7, 11 and 13) are also spatially associated with trigonoliths outside 

their perimeter walls, although these are early structures in the sequence and the 

palimpsest situation makes it unwise to posit a firm correlation between Type 2 

houses and micro-trigonoliths. Although these items are certainly common in 

the domestic domain and in direct association with house structures. 


Two teeth inlays for cemí icons from the sweeping deposits cannot be related 

to particular houses, but they do indicate that either the manufacture, or/and 

curation and veneration of these valuables occurred in the domestic area, associated 

with houses. 

The majority of the abovementioned regalia and socially valuable items are 

interpreted as intentional deposits, and most likely abandonment deposits. This 

is because they do not follow the pattern of the other swept remains, and were 

either buried in particular locations, or were recovered in areas of minimal other 

remains (i.e. stone collar parts). The location of these items suggests that that 

houses were the locus of veneration, ritual or consultation practices, and that 

certain houses were more closely related to certain types of valuable than others. 

Whereas micro-trigonoliths are associated widely with House Trajectories 2, 

3 and 4, stone collar remains are limited to House Trajectory 5 (Fig. 171). The 

distribution of inlays for cemí icons is unclear in this respect as they are small, 

easily displaced, and not particularly common. Nevertheless, the shell guaíza has 

a strong association with House Trajectory 2, albeit outside the structure. 

Figure 171. House Trajectories 

overlain with human remains 

and native social valuables, 

including trigonoliths (triangles); 

parts of stone collars 

(black circles); and cemí and 

parts of cemí icons (white 

stars). 

 

 

0 

 

 

6 5 

5 

metres 

 

 

10 

 

 

4 

 

 

 

2 

 

 

3 

1 

 


289

Figure 172. Trigonolith found 

adjacent to internal posthole 

feature of Structure 4. Actual 

size. Illustrator Erik van 

Driel. 

6.5.7.3 Human remains 

Whether the three depositions of human remains (neonate in small pit, longbone 

in posthole and adult inhumation grave) in the unit are related to any of 

the house structures is unknown (Fig. 171). In the map some of the remains are 

associated with House Trajectory 6, although this picture is incomplete seeing as 

many other structures occupy the same location. As mentioned in the description 

of the individual structures these can be spatially related to the insides of 

six different houses, but not securely tied to any of them. Nevertheless, the absence 

of human remains in any of the other houses in the unit is conspicuous. 

Although other locations were presumably systematically used for the disposal of 

the dead (caves, cemetery area?), the presence of at least some remains indicates 

that in certain circumstances the domestic area was appropriate for deposition, 

but that this was not a regular occurrence for the any of the House Trajectories 

in this area of the yucayeque. Burials in the midden and on the edge of the excavated 

house area may suggest interment here, outside structures, although more 

research is needed to confirm this. Burial in houses was an exception rather than 

the rule. 

6.5.7.4 European imports 

House Trajectory 2 is closely associated with the majority of the colonial material 

(Fig. 173). The material clusters at the back of the latest house structures 

in this House Trajectory (Houses 21 and 38), with the squares containing the 

densest concentrations of olive jar falling outside the back wall of Structure 

38. The fence structure between House Trajectories 1 and 2 acts as a barrier for 

the material, anchoring it to House Trajectory 2. It is also the case that House 

Trajectory 2 is associated with two of the most elaborate artefacts recovered; the 

guaíza and largest trigonolith. It is difficult to say whether these artefacts were 

exclusively dominated by this House Trajectory alone seeing as surface deposits 

were eroded away in the north of the unit. However one of the structures of 

House Trajectory 1 had bottle glass in the posthole, and some features on the 

north side of the fence are also associated with pig remains. However, the co-occurrence 

of elaborate Chicoid paraphernalia and European imports with the last, 

and smallest house in this trajectory, Structure 38 (31m²) is suggestive. Given 

the fact that there is a general trend to a slight increase in size of houses throughout 

the development of a trajectory, it may not be coincidental that the smallest 

house coincides with the era of European colonisation, a time when indigenous 

society was under considerable stress and the communities of the eastern region 

were being broken up, and redistributed to gold rich areas. As late as 1514 for 

example, Moya Pons notes that communities were redistributed and moved to 


Figure 173. European imports 

and House Trajectory 2. The 

density of the colonial material 

is shown from light to dark, 

where black represents three to 

lines 

show House Trajectory 2 

structures. The fence structure 

between House Trajectories 1 

and 2 is also shown. 

0 

5 

metres 

10 

Higüey (1992). A stark picture is revealed in the 1514 census in which hardly 

any children were recorded among the remaining native population, and none at 

all in the two large Amerindian communities in Higüey. This illustrates the extremes 

of social and demographic collapse in the area. Structure 38, which is also 

the smallest of the dwelling structures of the 31 excavated in the site, may be the 

graphic indigenous reality behind the Spanish bureaucratic records. The guaíza 

and trigonolith may be interpreted as defiant statements of indigenous culture, 

or increased appeals to cemí resources for success in battle or protection. 

6.6 The yucayeque (survey results) 

It is suggested that the structures and artefact distributions in the main unit represent 

most of one house group. But is this the case, and how does this compare 

to the picture in the rest of the site? One can envisage several different scenarios: 

(1) a dispersed settlement pattern of multiple contemporaneous house groups, 


291

(2) a large nucleated settlement pattern of contiguous houses (the towns referred 

to by Las Casas), (3) one or more house groups making residential moves over 

time within the site, and (4) any of the above in combination with a central 

focus such as a plaza. Without sufficient chronological control or data on intrasite 

mobility, the third option could account for the same patterns as produced 

by the former two. Results from the surface survey gave particularly clear results 

which helped to resolve these questions. 

Ceramic and marine shell distributions are deemed to show most data integrity 

and be most clearly and directly representative of pre-Columbian activities. 

Bone, coral and stone are not further discussed here. The results are represented 

in distribution maps in which weight distributions of marine shell and ceramics 

are plotted together with weight distributions of the same material in the main 

unit. The distribution of griddle sherds is also plotted. The weights from the 

main unit have been divided by a factor of ten to account for the quantitative 

discrepancy between the excavated and the surface recovered material. This adjustment 

is a rough and ready solution based on the assumption that the volume 

of the excavated material is roughly forty times more than that of the surveyed 

material (bearing in mind layer 1 was on average 10-20cm thick and that the 

main unit was excavated in 1×1m squares, whereas the survey units are 2×2m). 

This seems a reasonable assumption, and the results are consistent (i.e. the percentage 

breakdowns similar between the two) and provide a basis for compari- 

Figure 174. Ceramic distribution 

across the southern part 

of the site. Ceramic weights 

from light to dark 1-50g, 51- 

200g, 201-1000g. 

0 

20 

metres 

40 


son. 168 Thus we get an impression of how representative the excavated area is of a 

large part of the late-phase community. To complete the picture, we ideally need 

to know the extent of the Chicoid occupation in the northern portion of the site, 

with posthole dates from the 13 th century. Indications suggest that it was not as 

extensive as in the south, and in any case this must be left for future research. It 

is assumed that the area surveyed represents most of the Chicoid habitation. 

Items of paraphernalia have also been plotted as although rare outside the 

main unit, they provide important qualitative data. Items of colonial material 

culture are conspicuously absent from the rest of the southern part of the site, at 

least on the surface, being limited to the main unit and to the north as discussed 

in Section 6.5.6. 169 

6.6.1 Ceramic distribution 

Four (including the main unit) irregularly shaped, but discrete concentrations of 

ceramics, 20-40m wide and 10-20m long, can be seen strung out in linear fashion 

along the edge of the cliff, roughly 10-20m apart (Fig. 174). Here ceramic 

density is greater than 200g. The densities decrease concentrically around these 

concentrations, with a smaller band of spotted concentrations occurring in a 

parallel line 80-90m inland and another large concentration occurring ca. 130m 

inland from the coast. Even in the areas of lowest density (1-50g), ceramics were 

present in all collection units. So we see a carpet of surface ceramic material 

with distinct and discrete concentrations occurring at regular intervals along the 

coast, and a further high density area on the north-western flank of the mound, 

the exact extents of which are not known due to the survey boundaries. 170 

6.6.2 Griddle distribution 

A somewhat more starkly accented picture, in keeping with the pattern from the 

ceramic distribution seen above, emerges from the distribution of a particular 

type of pottery, griddle fragments, across the site (Fig. 175). 171 In addition to 

the (unadjusted) amounts of griddle pieces excavated from the main unit, two 

surface concentrations of griddle pieces occur along the edge of the cliff, and 

two concentrations inland in the west and southwest. Again the precise configuration 

of the westerly concentration is unknown due to the survey boundary. 

These concentrations are 50-60m apart and occur together in the areas of highest 

(non-griddle) ceramic densities. 

The griddle concentrations on the mound were particularly conspicuous during 

survey as the bedrock was at the surface in many places. The sparse remains 

of any kind in this area, alternating with clear discrete concentrations of especially 

griddle pieces gave the impression of clearly defined activity or discard 

areas. 

168 The best method would have been to have carried out the surface survey at the beginning of the 

fieldwork, including the excavated area. Logistically this was not possible, however, and thus the 

rough adjustments are seen as appropriate. 

169 It should be noted that a few sherds of colonial ceramics were recovered from the surface immediately 

in the area of the main unit, which indicates that had they been present elsewhere, the 

surface collection would have registered them. 

170 Although still relatively dense in the west and south, surface artefact visibility drops off very 

sharply a little beyond these areas so that it can be stated with relative confidence that the survey 

extents are the site extents in the south. 

171 Griddle numbers rather than weights are used because the griddle was not separately weighed in 

all cases for the surface collected material. Griddle weights for the main unit alone are discussed 

in Section 6.5.2. 


293

0 20 

metres 

40 

6.6.3 Marine shell distribution 

The marine shell distribution is largely similar to that of the pottery, though 

slightly less neat (Fig. 176). Concentrations occur in the same locations along 

the edge of the cliff and in the far west. But whereas there is quite a clear distinction 

between the concentrations of ceramics which decrease in an inland direction, 

this is not so clear in the marine shell distribution which is distributed 

less discretely across the site. Nevertheless, the marine shell, like the ceramics, 

also forms a more or less unbroken carpet of deposits across the site, except in 

the southwest part of the survey area where sparse to no marine remains were 

recovered. 


the number of griddle sherds 

across the site. Numbers from 

light to dark: 1-3, 4-7, 8-22 

fragments. Note that the griddle 

numbers in the main unit 

have not been corrected with 

respect to the surface collected 

material. Solid line marks the 

extents of the surveyed area. 

6.6.4 Paraphernalia distribution 

Very few items of paraphernalia were recovered during the surface survey (Fig. 

177). Certain objects such as a coral micro-trigonolith, a piece of stone collar 

and a stone guaíza made of re-crystallized local brown limestone with incised 

face and tear motif were recovered, however, as well as some small beads and 

other bodily adornments, attesting to the thoroughness of the survey personnel. 

Most items of paraphernalia were recovered from excavated units, and the 

material from these units is also shown in the above figure. Interesting in this 

respect are two pieces of a sandstone cemí which fit together forming a phallus- 


0 20 

metres 

40 

Figure 176. Marine shell distribution 

across the southern 

part of the site. Weights from 

light to dark: 1-20g, 21-50g, 

51-1000g 

formed object, ca. 15cm long, 155g, with a tulip-shaped top with vertical incision 

and a face motif incised on the base end. This was excavated from 2×2m 

unit 84-17. 

In general, most items of paraphernalia occur along the coast, following the 

same trail of concentrations seen in the other categories of material culture. 

Of particular interest is a possible fourth piece of stone collar in the southernmost 

extents of the surveyed area. This needs to be studied further, but on brief 

inspection it appears to be a fragment stone collar made of a greenish, coarsegrained 

stone, and similar to those found in the main unit and in 85-41 to the 

north. There is a possibility that not just the two specimens from the main unit, 

but all four pieces are from the same artefact, although this needs corroboration 

through further research. 

6.6.5 Discussion of distributions 

Although the details of the distributions are slightly different, together they form 

a picture of discrete, but closely spaced focuses of discard with a range of material 

culture categories, occurring in five or six discrete concentrations across the 

site. These should be interpreted in the same way, as the sweeping accumulations 

of systematic maintenance in domestic areas. These areas have a mostly linear 

coastal distribution, but another major concentration of deposits can be seen inland 

to the west, with smaller concentrations in spaces in between. Seeing as the 


295

0 20 

metres 

40 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

survey ran the full extent of the site in the south, this is an accurate picture of 

the spatial dynamics of discard across the southern portion of the site (with the 

exception of the rather abrupt cut-off in an area of dense deposits in the west). 

The southernmost accumulation of deposits appears to be as large as or even 

larger than that in the main unit, although this assumes that the relative weighting 

of the excavated versus survey material is equivalent. Nevertheless, even if 

Figure 177. Distribution 

of bodily adornments and 

beads (white dots), stone collar 

fragments (black ovals), 

trigonoliths (triangles), and 

cemí artefacts (stars) from the 

surveyed area, 2×2m units and 

main unit. 


one cannot very precisely compare sizes, it is clear that the house clusters in the 

main unit are mirrored in similar clusters across the site, along the edge of the 

cliff, and ca. 100m inland. The presence of domestic pottery, food remains (marine 

shell), tools related with food preparation (griddles), and a range of bodily 

adornments, cemí items and regalia implies similar cultural and quotidian activities 

occurring across the site as in the main unit. 

It is reasonable to assume that each of these discrete clusters represents a 

house group 10 to 20m apart, as is the case in the main unit. Each house group 

is basically doing the same things – i.e. performing the same quotidian, political, 

ritual and economic functions, and on roughly the same scale. The horizontally 

extensive forms (see for the clearest example of this the three main clusters of ceramics 

along the coast of the survey area, Fig. 174) imply that house replacement 

dynamics operated in similar ways in other house clusters as it did in the main 

unit, i.e. that the habitation sequences followed long trajectories in more or less 

the same location, moving inland over time. This interpretation is strengthened 

by looking at the relationship between artefact distribution and features in the 

next section. 

In terms of timescales and which period the distributions represent; it can 

be noted that, as discussed in Section 6.5, discard contours are associated with 

the latest phase of the Chicoid habitation. This is also probably the case over the 

larger surveyed area, although it does not necessarily mean that these clusters 

were contemporaneous, although as is argued below, there are reasons to think 

that they were. 

6.6.6 Features and artefact distributions across the site 

In 6.6.5 it was argued that differential spacing of the features indicates multiple 

house groups across the late-phase site. This evidence is borne out by the 

similarly clustered patterning of the survey deposits. Looking at the relationship 

between presence and absence of features and artefact distribution together, can 

further elucidate the wider habitation configuration, i.e. whether the distributions 

from the survey are indeed correlated with domestic features in excavated 

units, and if so, how (Fig. 178). 

There is no information on the presence or absence of features from unexcavated 

areas, but the distribution of excavated units is extensive, and consequently 

provides a good sample. The presence of posthole features, indicated 

by the white squares in Figure 178, is associated with empty areas west of dense 

accumulations. In other words, postholes occur in areas of low surface artefact 

density, usually oriented inland with respect to the deposits. The circles on the 

contrary, indicate excavated units with no posthole features. In the survey area, 

the areas devoid of features (circles) are those either in the midst of dense deposits, 

or east of them. So neither unit in the far west of the site (74-36 and 42) has 

any features, despite being in areas, or on the edge of areas with dense deposits. 

That posthole features occur in areas of low artefact density, west of artefact 

concentrations, is a similar dynamic to that in the main unit, strengthening the 

interpretation of the surface deposits as sweeping remains related to domestic 

structures. Without wanting to over-determine the data, the spatial patterning 

of features and deposits may give an indication of the orientation of habitation, 

that even inland house groups were still oriented with entrances facing west. 

If this were true, one would expect to find posthole features in the area immediately 

to the west of this find concentration. This might also be the case for 

74-42. Placing a unit five or six metres to the west may also encounter posthole 

features. No features were identified in units in the extreme limits of the site. 


297

In summary then, artefact distribution and feature density, both in the main 

unit and across the southern part of the site, identify multiple discrete clusters 

of domestic structures, or house groups. 

6.7 The house within the yucayeque community setting 

The late El Cabo settlement was a largely coastally-oriented community arranged 

along the top of the cliff. Closely spaced house groups were oriented with their 

entrances facing away from the sea. Domestic debris was regularly swept from 

the fronts of houses and work areas, to the back of the structures, and likely into 

the sea. The clean areas in front of the houses would have been the daily congregation 

and work/recreation areas of households when people were in the settlement. 

Fence rows indicate that multiple house groups were contemporaneous 

and interrelated for the duration of centuries. This fence line does not stop at the 

boundary of the unit, but continues for an unknown length. Possibly it bracketed 

multiple house groups, all the way down the coast to the end of the settlement 

in the south. Even if this were not the case, indications that the various 

house groups were contemporaneous come from radiocarbon dates from the second 

artefact cluster/house group to the south of the main unit (2×2 unit 84-34, 

Fig. 38) in which two dates from superimposed layers dated to the 13 th and 14 th 

centuries (GrN-30532, GrN-30533, Section 4.2.8.3). This indicates longevity 

of occupation in this spot contemporaneous with the main unit. Moreover, the 

dispersal of four pieces of stone collar, potentially from the same artefact, in distinct 

house clusters the length of the late-phase site, hints that these at least may 

have been related to contemporaneous houses, perhaps broken up and dispersed 

at the same time, and related to an abandonment phase late in the community’s 

life. A linear thoroughfare links the house groups along the coast, and separates 

them from other house groups at a short distance to the other side. 

The presence of stone collar parts begs the question of whether there is a 

formal plaza in El Cabo like the nearby Atajadizo or Isla Mona sites. And if so 

where? Archaeologically we could not confirm the presence of any such feature. 

The clearing between the house groups arranged along the top of the cliff and 

those inland to the west is an area of roughly 50×50m which has relatively low 

density deposits. The finds of the collar parts flank the coastal side of this area, 

inviting comparisons with the eleven collar pieces found on the edges of the 

plaza in Atajadizo (Veloz Maggiolo 1976). However, this clearing has no regular 

shape and there is no indication of earth or stone embankments. It is more likely 

a pathway between the house groups on the coast, and those further inland. The 

deeper, sandier deposits in the northern part of the site, which may have been 

more easily levelled is a more suitable area for a plaza. The results from the geophysics 

will shed more light this. 

Plazas are comparatively rare in Hispaniola. There is an assumption in the 

literature that the presence of stone collar parts indicates the presence of a plaza. 

However, data from Puerto Rico, where there are far more plazas than in 

Hispaniola (roughly 3:1, Wilson 2007:123) show that this is not necessarily the 

case: three sites in the Maunabo Valley produced collar pieces but the valley has 

no documented plazas (Curet 1992b). Oliver (2009) suggests isolated farmsteads 

without plazas may have been production sites for collars used at larger ceremonial 

centres with plazas. Therefore collar parts are not substituting evidence for 

plazas, and in the case of El Cabo we should not necessarily expect to find one. 

This does not mean that there was no central gathering place in the yucayeque, 

just that this was either not demarcated, and has not yet been located. 


0 20 

metres 

40 


ceramic weights as seen in Fig. 

174 including the location of 

presence (squares) and absence 

(circles) of posthole features in 

the excavated units. 

Returning to the house groups in the settlement, it is noteworthy that the 

greater density of features to the west of sweeping accumulations in both the 

main unit and in the rest of the site to the south, as well as the east-west elongated 

shapes of these accumulations, suggest strong stability in occupation, namely 

that centuries-long renewal of houses and the development of the institutions 

known as House Trajectories was a settlement-wide phenomenon and the habi- 


299

tation pattern in the Chicoid phase of community life. In other words, long 

trajectories of house-building on the same spot occurred in all the house groups 

across the site, in a comparable way to the main unit. Of course there was also 

habitation in the north of the site in the 12 th century, and possibly even in the far 

north at a later date as evidenced by the colonial ceramics, but again only further 

research will clarify the extent of this. 

From the available archaeological data, it appears that all house groups were 

of comparable size and carrying out the same functions, both in terms of household 

production and consumption, and in terms of access to regalia (i.e. the 

stone collar). As we have seen from the main unit, there were close ties between 

contemporary houses within a group and such groups may have shared access 

to ritual resources such as stone collars. It may be proposed that house groups 

functioned as households. It is unclear the extent to which individual houses 

functioned as economic units within house groups. From sweeping accumulations 

relating to the last phase of settlement, it appears that all houses in a group 

and across groups were actively engaged in domestic activities of production and 

consumption. However, only detailed qualitative analysis, rather than spatial 

analysis alone will shed more light on this. The household itself was divided into 

individual houses with distinct physical and metaphysical boundaries. These social 

units were made up of people who considered themselves kin and who could 

trace the historical trajectory of their particular house and ancestors, and therefore 

ancestral kin. These houses were custodians of iconic valuables such as other 

types of cemí items (namely perishable cemís with shell inlays, trigonoliths and 

guaízas). It is likely that a certain house within the group was considered prior 

or the original house to which others were related. 

6.8 House and community demography and kinship 

Although in general complexity of archaeological data is not suitable to estimate 

something as synchronic as population numbers, this is a necessary part 

of house and settlement reconstruction. This is, firstly, because the ultimate goal 

of household archaeology is people, rather than house and site size. Thinking 

in terms of people implies envisaging a social group and the particular social 

configurations which peopled the archaeological entities. If a house has been 

excavated, it is important to know how many people lived there, and who they 

were, hence the focus on kinship as an alternative way to do this. At a larger 

scale, discussions of regional population dynamics, colonization, migration and 

other themes beloved of Caribbean archaeologists rely on accurate models and 

formulas for population estimates at the smaller scale. Estimates at household 

and site levels will always be more accurate than those made at the regional or 

population level. However, to date there are few sites with archaeological data of 

sufficient quality to make such projections. This is a problem because population 

density at contact is a controversial topic with scholars downplaying the more 

or less unanimous 16 th century observation that the population of Hispaniola 

alone was in excess of a million at contact (Anderson-Cordova 1990:141-156 

and Tables 4 and 5). Estimates range from tens of thousands to tens of millions, 

with archaeology contributing little to these discussions, although I suspect the 

higher numbers are more accurate. 172 There is, however, consensus on the rapid 

172 Judging from the surveys carried out in the eastern region by the Museo (see Olsen in Boletín) 

and from personal observation of the evidence for Ceramic Age activity in caves, on beaches, 

inland and the foot of the cliffs, from the Cabo de San Rafael to Punta Macao and probably 

beyond, the landscape seems to have been pretty full pre-1492. 


eduction of the population to about 25,000 by 1515, with a large part of the 

population made up of those displaced from elsewhere from the Caribbean and 

mainland, and 2000 by 1529 (Anderson-Cordova 1990). 

6.8.1 House and site population estimates 

Curet’s (1998) recommended formulas for estimating house and site population 

numbers for the South American lowlands and Caribbean are used to generate 

estimates for the El Cabo data. His approach is based on a number of assumptions, 

the most important being that Tropical Lowland cultures are the best 

available analogies to the pre-Columbian Caribbean. This was also the approach 

of Schinkel (1992) who worked out estimates for Golden Rock on the basis of 

ethnographic analogy. Curet’s calculations are not far off Schinkel’s higher estimate 

of 6m² per person for the Golden Rock houses. Indeed, especially in the 

case of small houses, the difference in people numbers generated by the many 

different formulas, some more or less rule of thumb, are small (one or two people), 

which begs the question what actual real difference this makes in terms of 

the implied household composition. Nevertheless, Curet’s formula is preferred 

because of his critical discussion of the available models and use of ethnographic 

analogies. 

To estimate the number of people per domestic structure, Curet recommends 

using a formula obtained from a linear regression analysis based on an ethnographic 

data set of nuclear and multi-family dwellings (1998:Fig.1): 

Number of occupants = 0.50636 + floor area (0.16949). 

Although there is a linear relationship between floor size and numbers of inhabitants, 

this correlation is strongest in large houses, or those with many inhabitants. 

Households with ten individuals or fewer, or dwellings less than 100m² 

(which he terms nuclear family houses, as opposed to communal or multi-family 

dwellings) show a high degree of variability in population numbers. This is 

because changes in population numbers of small households will not necessarily 

affect the size of the house, but will necessarily strongly effect the floor area per 

person (i.e. the addition of a second person in a house halves the available floor 

space, but probably won’t necessitate the building of a larger house; ibid.:367). 

An additional cultural reason, not discussed by Curet, is that dwellings for 

smaller social entities (household compositions which may or may not be the 

“nuclear families” cited by most scholars) may be more idiosyncratic, governed 

more by the status of the inhabitant group, and less by the general principle that 

variation is governed by population size. In native Amazonia, for example, house 

variation can exist within a single group depending on household resources, 

ability to muster communal labour and individual preferences. Younger people 

build more modestly, whereas established shamans build more prestigious, 

larger structures (P. Oliver 1997: 1621). The inclusion of a more stable data set, 

i.e. the larger multi-family houses, thus produces a more workable formula, but 

runs the risk of effacing this variability. This is problematic for a Late Ceramic 

Age Caribbean data set, which consists mainly of floor plans belonging to the 

smaller category. This is the case for all the post-Saladoid house plans used by 

Curet, except Maisabel (1998: Table 3), and also for practically the whole of the 

Caribbean archaeological house plan repertoire, as well as for the size range of 

historical houses reported by Las Casas (Curet 1992a:162; Las Casas 1992). The 

same goes for El Cabo where all except two house structures are less than 100m² 

in floor area. 


301

Similarly, at the site level, the relationship between site size and population 

is not equally stable for sites of all sizes. This leads Curet to make a distinction 

between small sites (≤9000m²) and large sites (>9000m²). El Cabo, at 22,000m² 

for the late-phase settlement, falls into the larger, more stable category, so we do 

not have a similar complicating factor as for houses. Site population estimates 

are based on data from horticultural groups (Tropical Forest cultures) with permanent, 

nucleated habitation. The formula used is the logarithmic formula for 

larger sites (ibid.: Fig.9): 

Settlement population = -2579.2 + 671.58*LOG(area in m²). 

6.8.2 El Cabo house and community estimates 

The average number of inhabitants per house structure in El Cabo (based on 

the mean of the 24 house structures, excluding the small Type 1 cemí houses) is 

9.6 inhabitants (Table 5). This ranges between 5.8 people for the smallest house 

and 17.5 for the largest. If one makes this calculation only for the most reliable 

houses (confidence classes 1 or 2), the mean number per house is practically the 

same at 9.2 inhabitants, whereas the range is tighter so that the least populated 

house has 6.1 inhabitants and the most has 14.4. 

As discussed, multiple houses were inhabited contemporaneously. It is assumed 

that the excavated area of the main unit represents most of one entire 

domestic group. This group consists of a minimum of three contemporaneous 

house structures (as bracketed by the long north-south fence rows). It is likely 

that there may have been more, possibly up to five contemporaneous, neighbouring 

houses per group in the latest phases of habitation. Taking a middle 

estimate of four houses per group, with an average population of 9.2 people per 

house, this means that there may have been approximately 37 people per house 

group. 

Given the five more or less equivalently sized house groups in the late-phase 

site, and additionally several smaller groups and possibly at least one additional 

group to the north (12 th century postholes in the 2×4 unit), we can say that there 

were seven house groups of four houses. We have made a case for these being 

contemporaneous with each other throughout centuries duration. This gives an 

estimate of a stable population throughout Phases c and d of 258 inhabitants. 

The estimate for settlement population is based on the cumulative estimates 

per house, per house group, and finally per number of house groups in the settlement. 

In the course of the argument, the suppositions necessarily mount up. 

This can be justified by judicious use of the archaeological evidence (i.e. the 

interrelatedness of the detailed information per structure and household group 

from the main unit, with information on the dimensions, location and dynamics 

of house groups across the late settlement from the small units and surface collection), 

and comparison with alternative ways of calculating site population. 

One such alternative way is using Curet’s formula for estimating site population 

as stated above. For El Cabo, based on an area of 22,000m² as a best approximation 

of the Chicoid phase village, the population is 337 people. 

When compared to the population calculated on the basis of population per 

house, we see that this figure is higher by 79. However, both figures are of the 

same order of magnitude, i.e. there is no huge discrepancy between the figures 

whereby one set of calculations produces a dispersed hamlet of a few individuals, 

and the other a densely nucleated city! The house estimate is probably better, 

because this takes into account the specifics of the site. The settlement estimate 

fills these gaps by relying on the appropriateness of the ethnographic model. Of 

course the inhabitants per house estimate is also based on ethnographic projec- 


Structure no. Area Confidence 

class 

Type 

No. inhabitants 

15 19 2 1 (not house) 3.7 

43 24 4 1 (not house) 4.6 

38 31 3 1 5.8 

20 33 2 1 6.1 

1 36 1 1 6.6 

3 37 1 1 6.8 

7 40 1 2 7.3 

2 43 1 2 7.8 

24 43 2 1 7.8 

29 45 2 1 8.1 

9 48 1 2 8.6 

23 48 2 1 8.6 

13 48 2 2 8.6 

21 49 2 1 8.8 

11 50 1 2 9 

34 50 2 1 9 

5 51 3 2 9.2 

48 53 2 1 9.5 

14 54 2 1 9.7 

42 54 3 1 9.7 

30 60 2 1 10.7 

27 72 3 4 12.7 

Table 5. Population estimates 

per house structure based on 

Curet’s (1998) recommended 

formula. 

6 77 1 3 13.6 

4 81 1 1 14.2 

22 82 2 4 14.4 

40 100 3 2 17.5 

tion. Nevertheless, the figures represent the closest reasonable indication of a 

real population in the late phase. We can be less sure of this figure for the earlier 

Phase a community, where houses replace each other through time, but with no 

indication of whether they also grouped together as is the case in subsequent 

phases. 

In summary then, house structures domiciled between 6.2 and 14.4 inhabitants. 

Thirty to forty men, women and children, the household, lived in 

house groups of three to five houses each, mostly aligned along the edge of the 

coast, but with a couple of house groups located more inland. In total, the latephase 

community witnessed a constant 250 to 350 people over several centuries 

habitation. 

6.8.3 Social composition of houses 

Overing and Passes describe the domestic domain as “the hot and affective space 

of personal family relationships centred around the everyday care and responsibility 

of children” (2000:3). It is in this “hot and affective space” that kinship 

is created. But what was household composition? Did it consist of kin (real or 

fictive), and if so, who were considered kin? How might one characterize the relationships 

between people in the same house group? And what was the relationship 

between different house groups in the community? What did houses do? 

How did they constitute society? 


303

There is no significant burial population in El Cabo to access the demographic 

characteristics of the community. The human remains excavated from the 

site are extremely few and need to be studied in detail. Of the four inhumation 

graves excavated, one is the burial of a neonate, another one of a young adult 

female, and the other two adult inhumations. Lack of direct dating and almost 

complete absence of grave goods means the remains cannot be securely related to 

the late phase, although from their contexts it is presumed all post-date the 10 th 

century. As mentioned before, excavation of over 50 structures indicates that 

burial under house floors was not a systematic practice, and although all burials 

are associated with postholes, they cannot be firmly associated with any structure 

in particular. This only tells us that in the Chicoid community it was relatively 

unusual that mortuary rituals ended in deposition in the habitation area, but 

that when this was the case, individuals of different ages and sexes qualified for 

such treatment. The presence of individuals of different ages and sexes, as well 

as a full range of domestic and ceremonial material culture and permanent habitation 

over the course of centuries, points to the fact that there was a full and 

complete living settlement population. 

That Late Ceramic Age households consisted of small extended families seems 

a reasonable assumption based on historic sources (Curet 1992a). It is clear that 

the Spaniards interpreted the inhabitants of houses as related families, but what 

kind of family relationships these were and how they manifested themselves 

in terms of residence, succession and descent perplexed the early chroniclers 

just as much as it has vexed scholars ever since (Curet 1992a:162, 2002, 2005; 

Curet 2006 contra Keegan 2006; Helms 1980; Keegan 2006 contra Curet 2002; 

Keegan and Machlachlan 1989; Lovén 1935; Rouse 1948/1992; Veloz Maggiolo 

1993). 

In El Cabo it has been shown that individual houses articulated into larger 

house groups, or households. Intimate social relationships, such as those engendered 

by membership of the same house group were probably expressed through 

the language of kinship. The recovery of the precise terms and typological configurations 

is beyond the grasp of archaeologists. Of greater interest and infinitely 

recoverable is what these kinship groups did as closely bonded affinitive 

groups of mixed age and sex. As has been discussed by many before (Belaunde 

2000; Helms 2007; Joyce and Gillespie eds. 2000), kinship is not given, it is 

created, and it is the process and dynamics of its creation which is of anthropological 

interest. Kinship is created by living well together, and it is this process 

which is important to describe and understand, and this process which can be 

described with recourse to the archaeological evidence. 

6.8.4 The dimensions and manifestations of kinship in El Cabo 

This chapter was entitled “the house that Higuanamá inherited”, which refers 

to the fact that long-lived houses were the physical manifestations of the longlived 

lineages which inhabited, renewed and perpetuated them. The social identity 

of inhabitants was linked to the membership and inheritance of a certain 

house. Membership of an enduring and successful house probably conferred 

social status and legitimacy, a status recognised in heads of houses (caciques) by 

the Spanish in historical times. 

Individual houses were composed of around nine men, women and children, 

probably both kin and affines, who referred to each other by kin names. Certain 

house members, and here for narrative’s sake, the matriarch and her daughters, 

could trace their ancestors back through the House Trajectory which was a de- 


fining aspect of their and their house identity. The origins and history of the 

centuries-enduing house would have been insider knowledge passed on by the 

residents of the house, especially and more formally at times of house renewal. 

On the next level, one also belonged to a larger group, in which individual 

houses formed households of up to three to five similar houses whose members 

were closely related, probably sharing the same cemí house and performing work 

and craft tasks within the house group. Thus the 30 to 40 people co-residing 

within a house group probably considered itself the larger “family” and household 

group. Several other house groups from which they were spatially separated 

in the settlement probably housed more distantly related affines who were nevertheless 

members of the same yucayeque community. We know from the chronology 

of the excavated domestic area, in which the number of houses increased 

from phase to phase, that the reproduction of these kin groups was successful 

and developed over time, up to the contact period. 

There are thus three levels of settlement membership: your own house, the 

house group, and the yucayeque. The limits of this study end here, but additional 

levels of membership probably extended to local communities along the coast 

and inland in a local settlement network. How this may also have extended 

across the Mona Passage and further within Hispaniola must be a subject of future 

study (already discussed with respect to elite culture, Oliver 2009). 


This chapter attempted to breathe life into the reconstructions presented in 

Chapter 5 by presenting the structures in the main unit in chronological succession, 

both in terms of their synchronic relationships with each other per phase, 

and through their development through time. Five phases were identified spanning 

the 9 th to 16 th centuries. One of the most remarkable and recurrent patterns 

which emerged over seven centuries of habitation was the repeated renewal of 

house structures forming long-lived House Trajectories. These House Trajectories 

were propagated by their inhabitants through cycles of renewal, common to all 

house structures, in which closing rituals, abandonment and rebuilding were 

probably coordinated events. The house was an important vehicle of socialisation 

as can be seen in the attention to detail of its aesthetics and the link between 

it and the bodies of its members. One of the primary sources of an individual’s 

dentity and status was the house and historical House Trajectory. 

The structures in the main unit form the majority of one house group, equivalent 

to a household. This household was one component of the whole Chicoid 

settlement which consisted of five to seven more or less equal and contemporaneous 

house groups. These neighbouring house groups formed the late phase 

community, or yucayeque, which, smaller in its beginnings, grew, developed and 

persisted for centuries up to the first decades after European contact. 


305

Chapter 7 

House Trajectories, the constitution 

of culture, and social complexity in 

Higüey 

7.1 Summary of results 

The preceding chapters presented results of dissertation research from the Late 

Ceramic Age settlement site of El Cabo, in the Higüey region, on the east coast 

of the Dominican Republic. The focus of the fieldwork and research questions 

was the documentation and interpretation of features from the habitation area of 

the late-phase (post AD 800) site, with the aim of reconstructing domestic structures. 

This was to gain an archaeological perspective on the indigenous house 

and household dynamics. 

Of the 2100 features excavated in 1030m² in the main unit, 99% are postholes 

made for sinking wooden posts into. This interpretation was made mainly 

on the basis of their incorporation as structural elements within buildings or 

other constructions. The majority of postholes are extremely regular in execution 

and spatial patterning, and their preservation is excellent, allowing the identification 

of tool marks and the reconstruction of over fifty domestic structures. 

These structures fall into eight main types: four house types, two types of 

special-activity structure - one a covered shelter, the other canopied with open 

walls -, a type which includes all post alignments, including windbreaks around 

structures, long fences running along the edge of the cliff, alignments demarcating 

or separating houses, rows of inclined posts, perhaps acting as screens, or 

brief alignments perhaps representing racks, stands, hanging poles, or other domestic 

tools. Other alignments were more enigmatic and evaded interpretation. 

Finally, a unique small structure is interpreted as a communication platform or 

lighthouse due to its position on the edge of the cliff. In all over 70% of features 

documented in the main unit were incorporated into reconstructions. 

Methodologically this study shows the potential for household archaeology 

where horizontally extensive excavation with the explicit aim of recovering settlement 

features and time-investment in post-excavation analysis is possible. The 

site taphonomy of El Cabo was suited to reconstruct settlement features, but by 

no means unique in the Antilles where many other sites, especially in karst areas, 

display these properties. 

The majority of structures, 31 out of 52, are interpreted as houses. Twenty 

six of these could be assigned a type from1 to 4, and the other five were too 

partial, or had confidence ratings which were too low to assign a type. House 

structures are the focus of the dissertation as these are interpreted as significant 

and primary indigenous material and social units. Houses are consistently more 

elaborate and regular than other structures. They all share common features, 

are generally larger than other structures, have roofs and continuous, probably 

closed walls, a regular orientation, great internal symmetry and monumentalized 

House Trajectories 

307

entrance façades. Houses are the locations of commemorative acts and closing 

rituals and have specific lifecycles of renewal not seen in other structures. As architectural 

units, houses share the same principles of construction. They all are 

circular buildings with an outer ring of closely-set (mean 67cm), slim postholes, 

12 to 14cm in diameter, and 15 to 20cm deep. Roof supports form an inner 

ring, 173 on average 85cm away from the external wall, which consisted of eight 

large posts. These posts formed pairs aligned along a front-back axis, and two 

pairs perpendicular to this. There is no centre post in any of the houses. This 

lack of a concentric layout is something which is underscored by other aspects of 

the architecture, namely the fact that houses were high at the front, and low at 

the back, which all suggest that the inhabitants would not have experienced any 

kind of “centre”, despite the circular plan. Houses are oriented in a dominant 

westerly direction, with slight orientation changes between phases. 

Houses are very regular buildings in which the balance and proportions of 

the structure was clearly ascribed a meaning. Multiple levels of symmetry are apparent 

in house architecture; such as the way in which the posthole proportions 

move as a wave decreasing in size from the front to the back of the house, and 

the alignment of internal roof-supports on larger postholes within the perimeter 

circle. The care taken in the proportions and spacing of the foundations should 

be seen as a reflection of the real timber architecture, but also as evidence that 

the preparation of the foundation and construction of the house itself was a significant 

act. 

The house posts of the façade would have been imposing, perhaps decorated, 

and formed a house front which ran up to one third of the way along the exterior 

of the house. The best place to work, sheltered from the sea wind, was in the lee 

of the façade, facing into the yucayeque. Despite its size, the façade probably contained 

a small doorway through which only one person at a time could pass, and 

perhaps whilst bowing one’s head. Wall posts, like the entrance, were closely-set 

posts about 10cm thick, and between them thin canes tied together with vines 

to close the walls and to protect against the wind. There was space enough between 

the house wall and the eight large posts supporting the tie-beams to walk 

between the wall and the internal roof-support ring. As one went towards the 

back of the house, towards the pair of internal posts in front of the back wall, 

the roof got lower (and the house darker). 

Houses are interpreted as the principal living structures and focus of domestic 

life, through which inhabitants claimed membership of a social group and 

historical past which was one of their first sources of “us” identity. Activities 

such as eating, sleeping, cemí veneration, raising children, and the organization 

and performance of work tasks were carried out in and around the house and 

especially probably outside the front wall of the house, in the shelter created by 

the façade. The house was the locus of insider conviviality and identity, and on 

a daily basis the main material vehicle for the transmission and reproduction 

of cultural, social and moral values through the order and equilibrium inherent 

in house aesthetics, the symbolic equivalence between house and the bodies 

of its inhabitants, and house-related practices, such as deposition. Each house 

embodied the ideals and aesthetics of proper sociable living in the details of its 

architecture and lifecycle. 

House structures were inhabited by a social unit of between 6 to 14 inhabitants. 

It was through membership of this institution that inhabitants derived, 

transmitted and transformed identity and cultural and social values. One of the 

173 With the exception of house Type 3 in which roof-supports are incorporated into the outside 

wall (Section 5.4.3). 


primary ways an individual’s social status was negotiated was probably through 

membership of a house, which conferred core moral, ancestral and historical 

identity. From the archaeological remains associated with the house structures, it 

is likely that inhabitants participated in a range of house-centred activities within 

or in the outside-space of houses. This included the preparation, consumption 

and storage of food and beverages - witnessed by food and pottery remains -, 

the performance of productive and craft activities - witnessed by tool remains-, 

and the accommodation and veneration of house valuables such as cemí icons 

and trigonoliths - witnessed by the presence of such paraphernalia outside normal 

refuse distributions and related to houses. The lack of additional features 

inside the house, other than roof-supports, indicates that houses had no fixed 

structures or divisions inside. Moreover, there is a conspicuous absence of fires, 

hearths and cooking features, although whether this is related to archaeological 

visibility or past practices is unknown. Such features are common at other sites 

in the Greater Antilles, either in houses, or in separate kitchen structures. There 

is also a general absence of burial and human remains associated with the houses, 

one can state that it was not common practice to permanently dispose of the 

dead in houses (although they may have been curated in non-archaeologically 

recoverable ways, i.e. suspended in baskets from the house beams). 

The repeated re-building of house structures results in the diachronic development 

of a phenomenon termed the “House Trajectory”. There are six House 

Trajectories in the main unit, formed of closely spaced or overlapping house 

plans. House Trajectories find expression through long-term cycles of house renewal 

in which individual structures are stages in longer sequences of rebuilding. 

Individual structures lasted multiple generations, however, at a cyclically coordinated 

point the decision was taken to abandon them, not because they were 

in a state of disrepair, but because of a moral and cultural imperative. Posts were 

removed from the old house, items belonging to former inhabitants symbolising 

personal and household identities were deposited into cardinal postholes, 

and new foundations dug. This was repeated up to five times for some of the 

longer House Trajectories which lasted up to and perhaps longer than 500 years. 

House Trajectories show deliberate concern with perpetuating the house beyond 

the lifetimes of its inhabitants or households. This is seen by successive generations 

of rebuilding resulting in the development of a long-lived institution. 

Houses appear to have been very stable institutions, which promoted their own 

reproduction in the same, repeated mould whilst at the same time encouraging 

the growth and development of the estate through the appearance of younger, 

related House Trajectories and additional structures, swelling the settlement 

through time. It should be made explicit that individual house structures are 

just one “particular cultural fragment” (Robin 2002) of the House Trajectory. It 

is assumed that ancestral, burial and bathing places, conucos, caves, cenotas and 

other areas “outside the house” which were intrinsic components of the material 

and immaterial cultural landscape may also have been included in the transgenerational 

estate, although governed by different rules of membership or succession. 

It is potentially a serious weakness to fetishize the architectural remains 

at the expense of the rest of the elements which make up the House Trajectory. 

Nevertheless, of all the elements of the domestic political landscape it is assumed 

that the house was probably the main focus of social life and long term social 

reproduction. 

Houses were arranged in clusters of three to five neighbouring houses forming 

a “house group”. House groups are the equivalent of households consisting 

of between 30 to 40 individuals sharing intimate, probably familial bonds. 


309

It is not known to what extent the household was an economic unit, however 

the presence of the long-lived storeroom associated with regalia indicates 

the house group may have functioned as a ritual unit. It is assumed that the 

structures excavated in the main unit form the majority of one house group. 

Contemporaneousness of houses in a house group is indicated by fences and post 

alignments around and between proximate houses, and the spatial relationships 

houses had with each other. It is also indicated by the parallel development of 

House Trajectories suggesting that cycles of abandonment and renewal were coordinated. 

Approximately five, more or less equally-sized house groups, spatially 

separated from each other are seen across the site. This is posited on evidence 

from the surface survey which indicate at least four artefact concentrations in 

the southern part of the site in addition to that in the main unit. These concentrations 

are similar in size to each other and are interpreted as sweeping remains 

like those excavated in the main unit. Moreover, the location of presence and absence 

of features from the small unit excavations show a correspondence between 

sweeping remains and postholes across the site, the dynamics of which correspond 

with what is seen in the main unit (namely sweeping remains accumulate 

on the coastal side of areas of posthole features). This is interpreted as evidence 

for a settlement which consisted of multiple house groups. 

Given the similarity of the archaeological patterns between the main unit and 

the surveyed area and small excavated units, the house groups across the site are 

assumed to be of equal longevity with that of the main unit. Namely, habitation 

across the site is estimated from ca. AD 850 until after European contact and 

colonisation. House groups are assumed to be contemporaneous and neighbouring, 

rather than representing non-contemporaneous residential moves through 

time. In other words, the whole settlement or yucayeque is considered to have 

been made up of at least five (and possibly seven) equally-sized neighbouring 

house groups (with other smaller additional groups) which together formed a 

stable community for up to 700 years (AD 850 to ca. 1504). This is calculated 

to mean a community population of between 250 to 350 people at its height. 

In the 9 th and 10 th centuries the population may have been smaller, with the 

demographic peak from the 11 th and 12 th centuries. Arguments for the contemporaneity 

of house groups are again based on a number of lines of evidence. 

Firstly, contemporaneous radiocarbon dates from two house groups, secondly 

the unbroken sequences of renewal in the main unit some of which endure for 

up to 500 years which indicates residential mobility was not a common practice. 

Thirdly, material culture in the southern part of the site is largely Chicoid and 

more tentatively, pieces of the same stone collar were recovered from one of the 

other house groups to the south, indicating not only contemporaneity, but also 

the details of a shared history. 

One way in which houses may have differentiated themselves from each other 

both within the house group and across the yucayeque is on the basis of longevity 

of their respective trajectories. Longevity and status can be argued to be 

universally linked (Helms 1998; and with respect to architecture Pauketat and 

Alt 2005). Perpetuating the house estate was a clear concern of inhabitants of 

El Cabo. This suggests that the houses in Trajectories 1 and 2 in particular, may 

have been of higher status than others in the main unit, which were younger 

and of shorter duration. What this meant in real terms is difficult to say, for 

although their origins may have been asserted as prior, and used as a vehicle 

for the legitimation of one’s own lineage (following a logic presented in Curet 

and Oliver 1998), there is no straightforward evidence that this occurred in El 

Cabo. For example, there are no discernible differences between houses in pat- 


terns of production, consumption and discard in the latest-phase deposits. This 

is also the case more widely, across the yucayeque, in which the different house 

groups appear to have been engaged in the same activities with no difference 

between them. Only more detailed analysis of, for example, faunal remains or 

raw materials may indicate whether there were qualitative differences in access 

to certain foodstuffs and products between houses or house groups. Moreover, 

in terms of those artefacts considered high-status, indigenous vectors of status 

are not yet clearly understood due to the fact that the archaeological context 

of those artefacts are generally not known (although this is changing, see Mol 

2007; Oliver 2009). Artefacts which are considered ritually potent and therefore 

socially valuable are associated with houses in El Cabo, although whether and 

how this conferred status is open to multiple interpretations. In terms of specific 

valuables (guaíza and large trignolith), and exotic items such as the European 

imports, it is clear that certain houses, such as those in House Trajectory 2, may 

have had more access than others. Cemí icons, trigionoliths and guaízas are related 

to particular houses or House Trajectories and part of the confection of the 

house, whereas stone collars are related to other structures, interpreted as cemí 

houses (or regalia storerooms), within house groups. Moreover, stone collar parts 

were recovered from multiple house groups, suggesting that no one group had a 

monopoly over these resources. Therefore although houses have all the ingredients 

to potentially act as agents to promote difference, the circumstances under 

which this might have been the case are not clear, although could be explored by 

investigation of neighbouring house groups, or of how houses functioned in the 

earlier, Ostionoid phase at El Cabo, or other sites. 

The demise of these native institutions in El Cabo occured within about 20 

years of colonisation in Hispaniola. Material evidence for the reception and 

rejection of European culture is seen in the presence of imports relating to the 

first voyages of exploration, the subsequent incorporation of these exotic items 

into the lifecycle of houses, and the rejection of later imports despite the fact 

the yucayeque was inhabited through subsequent phases of exploitation and 

colonisation. Future analysis of how pig remains relate to the indigenous settlement 

may provide further evidence of selective incorporation of imported 

elements. Higüey was one of the last regions to be directly effected by colonisation. 

However, indications that the stress and impact of colonisation eventually 

affected the community, leading to the dwindling of its population may be seen 

in the fact that against the general trend of growth seen in the house groups, 

one of the last house structures in the settlement, associated most closely with 

European material, is also the smallest. 

7.2 Implications of a house perspective for Late Ceramic Age 

culture and social complexity 

What are the implications of these results and interpretations more widely for 

an understanding of the Late Ceramic Age of the Greater Antilles? One of the 

most significant implications has been to show how the house is an instrument 

for cultural transmission and social reproduction. The existence of the House 

Trajectory in El Cabo, not just in one instance, but as a general, communitywide 

domestic norm, can provide a model for the social processes and domestic 

politics by which stratification could potentially emerge. By the time of contact, 

many Greater Antillean societies, especially in Hispaniola, were organised in 

stratified societies where the position of leadership was institutionalized and inherited 

(Curet 2005; Curet and Stringer eds. 2010; Rouse 1992; Veloz Maggiolo 


311

1993; Wilson 2007). How this came about has been discussed with reference to 

symbols of power such as cemí icons and the manipulation of elite iconography 

(Alegría 1983; Curet 1992b; Moscoso 1978, 1983; Oliver 2009; Rouse 1992; 

Siegel 1999, 2004, 2005). This has focussed attention almost exclusively on 

a small, archaeologically undocumented, section of society (the cacical caste), 

with scholars on a “wild goose chase” for that elusive paramount chief, and 

an almost palpable disappointment with sites which don’t reveal them (Keegan 

2007; Oliver 2003; Righter 2002b; Veloz Maggiolo 1973; Wilson 2007:135). 174 

This neglects the rest, i.e. the majority of social life, and denies the way in which 

indigenous society, domestic politics and sociality operated on an everyday basis 

over hundreds of years – i.e. through membership of and reproduction of the 

house. Through this study of the settlement features of El Cabo, the house, not 

the chief, has emerged as the social persona. It is not known when the origin of 

House Trajectories in El Cabo began, and this is one of the limitations of the site 

data. Perhaps House Trajectories were already developed in the earlier period of 

settlement from the end of the 6 th century. Only further research will shed any 

light on this. However, the potential for future research to see whether and how 

the development of social complexity is linked to the development of the house 

as an institution would be very enlightening. Moreover, the site of El Cabo is 

probably not unique in having House Trajectories. Other sites in the Greater 

Antilles and further afield also show trends towards house perpetuation and rebuilding 

(e.g. Los Buchillones, Caguana, and Kelbey’s Ridge 2). 

It is through the House Trajectories that the indigenous yucayeque of El Cabo 

developed as a place. In this sense, the domestic realm can be seen as an important 

arena to perpetuate an ethos of settled place and identity. Much has been 

written about the shift from a regional to a more local focus on identity in the 

transition between the Early and Late Ceramic Ages (Curet et al. 2004; Curet 

and Oliver 1998; Hofman and Hoogland 2004; Siegel 2004). The houses from 

El Cabo are a concrete (limestone!) materialization of this. The creation and 

duration of established house institutions which perpetuated themselves for at 

least 500, and possibly more than 600 years (the latter half of Period III and 

Period IV (Rouse 1992)) and which were the building blocks anchoring a community 

for around 700 years indicates that house-based society was inherently 

stable in material expression, and one of the major constituents of indigenous 

culture. The analysis of the House Trajectory is a direct way of observing the 

dynamics, practices and temporalities of complex society. Moreover, the study 

of domestic structures in El Cabo offers a distinct and insular Caribbean model 

of house life. 

174 In my opinion one of the worst consequences of the so-called “tyranny of ethnohistory” (Curet 

2005; Keegan 1991). 


Glossary 

Glossary of terms used in dissertation 

Areíto/areyto 

Batey 

Behíque 

Bohío 

Cacicazgo 

Cacique/a 

Caney 

Cemí 

Cenota 

Chicoid 

Cohoba 

Formal dances and songs, composed and passed down by 

the indigenous elite, referred to in the Spanish chronicles. 

Court, plaza, or cleared space for the practice of ball games. 

Archaeologically such courts range from cleared spaces in 

settlements to earth-banked (esp. in Hispaniola) or stonelined 

(esp. Puerto Rico) features as part of ceremonial complexes. 

Bateys are referred to in the Spanish chronicles. 

Taíno word for shaman. 

Indigenous roundhouse, referred to in the Spanish 

chronicles. 

Indigenous term referring to the regional polity or politicalgeographical 

entity of a cacique/a (see below) the boundaries 

of which were described by the Spanish chroniclers, especially 

in Hispaniola, but the nature of which are debated 

in current scholarship. 

Indigenous term referring to the head of a household, 

or someone in a position of authority, of which multiple 

grades were possible. Often glossed in anglophone literature 

as “chief”. Early Spanish chronicles report both men 

and women caciques/as. 

High-quality indigenous, roundhouse, referred to in the 

Spanish chronicles. 

A quality or potency often of animate beings or ancestors, 

or any portable item possessing this quality. 

see manantial. 

A description of Late Ceramic Age material culture principally 

encountered in Hispaniola from the 9th century 

and recognised by its elaborate ceramic decoration including 

incised and punctate designs and anthropo-/zoomorphic 

modelled and appliqued adornos for vessel handles. 

Trigonoliths (see below), stone collars (see below), sniffing 

tubes and vomitive spatulas are also characteristic items of 

Chicoid material culture. 

Refers to both a substance (Anadenathera peregrina) and the 

ritual ingestion of the substance, reportedly by shamans or 

the indigenous elite. The ritual involved a period of fasting, 

purging the body by induced vomiting and inhalation of 

the cohoba substance. Cohoba has hallucinogenic effects. 

Glossary 

313

Archaeological artefacts associated with this ritual are snuffing 

tubes (for inhalation), cohoba stands (for presentation) 

and swallowing sticks or vomitive spatulas (for purging). 

Conuco 

Duho 

Home-garden or cultivation fields. In the Spanish chronicles 

conuco refers to the combination of house and gardens. 

Low, usually wooden, seat or stool, often with anthropo- 

/zoomorphic carved decoration, the use of which denotes 

rank. 

Early Ceramic Age General chronological reference to denote the period covered 

by the first horticultural expansion into the Caribbean 

islands by Saladoid pottery producers several centuries BC 

to ca. AD 600. Such societies are typically characterised as 

having an egalitarian social organisation and a mainland 

oriented cosmology. 

Griddle 

Guaíza 

Guayacán 

Guáyiga/Zamia 

Karst 

Late Ceramic Age 

Maloca 

Usually circular, pottery baking plate, placed on a fire 

and used for cooking cassava bread and other food stuffs. 

Common in archaeological assemblages. (Spanish. burén) 

Face or “face of the living “ (Mol 2007), in archaeological 

usage, usually describing small, incised faces made of shell. 

Guaiacum officinale or lignum-vitae. A tropical hardwood 

used for craft production, construction and fuel and found 

in archaeological contexts. 

Zamia spp. An undomesticated cycad with a green leafy 

crown and a thick subterrenean stem, which when processed, 

in a manner similar to manioc, produces flour. It 

thrives in karst regions and has been found in precolumbian 

archaeological assemblages and referred to as a food 

source in Spanish colonial sources. 

Describes the topography of carbonate geological formations 

dissolved by the action of water. Karst landscapes are 

highly variable and their character depends on formation 

processes, i.e. whether they are eroded by rainfall or rivers 

or a combination of both. Karst landscapes are common 

on the limestone islands of the West Indies. Other well 

known karst landscapes worldwide occur in South China 

and Slovenia. 

In the Greater Antilles this refers to the period from ca. AD 

600 to the time of European contact in which a series of 

material transformations, including demographic growth, 

agricultural intensification and ceremonial elaboration occured. 

This is generally seen as a period of increased complexity 

with respect to the Early Ceramic Age. 

Traditional architectural form in tropical South America 

consisting of a large communal roundhouse, often housing 

the whole community. 


Manantial 

Manioc 

Mellacoid 

Modo de vida 

Nitaíno 

Ostionoid 

Saladoid 

Stone collar 

Taíno 

Body of underground water in karst landscapes, usually 

with a restricted entrance. (Spanish. Manantial) 

Also yucca or cassava: Manihot esculenta. A staple food crop 

in tropical regions of the Americas. The processing of its 

starchy tuberous root for the production of flour is labour 

intensive and comprises several stages including peeling, 

grating, soaking to extract the poisonous prussic acid, and 

drying. 

A Late Ceramic Age archaeological culture dating from 

the 9th to 16th centuries characterised principally by 

pottery with scratched, rough surfaces with basketry impressions 

and rectilinear incision. The main distribution 

of Mellacoid ceramics occurs in the Cibao Valley of the 

Dominican Republic, northeast Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba. 

Mellacoid material culture has been related to the hisorically 

mentioned Ciguayo and Macorix ethnic groups in the 

Dominican Republic. 

Literally “way of life”. Term in Marxist Latin American 

Social Archaeology, qualified with an adjective such as village 

or chiefly, to classify the subsistence base, relations of 

production and organisation of labour in any society. 

A member of an elite family or relative of a cacique. 

A Late Ceramic Age archaeological culture dating from the 

late 6th/7th century in Hispaniola. Ostionoid ceramics 

are characteristically well-fired, thin-walled, red with plain 

bodies and zoo-/anthropomorphic application. 

An Early Ceramic Age archaeological culture with distinictive 

white-on-red polychrome ceramics and South American 

mainland origins. Saladoid pottery-producers migrated into 

the Antilles in the last few centuries BC. Saladoid expansion 

more or less halts at the Mona Passage between Puerto 

Rico and the Dominican Republic and thus Saladoid ceramics 

are rare in Hispaniolan assemblages. 

Also referred to as stone belt (Spanish. aro lítico). 

Archaeological term for stone artefacts shaped like large 

doughnuts or yokes, often with geometric/zoomorphic 

decoration, and interpreted as items of regalia, tentatively 

associated with ceremonial aspects of the ball game. 

Archaeological and popular shorthand used to denote the 

precolonial and historical indigenous populations of eastern 

Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Jamaica, 

The Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands from ca. 

AD 1000 to European colonisation. The term incorporates 

much ethno-linguistic and socio-political diversity and is 

principally associated with Chicoid material culture. 

Glossary 

315

Trigonolith 

Yucayeque 

Archaeological term for irregular three-pointed artefacts, 

the larger examples often being of stone with anthropomorphic 

decoration, the smaller- micro-trigonoliths - plainer 

and of a variety of hard materials. 

Taíno word for native community/settlement, from 

Hieronymite Interregatory 1517. 


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Appendix 1: Field forms 

Appendix 1a: Feature form (80%) 

SITE: El Cabo 

SITE ID: 

TRENCH AND FEATURE 

NUMBER: 

Date: Level: Recorded by: 

SCALE: 1: 

photo reference nr: 

find nr/s: 

shape and outline: diameter/width (max.): depth (max): 

soil description: type: 

1 4 

2 5 

3 6 

toolmarks y/n:.................................................. angle of feature:........................................ 

Additional info: 

sample 2 nd segment (type): cuts through: is cut by: assoc. with: 

 

type: pm=postmold (outline/shadow or actual post), ph=posthole (i.e. pit dug for post), pmh=postmold and 

posthole, bt=bioturbation, ab=animal burial, al=ash layer, bl=burnt layer, br=human burial, cec=ceramic 

concentration, chc=charcoal concentration, coc=coral concentration, cr=cremation grave, dc=drainage channel, 

dg=drip gully, dis=discoloration, dp=depression, ds=digging stick marks, dt=ditch, ht=hearth, ls=living surface, 

mid=midden, pt=pit, ov=oven, rec=recent disturbance, pr=postrow, shc=shell concentration, wp=water pit, 

nat=natural, xxx=unknown 

shape: sq=square cornered, rd=rounded, fl=flat, c=cone-shaped, ho=holster-formed, ir=irregular 

outline: sh=sharply defined, vg=vague/diffuse border, iv=increasingly vague 

sample: general, C14, faunal, floral, isotope, other 

soil description: Munsell and fill and matrix texture 

cuts through/is cut by: only relates to features in soil (i.e. not bedrock), assoc. with: 

toolmarks: are they visible y/n? vertical grooves / pecking / other? 

angle of feature: V=vertical, S=slanting (describe angle and orientation) 

Appendix 1: field forms 

347

Appendix 1b: Feature fill split form 

Date: 

Filled in by: 

COUNT 

WEIGHT (g) shell stone bone coral ceramic 

remarks/description 

FND NR. 

FEATURE NR. 

TOTAL SIEVED WEIGHT (g) 

marine shell 

crab 

bone 

ceramic 

charcoal 

other 

tool 

parapharnalia 

tool 

parapharnalia 

tool 

parapharnalia 

human (unworked) 

tool 

paraphernalia 

decorated 

colonial 

griddle pieces 


349

Appendix 1c: Square split form 

Date: 


EL CABO 2008 MATERIAL FROM EXCAVATED SQUARES 

COUNT 

WEIGHT (g) marineshell stone bone coral ceramic 

N.B. 'Other' refers to other materials which may be encountered such as glass, guanín etc. Specify material in 'remarks'. 

remarks 

FND NR. 


ceramic 

charcoal 

other (glass etc.) 


tool 

modified 

parapharnalia 

tool 

modified 

exotic 

parapharnalia 

tool 

modified 


parapharnalia 

tool 

modified 

paraphernalia 

decorated sherds 

undecorated sherds 

colonial 

griddle 

Remarks' should be used to describe material in the 'tool', 'parapharnalia', 'modified' , 'human' (if known) categories, I.e. if tool, describe 'blade greenstone adze', 'coral rasp' etc., if exotic (i.e. 

not limestone/sandstone) describe 'quartz', 'brown flint' etc., if parapharnalia, describe 'bead', '3-pointer' etc. makde descriptions as full as possible. use back of form if necessary, and don't 

forget findnumber. 


351

Appendix 1d: Survey square split form 

Date: 


EL CABO 2007 SURFACE SURVEY SPLIT FORM 

COUNT 

WEIGHT (g) shell stone bone coral ceramic 

remarks/description 

FND NR. 

COORDINATES 



crab 

stone 

bone 

coral 

ceramic 

charcoal 

other 

MNI 

modified 

modified 

unmodified 

modified 

unmodified 


modified 

unmodified 

decorated 

undecorated 

griddle 


353

Appendix 1e: Shell split form for features 

Date: 


 

MNI total weight MNI total weight MNI total weight MNI total weight MNI total weight MNI total weight MNI total weight 


355

Appendix 2: Overview of attributes per structure 

Structure No. 

Diameter (m) 

No. external features 

No. internal features 

Mean span ext. feats 

(cm) 

Mean span int. feats (m) 

Mean span adj. feats (m) 

Area (m2) 

Length (m) 

Dist. between peri. & int. 

feats (cm) 

Entrance width (cm) 

Entrance orientation 

Abandonment 

Confidence class 

Type 

Slanting (True/False) 

Avg. feat. diam. (cm) 

Avg. feat. depth (cm) 

Phase 

No. inhabitants (formula 

Curet 1992) 

1 7 46 8 46 4,57 1,94 36 - 94 90 W burnt 1 1 T 23 42 c 6,6 

2 7,4 34 8 50 5,65 2,5 43 - 63 77 WNW posts removed and back-fill 1 2 F 17 40 a 7,8 

3 7 72 8 50 4,45 2,04 37 - 105 65 W posts removed and back-fill 1 1 T 17 36 b/c 6,8 

4 10,6 70 8 57 8,11 3,06 81 - 70 102 W burnt 1 1 F 21 33 c 14,2 

5 8,3 22 5 59 5,96 2,34 51 - 80 - WNW posts removed or left to rot 3 2 F 17 28 a? 9,2 

6 10 41 - 57 8,93 4,05 77 - - 112 W burnt 1 3 F 23 38 d 13,6 

7 7,3 32 8 64 5,09 2,02 40 - 84 56 WNW posts removed or left to rot 1 2 F 16 30 a 7,3 

8 6,5 33 - 77 - - 31 - - - - unknown 1 5 F 13 22 d - 

9 7,8 25 8 54 6,08 2,64 48 - 53 65 WNW posts removed or left to rot 1 2 F 18 36 a 8,6 

10 6 8 - - 5,93 2,42 29 - - - - posts removed or left to rot 1 6 F 29 73 c - 

11 8,5 51 8 56 5,65 2,51 50 - 90 74 WNW posts removed or left to rot 1 2 F 14 21 a 9 

12 6 23 - 84 - - 26 - - - - posts removed or left to rot 2 5 F 13 17 c - 

13 8,2 47 8 57 5,77 2,51 48 - 74 68 W posts removed and back-fill 2 2 F 15 23 a 8,6 

14 8,3 60 8 64 6,09 2,83 54 - 65 72 W posts removed and back-fill 2 1 T 17 28 c 9,7 

15 5 60 15 50 3,21 1,55 19 - 74 57 W posts removed or left to rot 2 1 T 15 32 c 3,7 

16 - 41 - 132 - - - 53 - - - not burnt 2 7 T 15 21 c - 

17 - 26 - 49 - - - 10,3 - - - posts removed and back-fill 1 7 T 13 19 e - 

18 - 22 - 76 - - - 14,5 - - - not burnt 1 7 T 16 25 b - 

19 - 6 - 45 - - - 2,23 - - - unknown 3 7 F 13 15 ? - 

20 6,5 21 8 98 4,59 1,9 33 - 81 75 W posts removed and back-fill 2 1 F 15 25 c 6,1 

21 8 24 5 56 5,57 3,24 49 - 104 - W? posts removed or left to rot 2 1 F 15 24 d 8,8 

22 10,5 32 8 82 7,37 3,56 82 - 108 85 NW posts removed or left to rot 2 4 F 19 36 e 14,4 

23 8 29 8 74 5,07 2,32 48 - 114 - W? unknown 2 1 T 18 36 c 8,6 

24 7,5 38 8 63 5,26 2,62 43 - 82 72 W posts removed or left to rot 2 1 T 21 42 c 7,8 

25 2,5 8 - 82 - - 3 - - - - posts removed and back-fill 2 8 T 22 59 d - 


Structure No. 

Diameter (m) 

No. external features 

No. internal features 

Mean span ext. feats 

(cm) 

Mean span int. feats (m) 

Mean span adj. feats (m) 

Area (m2) 

Length (m) 

Dist. between peri. & int. 

feats (cm) 

Entrance width (cm) 

Entrance orientation 

Abandonment 

Confidence class 

Type 

Slanting (True/False) 

Avg. feat. diam. (cm) 

Avg. feat. depth (cm) 

Phase 

No. inhabitants (formula 

Curet 1992) 

26 8,2 13 3 84 - 3,28 57 - - - - unknown 3 0 F 15 25 c 10,2 

27 9,8 38 8 80 7,02 3,06 72 - 117 90 NW unknown 3 4 F 15 24 e 12,7 

28 4,6 8 - - 4,54 2,04 18 - - - - posts removed or left to rot 1 6 F 23 51 c - 

29 7,6 41 6 56 5,2 2,37 45 - 96 - W? posts removed and back-fill 2 1 F 15 25 d 8,1 

30 8,8 39 7 79 5,31 2,34 60 - 141 68 W posts removed and back-fill 2 1 T 18 26 d 10,7 

31 8,3 25 8 84 6,72 3,02 56 - 55 75 W posts removed or left to rot 3 0 F 18 32 ? 10 

32 - 5 - 47 - - - 1,9 - - - unknown 3 7 F 17 33 ? - 

33 - - - 30 - - - 0,9 - - - unknown 3 7 F 17 36 ? - 

34 8,4 29 8 95 5,36 2,39 50 - 111 60 WNW unknown 2 1 F 18 25 c 9 

35 - 5 - 58 - - - 2,3 - - - posts removed and back-fill 3 7 F 20 31 c? - 

36 - 6 - 79 - - - 3,9 - - - posts removed and back-fill 3 7 F 26 35 c? - 

37 - 6 - 1,2 - - - 6 - - - unknown 3 7 F 18 45 recent - 

38 6,5 11 4 94 5,09 2,26 31 - 68 - WNW? unknown 3 1 F 15 24 d 5,8 

39 - 24 - 2 - - - 46 - - - unknown 3 7 F 15 20 recent - 

40 11,6 20 4 120 7,86 2,99 100 - 131 - WNW? unknown 3 2 F 15 25 ? 17,5 

41 13,5 17 4 117 10,7 4,53 142 - 86 - W posts removed and back-fill 4 0 F 16 21 ? 24,6 

42 8 34 8 77 5,54 3,09 54 - 104 111 E not burnt 3 1 T 17 28 c 9,7 

43 5,7 25 8 71 3,82 1,71 24 - 59 - - not burnt 4 1 F 14 18 d 4,6 

44 10 18 6 119 7,96 4,08 74 - 58 - - not burnt 4 0 F 19 24 ? 13 

45 8 9 2 71 - 1,72 51 - 62 - - unknown 3 0 F 14 25 ? 9,2 

46 6,6 17 - 75 - - 22 - - - - unknown 3 5 F 13 36 c - 

47 - 23 - 67 - - - 14,7 - - - posts removed and back-fill 2 5 F 15 17 ? - 

48 9 30 6 79 6,51 2,27 53 - 111 71 W posts removed and back-fill 2 1 F 19 27 ? 9,5 

49 - 38 - 100 - - - 13 - - - unknown 3 7 T 16 20 c/d - 

50 8,15 8 - - 7,3 3,22 45 - - - - posts removed and back-fill 3 6 F 23 52 d - 

51 8,4 20 - 99 - - 57 - - - - posts removed and back-fill 3 5 F 11 14 a? - 

52 - 24 - 2,16 - - - 45 - - - unknown 3 7 F 13 19 d - 

Appendix 2: Overview of attributes per structure 

357

Appendix 3: Features per structure 

Appendix 3: Archived under the following persistent identifier: 

urn:nbn:nl:ui:13-rgo-gae 

Available via: http://persistent-identifier.nl/?identifier= 


Summary 

“Renewing the house: Trajectories of social life in the yucayeque 

(community) of El Cabo, Higüey, Dominican Republic, AD 800 to 1504.” 

This study is a contribution to the household archaeology of the Caribbean. 

The aim of the research was to arrive at a definition of the late-prehistoric to 

protohistoric house, based on material remains rather than to rely on the few, 

superficial, Spanish colonial descriptions from the 15 th and 16 th centuries as is 

commonly done. The results of four years of archaeological research at the site 

of El Cabo in the Higüey region of the Dominican Republic are presented, in 

which seven centuries of community history, from its origin, development and 

florescence to its eventual demise, are narrated through its dominant structure, 

the house. 

The Higüey region, a dry coastal plain made up of ancient coral limestone 

deposits and riddled with caves and underground water sources, was one of the 

heartlands of indigenous culture before the arrival of the Europeans. The last 

area of Hispaniola to be pacified, its local population twice took up arms against 

the Spanish at the turn of the 15 th century. The inhabitants of the village of El 

Cabo, perched on a coastal promontory at the extreme eastern end of the island, 

played a role in these events through which, ultimately, their ways of life, maintained 

for centuries, were destroyed. 

Two thousand archaeological features, the associated artefact assemblages, 

and the spatial organization of the settlement between ca. AD 800 and 1504 are 

described in detail. This study includes a reconstruction methodology, a structure 

typology and a chronology of the domestic structures. The unique preservation 

of postholes directly cut into the limestone bedrock enabled identification 

of over fifty structures, thirty of which are interpreted as houses, in addition to 

a communication platform, storerooms for community regalia, fences, windbreaks 

and work huts. A small number of burials as well as a large assemblage of 

pottery, shell, bone, coral, and stone artefacts attest to the quotidian and ritual 

activities of the community. 

The house structures share recurrent forms, extreme regularity and symmetrical 

foundations, elaborate architectural features including imposing entrance 

façades, a consistent orientation, prepared floors, and swept and clean interiors. 

Principal postholes were selected for the deposition of personal items on abandonment 

of the house. The lifecycle of a particular house was just one stage in 

a long process of renewal, in which the inhabitants periodically rebuilt the same 

house on the same spot over the course of centuries. Each house embodied the 

ideals and aesthetics of proper sociable living in the details of its architecture 

and lifecycle. The evidence suggests that the structural renewal was coordinated 

across houses, and possibly across the whole community (yucayeque). This led to 

the development of “House Trajectories”, or long-lived estates. It is argued that 

the House Trajectory is an instrument of social reproduction and cultural transmission, 

forming an important factor in the constitution of indigenous culture 

and sociality. The most successful house trajectories lasted up to 500 years. 

When “discovered” by Columbus, the territory of the present Dominican 

Republic was one of the most populous areas of the Americas. The large-scale 

“rediscovery” in current times, especially of coastal regions for developer/touristic 

purposes, is expunging this history once again. The collaborative relationship 

between local people, Leiden University fieldschools and the Museum of 

Dominican Man through the El Cabo archaeological project has contributed in 

a small way to the preservation of Dominican cultural heritage in the region. 

Summary 

359

Resumen 

“Renovando la casa: Trayectorias de vida social en el yucayeque (la 

comunidad) de El Cabo, Higüey, República Dominicana, 800 a 1504 d.C.” 

Este estudio es una contribución a la arqueología doméstica del Caribe. El objetivo 

de esta investigación es arribar a una definición material y alternativa de la casa precolonial, 

en lugar de simplemente retomar las superficiales y exiguas descripciones 

españolas de los siglos XV y XVI. Presentamos cuatro años de investigación arqueológica 

del asentamiento El Cabo en la República Dominicana. Se narran siete siglos 

de historia comunitaria, que abarcan desde el desarrollo y el florecimiento hasta el 

eventual abandono, tomando como punto de referencia la estructura dominante: la 

casa. 

La región de Higüey, una llanura costeña seca, formada por coral antiguo, depósitos 

de roca caliza y lleno de cuevas y depósitos subterráneos de agua, fue uno de 

los centros de la cultura indígena antes de la llegada de los Europeos. Fue también 

la última zona de La Española en ser pacificada y el escenario en el que la población 

local tomó dos veces las armas en contra de los españoles a finales del siglo XV. Los 

habitantes del pueblo El Cabo, ubicado en un promontorio costero en el extremo 

oriental de la isla, participaron en estos eventos, al final de los cuales sus estilos de 

vida, mantenidos por siglos, fueron destruidos. 

Se describe en detalle la interpretación de cerca de 2000 elementos arqueológicos, 

conjuntos de artefactos asociados y la organización espacial del asentamiento 

entre 800 y 1504 d.C. Esto incluye una metodología de reconstrucción, una tipología 

de estructuras y la cronología de estructuras domésticas. La preservación excepcional 

de las huellas de postes, cortados directamente en el lecho de roca caliza, 

permitió identificar más de 50 estructuras, 30 de las cuales fueron interpretadas 

como casas, a ésto se agrega: una plataforma de comunicación, estructuras para almacenar 

objetos ceremoniales comunitarios, vallas, protecciones contra el viento y 

cabañas de trabajo. Un número reducido de entierros, así como una gran colección 

de cerámica, concha, hueso, coral y lítica, son evidencia de las actividades cotidianas 

y rituales de la comunidad. 

Las estructuras domésticas comparten formas recurrentes, una regularidad extrema 

y cimientos simétricos, elementos arquitectónicos elaborados que incluyen 

imponentes fachadas de entrada, una orientación consistente, suelos apisonados así 

como interiores barridos y limpios. Huellas de postes principales fueron elegidas 

para depositar efectos personales al abandonar la casa. El ciclo de vida de una casa 

en particular no era más que un estadío del largo proceso de renovación en el cual 

los habitantes periódicamente reconstruían la misma casa, en el mismo sitio, una y 

otra vez, a lo largo de siglos. Cada casa personificaba los ideales y la estética de una 

vivienda sociable apropiada en los detalles de su arquitectura y su ciclo vital. Las 

evidencias sugieren que la renovación era coordinada entre varias casas y posiblemente 

también entre toda la comunidad (yucayeque). Esto condujo al desarrollo de 

Trayectorias de Habitación, o fincas de larga vida. 

Este trabajo sostiene que las Trayectorias de Habitación son un instrumento 

de reproducción social y transmisión cultural así como un factor importante en la 

constitución de la cultura indígena y la socialización. Las Trayectorias de Habitación 

más exitosas duraron hasta 500 años. 

Cuando Cristóbal Colón “descubrió” La Española, esta era una de las regiones 

más pobladas de América. En la actualidad, el “redescubrimiento”a gran escala, especialmente 

de las regiones costeras con propósitos turísticos y de construcción, está 

borrando esta historia, una vez más. La colaboración entre los habitantes locales, las 

escuelas de campo de la Universidad de Leiden y el Museo del Hombre Dominicano 

a través del proyecto arqueológico El Cabo, ha contribuido de manera modesta a la 

preservación de la herencia cultural dominicana en la región. 

Resumen 

361

Samenvatting 

“Van huis tot huis: Gemeenschapszin in El Cabo, Higüey, 

Dominicaanse Republiek, 800 – 1504 na Chr.” 

Deze studie vormt een bijdrage tot de archeologie van het huishouden in het 

Caribisch gebied. Het doel van het onderzoek was om een definitie van het laatprehistorische 

tot protohistorische huis te ontwikkelen gebaseerd op materiële overblijfselen 

in plaats van uitsluitend gebruik te maken van de weinige, oppervlakkige, 

beschrijvingen ervan door Spaanse kolonisten uit de 15 e en 16 e eeuw zoals tot op heden 

gebruikelijk is. In dit boek wordt vier jaar archeologisch onderzoek op de vindplaats 

El Cabo in het gebied van Higüey, Dominicaanse Republiek, gepresenteerd. 

Zeven eeuwen geschiedenis van de gemeenschap El Cabo, vanaf haar ontstaan, via 

haar ontwikkeling en bloei tot haar uiteindelijke ondergang, worden gereconstrueerd 

door middel van haar meest dominante structuur, het huis. 

De streek Higüey, een droge kustvlakte bestaande uit koraalkalksteenafzettingen 

en bezaaid met grotten en ondergrondse bronnen, was voor de komst van de 

Europeanen een van dé centra van inheemse cultuur. Het was het laatste gebied van 

Hispaniola dat gepacificeerd werd: aan het eind van de 15 e eeuw nam de locale bevolking 

twee keer de wapens op tegen de Spanjaarden. De rol die de inwoners van 

het dorp El Cabo, gelegen op het uiterste puntje van de oostkust van het eiland, 

speelden in deze gebeurtenissen was van dusdanige invloed dat hun manier van leven, 

na eeuwen van instandhouding, teloorging. 

De interpretatie van meer dan tweeduizend archeologische grondsporen, de 

daarmee geassocieerde artefactverzamelingen en het nederzettingspatroon, te dateren 

tussen ongeveer 800 en 1504 na Chr., worden in detail beschreven. Het betoog 

bevat ook een methodologie van de wijze van reconstructie, een typologie van 

de aangetroffen structuren en een chronologie van de huisstructuren. Dankzij de 

unieke conservering van de paalgaten, die direct in de kalkstenen ondergrond zijn 

ingegraven, is het mogelijk om meer dan vijftig structuren te herkennen. Dertig 

daarvan zijn geïdentificeerd als huizen, de resterende twintig structuren bestaan uit 

een communicatieplatform, een bergingsstructuur voor gemeenschappelijke regalia, 

hekken, windschermen en werkplaatsen. De vondst van een aantal begravingen en 

een grote hoeveelheid artefacten van aardewerk, schelp, bot, koraal en steen getuigen 

van zowel de dagelijkse alsook rituele activiteiten van de gemeenschap. 

De huisstructuren hebben telkens dezelfde kenmerken: de vormen herhalen zich 

en de fundamenten zijn uitzonderlijk regelmatig en symmetrisch. De architectuur 

kenmerkt zich door indrukwekkende toegangspartijen, een consequente oriëntatie 

van de plattegrond, afgevlakte vloeren en geveegde, schone interieurs. Wanneer een 

huis verlaten werd, deponeerde men persoonlijke voorwerpen in de belangrijkste 

paalgaten. De ‘levenscyclus’ van een afzonderlijk huis kan alleen gezien worden als 

één fase in een lang proces van herhaling waarin de bewoners in de loop der eeuwen 

periodiek hetzelfde huis op dezelfde locatie keer op keer herbouwden. Elk huis belichaamde 

in zijn architecturale details en levenscyclus de idealen en esthetiek van 

een goed sociaal leven. Er zijn gegevens die aantonen dat de herhaling van een huis 

een gecoördineerd project was dat plaatsvond voor verschillende huizen, misschien 

zelfs voor alle huizen van de gemeenschap (yucayeque) tegelijkertijd. Dit heeft geleid 

tot de ontwikkeling van “Huistrajecten”, of “langlevende landgoederen”. Betoogd 

wordt dat het “Huistraject” een instrument van sociale reproductie en culturele 

overdracht vormt en een belangrijke factor was in de vormgeving van de inheemse 

cultuur en haar maatschappelijk karakter. 

Toen het eiland Hispaniola, waarvan de Dominicaanse Republiek het oostelijk 

deel vormt, werd “ontdekt” door Columbus was het een van de dichtstbevolkte gebieden 

van beide Amerika’s. De grootschalige “herontdekking” in de afgelopen jaren 

van met name de kustgebieden, die ontwikkeld worden voor toeristische doelein- 

Samenvatting 

363

den, wist de geschiedenis van de bewoners wederom uit. De samenwerkingsrelatie 

die ontstaan is uit het archeologisch project in El Cabo tussen de locale bevolking, 

de Universiteit Leiden en het Museo del Hombre Dominicano heeft op kleine schaal 

bijgedragen aan het behoud van het Dominicaanse culturele erfgoed in de regio. 


Acknowledgements 

Very many people and institutions have contributed to the last five years of research 

in explicit and implicit ways. The fact that the result is a very long book 

which very few people will read does not do justice to their input. I would like 

to thank some of them below. 

Firstly, my parents Lesley and Sam Samson, not just because they took me 

fossil-collecting at Folkestone Warren but more importantly for the freedom 

they gave me to make my own choices and their emotional and financial support. 

I know my mother thinks I am far away, but her wit and correspondence 

are a huge influence and always make me feel close. I thank my brother and sisters, 

James, Rose and especially my youngest sister Eve, who, rather than sit on 

the beach, came to see me give a paper, and said she enjoyed it! And my three 

grandparents, to whom this book is dedicated, Richard and Lillian Samson and 

Fay Collister. 

Had the site of El Cabo revealed a few uninspiring stains, the story would 

have been very different. However, data does not exist “out there” in the world, 

and it is thanks to the scientific, experienced and intuitive choices of my supervisors 

Dr Menno Hoogland and Professor Dr Corinne Hofman that I was 

fortunate enough to collaborate in research on such an extraordinary site within 

the project Houses for the living and the dead. I am very grateful for our work together, 

the opportunities they have given me, and their professional support. 

Muchas gracias!, to the local people of El Cabo, Lionel Avila, the mayor, who 

recently passed away, and his wife Juana and their family, especially Kelby and 

Ramona, now living in Higüey. Also Nicholas, as well as Margot Rosario and 

Belto Villa and their family; in particular Kelin, Alexandra and Yahaira. El Cabo 

is an amazing place, and this was most evident in the shared work, exchange 

of saltfish, tostones and peanut butter sandwiches, parties and serious conversations 

with friends in the village. Our community, now dispersed, will remain in 

memories. 

Special thanks go to Adriana Churampi Ramírez who has been a big part 

of my PhD and a bigger part of my life. And for the friendship of Erik van 

Rossenberg, an inspirational archaeologist, to Suzanne van Rossenberg and 

Nienke van Leeuwen (“the freddies”), Anne van Hilst, Franci Taylor, Evien 

Tjabbes and Tamsin Hewett. I thank my “powernymphs” Bridget Waller and 

Helena Wright for our many years of friendship. My time in Leiden began with 

a cohort of fellow MA students and friends for whose fellowship I am richer: 

Laura Crowley (who also experienced El Cabo firsthand), Will Anderson, Cathy 

Coote (a real writer), Hila Federer-Shtayer, Rahel Berman, Ittay Weiss, Evangelia 

Skenteri, Qu Feng, Quentin Bourgeois, Karsten Wentink, Marjolein Kerkhof, 

Corné van Woerdekom and Stijn Arnoldusson (the latter five my archaeological-poker 

buddies). 

I have a large number of truly excellent colleagues in the Caribbean Research 

Group, many of whom I am happy to count as my friends. In addition to my 

supervisors: Alistair Bright, Angus Mol, Dr Arie Boomert (especially for his 

rigorous eye and considerable time investment in reading and translating my 

manuscript), Daan Isendoorn, Jimmy Mans (my favourite office mate!), Hayley 

Mickleburgh, Dr Raphaël Panhuysen, Dr Renzo Duin, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, 

Jorge Ulloa Hung, and Jason Laffoon. 


365

I gratefully acknowledge the fortitude of all the members of the fieldschools 

in El Cabo for painstakingly sweeping the bedrock, spooning out posthole fills, 

counting shells and for their intellectual collaboration: Alexander Vinkeles 

Melchers, Angus Mol, Anne van Duijvenbode, Annemarie Ouweneel, Annemieke 

Doornbos, Benjamin van Dijk, Danielle Bastiaanse, Don van den Biggelaar, 

Erlend Johnson, Eva Paulsen, Floris Keehnen, Freya Alons, Hans Peter Gehring, 

Hayley Mickleburgh, Ilona Hijnen, Ingeborg Laanbroek, Irene Meulenberg, 

Janneke de Kam, Jason Laffoon, Jeremy Kaplan, Jimmy Mans, Joost Morsink, 

Katy Bennett, Khristy Werleman, Laura Beukers, Laura Crowley, Lennart van 

der Horst, Leonie Wolff, Lucas Arts, Mariska van Deijl, Mark Thijssen, Marlies 

van Vuuren, Nicole Vernon, Noortje Oudhuis (especially for our work in 2008), 

Pascal Velthuizen, Pauline San Giorgi, Peter Duymelinck (in memoriam), Pieter 

Soffers, Rachel Schats, Raymond Corbey (especially for his morale-boosting, 

bird-watching excursions), Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, Samantha de Ruiter, Sissy 

Hofmeester, Twan van Dongen, Willem Liethof, and Yann Hoogland. For 

the geophysical fieldwork I thank Branko Mušič and his team from Ljubljana 

University: Igor Medaric, Matjaz Mori, Uros Kirn, Jurij Soklic and David 

Medica. Thanks to Jake Kheel and the Ecological Foundation at Punta Cana for 

logistical support. Once again it should also be mentioned how the local people 

of El Cabo were responsible for the lion’s share of fieldwork through the years. 

Just as many “discoveries” were made behind the computer screen as in the 

field and for the tools and skills needed to do this I thank Stijn Arnoldussen, 

Eric Dullaart and Tjaco Mast. Their assistance with database, cartographic and 

GIS programmes was indispensable and truly one of the most satisfying learning 

experiences of my PhD. Errors are of course all mine! 

A number of people supported me with their professional expertise, for which 

I am very grateful. I thank Dr Kathleen Deagan (identification of colonial artefacts), 

Dr Lee Newsom (analysis of botanical samples), Dr Betsy Carlson, Dr 

José Oliver (for many stimulating conversations, fieldwork collaboration, and 

his vision of the pre-Columbian past of the Greater Antilles), Joost Morsink 

(conversations about houses, maisons, kinship and his friendship), Erik van Driel 

(artefact drawings), Dr Lisa Kennedy, Dr Jago Cooper, Jeremy Kaplan and Dr 

Gilda Hernández Sanchez (for help with Spanish translation). I am grateful to the 

community of the IACA (International Association for Caribbean Archaeology) 

congresses and exceedingly grateful to the library staff and documentalists of the 

KITLV (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) 

who manage such a brilliant collection of books on Caribbean archaeology. The 

flexibility and humour of Sidestone Press in the final stages of manuscript production 

saved many a sleepless night. The Faculty of Archaeology is a privileged 

place to work and since 2003 I have enjoyed the support of the staff and the 

community of colleagues, especially fellow PhDs. Professor Harry Fokkens and 

the NW European Prehistory section fostered my beginnings in academic archaeology, 

and for this I am grateful. Also to Miguel John Versluys for his strictness 

with me in the final year. It was a pleasure to collaborate with the Museo 

del Hombre Dominicano and other Dominican institutions such as the Academia 

de Ciencias, among whose directors and researchers past and present I am indebted, 

especially for the archaeological insight and creativity of Marcio Veloz 

Maggiolo, exchanges on Dominican archaeology with Harold Olsen, Gabriel 

Atiles, Elpidio Ortega, Glenis Tavarez, Fernando Luna Calderón (in memoriam) 

and the support of Carlos Hernandez Soto and Nelson Moreno-Ceballos. 


The research for this dissertation was made financially possible by the 

Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research (NWO), Faculty of Archaeology, 

Leiden University, and the National Geographic Society and I do not underestimate 

the privilege of making a living from conducting research. 

Most of all I thank my partner and superwoman, Annemarie Stolk, for her 

practical and loving support, critical comments, time off work to help with references, 

layout etc., forbearance of last minute panics and ability to summarise my 

research with the gift of making it sound interesting! But more than this I thank 

her for her love and all our future adventures. 


367

Curriculum vitae 

Alice Samson was born in 1977 in Dover, Kent. From 1989 to 1996 she attended 

Sir Roger Manwood’s school, Sandwich, Kent. She read Modern and 

Medieval languages, French and Italian, at Clare College Cambridge (BA Hons 

Cantab.) during which time she spent a year in Agrigento and Brussels. After 

graduating in 2001, Alice worked for two years as an assistant to an MEP in the 

European Parliament in Brussels. During this time she maintained a long-standing 

interest in archaeology by participating in excavations in Italy (Pozzuolo del 

Friuli, Neolithic). From 2003 to 2005 she studied NW European prehistory in 

Leiden and completed a research masters with a thesis on the social aspects of 

Bronze Age seafaring (cum laude) as well as participating in two Bronze Age excavations 

in the Netherlands (Zijderveld and Zevenbergen) working for the archaeological 

unit Archol. From 2005 to 2009 she was a member of the research 

project Houses for the Living and the Dead (NWO) and wrote a dissertation on 

the settlement features from the site of El Cabo, Dominican Republic, where 

she participated in fieldwork. Alice currently works as a research assistant in the 

Caribbean Research Group, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University. 

Curriculum vitae 

369


the hhouse 

This study is a contribution to the household archaeology of the Caribbean. The 

aim of the research was to come to an alternative, material definition of the precolonial 

house, rather than rely on Spanish colonial descriptions from the 15th 

and 16th centuries as is commonly done. Archaeological research from the site 

of El Cabo, perched on a coastal promontory at the extreme eastern end of the 

Dominican Republic is presented, and seven centuries of indigenous community 

history from its development and florescence, to eventual demise is narrated 

through the dominant structure, the house. 

Over two thousand archaeological features cut directly into the limestone bedrock, 

and an artefact assemblage of pottery, shell and stone led to reconstructions 

of fifty domestic structures, thirty of which are houses, and interpretations 

of the spatial organization and chronology of the site between ca. AD 800 and 

1504. 

House structures are extremely regular with imposing facades, consistent orientation, 

and swept and clean interiors. They are the location of ritual and shared 

abandonment practices. Inhabitants rebuilt the same house in the same spot over 

the course of centuries so that a particular house was just one stage in a long process 

of renewal. Evidence suggests renewal was coordinated across houses, and 

possibly across the whole community (yucayeque). This led to the development 

of long-lived estates, referred to as House Trajectories, the most successful of 

which lasted up to 500 years. The House Trajectory is an important constituent 

of indigenous culture and domestic sociality. 

Alice Samson is a member of the Caribbean Research Group, Leiden University, 

and excavated in El Cabo between 2005 and 2008. Her research interests include 

settlement and household archaeology with a focus in the Caribbean and NW 

European prehistory. 

Bestelnummer: SSP58050001 

Sidestone Press 

ISBN: 978-90-8890-045-7 

69380458 

9 789088 900297

Renewing the House: Trajectories of Social Life in the Yucayeque (Community) of El Cabo, Higuey, Dominican Republic

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