Alice Samson
Address: School of Archaeology and Ancient History,
University of Leicester, University Road,
Leicester, LE1 7RH
UK
University of Leicester, University Road,
Leicester, LE1 7RH
UK
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Papers by Alice Samson
Este artículo, La labor del cuidado y la economía afectiva en la construcción del Caribe, aborda las industrias coloniales tempranas como una labor del cuidado en lugar de producción económica o de resistencia. Nos basamos en las filosofías indígenas sobre las relaciones y las ontologías amazónicas para enfatizar las prácticas del cuidar, además de enmarcar los datos en el registro arqueológico del Caribe. En este, investigamos cómo cosas tradicionales como las hamacas y el pan de casabe confeccionados por una población encomendada en el siglo XVI en la Isla de Mona, parte del archipiélago puertorriqueño, rápidamente se insertaron en contextos libres y no libres, ampliando los ámbitos sensoriales y dando forma a las interacciones en el Caribe colonial. El tomar en consideración las cosas tradicionales y cómo se radicaron dentro de nuevos contextos de personas, lugares, y materiales, revela proyectos alternativos de hacer-mundos, lo cual brinda una contestación especulativa a las narrativas singulares de explotación. [arqueología, labor del cuidado, Caribe colonial]
may offer evidence for spit-roasting, pit-roasting, or the use of a ‘barbacoa’ to cook fish on the island. The ubiquity of plant residues in a variety of pottery forms may relate to the large-scale cultivation and export of cassava (Manihot esculenta) from the island. A Spanish olive jar revealed evidence of wine residues, which may constitute the earliest detection of wine residues in pottery found in the Americas.
Keywords Organic residues · Colonial Caribbean · Pottery, Foodways · Diet · Wine
The rock art on Isla de Mona (indigenous name Amona), the majority associated with the island’s long Indigenous history, is some of the most diverse and dense in the Antilles. Since 2013, our project has focussed on this history, building on previous work carried out by Dr. Ovidio Dávila Dávila in the 1980s and 1990s, and by Dr. Irving Rouse in the 1930s. In particular in this paper we consider various subterranean activities that have remained hidden in plain sight because they differ from conventional understandings of what rock art is. The Mona caves have an unusual geology which lend themselves to certain practices, ways of moving through space, interactions with mineral substances, and mark-making. Here we focus on the widespread practice of making marks using the fingers in the soft and pasty carbonate crusts which cover the cave walls, a technique observed in the dark areas of around 30 of the +/-70 caves we have visited out of a total of over 230 caves on the island. The finger-fluting, at the same time as leaving negative white traces observable as rock art, also removed or mined wall deposits in a practice we refer to as art-mining. Art is mining and mining is art. In this article instead of focussing on the recognisable images, we analyse the majority of non-figurative marks. This work contributes to rock art studies worldwide in which the relations between mark-making, caves, underground substances, and elevated states of consciousness form dynamic assemblages connecting Mona with other Antillean underground spaces, as well as with continental areas of Central and North America.
Narratives of the colonial encounter in the Caribbean are based on the idea of a fundamental incompatibility between worlds. Emphasising incommensurability above all else separates native from settler, further compounding the colonial condition, leading to historical generalisation, and influencing archaeological interpretation. Here we try to breach this gap. Indigenous-Christian spirituality occupied a central place in the rock art of the caves of Isla de Mona. We focus on one motif in particular which is of interest in understanding religious practices and experiences in the 16th century colonial period, when Christianity was a topic of intercultural exploration. This article challenges the dualist-thinking in interpretations of early colonial worlds and seeks interconnections between ontologies.
Highlights
• Multiple chronometric methods (C14 and U-Th) provide the first dates from indigenous rock art in the Caribbean.
• Phosphorite (from mineralized guano), charcoal, naturally occurring ochres, and clays from cave floors are the key constituents of rock art paints.
• Complex paints were prepared through the deliberate addition of organic binding media from plant gums brought into the caves.
• The diversity of art in 30 cave systems, repeat visits, and retouching of motifs, indicate complex, extended temporalities of chthonic intervention.
we examine the role that the extraordinary cave systems have played in attracting people to the island and into the subterranean realm within. Through a recent study of the extant historical sources and archaeological evidence for past human activity on the island, we trace this historical landscape and seascape in order to review the importance of Mona in wider regional dynamics through time.
and engineers in the humanitarian sector about relationships
between shelter, disasters and resilience. Enabled by
an increase in horizontal excavations combined with highresolution
settlement data from excavations in the Dominican
Republic, the paper presents a synthesis of Caribbean house
data spanning a millennium (1400 BP- 450 BP). An analysis
of architectural traits identify the house as an institution that
constitutes and catalyses change in an emergent and resilient
pathway. The “Caribbean architectural mode” emerged in a
period of demographic expansion and cultural transition, was
geographically widespread, different from earlier and mainland
traditions and endured the hazards of island and coastal
ecologies. We use archaeological analysis at the house level to
consider the historical, ecological and regional dimensions of
resilience in humanitarian action.
Los trabajos de campo en Junio 2014 se enfocaron en el reconocimiento de cuevas, documentación visual, recolección de muestras para determinar el fechado y análisis de composición y sondeos arqueológicos para la recuperación de muestras. El patrimonio cultural de las cuevas en Mona es altamente vulnerable al impacto de los visitantes. Investigaciones y trabajos colaborativas con el DRNA, el ICP y el CEAPRC de análisis y fechado arqueológico de las cuevas, su documentación y la protección de esta herencia única del Caribe esta en progreso.
Abstract: This paper reports on indigenous cave use on Mona island, Puerto Rico. It includes additions to the IACA paper presentation to inform readers of subsequent fieldwork carried out in June 2014. Fieldwork confirmed extractive activities, ritual practices and artistic representations deep inside caves in more than twenty-five cave systems across the island. The evidence for indigenous activities, building on the work of predecessors such as Dr Pedro Santana and Dr Ovidio Dávila, not only dramatically expands the repertoire of pre-Columbian iconography, but has the potential to transform understandings of past cave use, as well as traditional definitions of rock art in the Caribbean.
Fieldwork in June 2014 focussed on cave survey; visual documentation; sampling for dating and compositional analysis; and small-scale excavation for retrieval of samples. The cultural heritage of the caves on Mona is highly vulnerable to visitor impact. Collaborative work and research with the Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe to analyse and date the archaeology of the caves and document and protect this unique Caribbean heritage is underway.
Fieldwork in June 2014 focussed on cave survey; visual documentation; sampling for dating and compositional analysis; and small-scale excavation for retrieval of samples. The cultural heritage of the caves on Mona is highly vulnerable to visitor impact. Collaborative work and research with the Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe to analyse and date the archaeology of the caves and document and protect this unique Caribbean heritage is underway.
into social dynamics, especially with respect to the intra-settlement ethos of harmony and community.
Este artículo, La labor del cuidado y la economía afectiva en la construcción del Caribe, aborda las industrias coloniales tempranas como una labor del cuidado en lugar de producción económica o de resistencia. Nos basamos en las filosofías indígenas sobre las relaciones y las ontologías amazónicas para enfatizar las prácticas del cuidar, además de enmarcar los datos en el registro arqueológico del Caribe. En este, investigamos cómo cosas tradicionales como las hamacas y el pan de casabe confeccionados por una población encomendada en el siglo XVI en la Isla de Mona, parte del archipiélago puertorriqueño, rápidamente se insertaron en contextos libres y no libres, ampliando los ámbitos sensoriales y dando forma a las interacciones en el Caribe colonial. El tomar en consideración las cosas tradicionales y cómo se radicaron dentro de nuevos contextos de personas, lugares, y materiales, revela proyectos alternativos de hacer-mundos, lo cual brinda una contestación especulativa a las narrativas singulares de explotación. [arqueología, labor del cuidado, Caribe colonial]
may offer evidence for spit-roasting, pit-roasting, or the use of a ‘barbacoa’ to cook fish on the island. The ubiquity of plant residues in a variety of pottery forms may relate to the large-scale cultivation and export of cassava (Manihot esculenta) from the island. A Spanish olive jar revealed evidence of wine residues, which may constitute the earliest detection of wine residues in pottery found in the Americas.
Keywords Organic residues · Colonial Caribbean · Pottery, Foodways · Diet · Wine
The rock art on Isla de Mona (indigenous name Amona), the majority associated with the island’s long Indigenous history, is some of the most diverse and dense in the Antilles. Since 2013, our project has focussed on this history, building on previous work carried out by Dr. Ovidio Dávila Dávila in the 1980s and 1990s, and by Dr. Irving Rouse in the 1930s. In particular in this paper we consider various subterranean activities that have remained hidden in plain sight because they differ from conventional understandings of what rock art is. The Mona caves have an unusual geology which lend themselves to certain practices, ways of moving through space, interactions with mineral substances, and mark-making. Here we focus on the widespread practice of making marks using the fingers in the soft and pasty carbonate crusts which cover the cave walls, a technique observed in the dark areas of around 30 of the +/-70 caves we have visited out of a total of over 230 caves on the island. The finger-fluting, at the same time as leaving negative white traces observable as rock art, also removed or mined wall deposits in a practice we refer to as art-mining. Art is mining and mining is art. In this article instead of focussing on the recognisable images, we analyse the majority of non-figurative marks. This work contributes to rock art studies worldwide in which the relations between mark-making, caves, underground substances, and elevated states of consciousness form dynamic assemblages connecting Mona with other Antillean underground spaces, as well as with continental areas of Central and North America.
Narratives of the colonial encounter in the Caribbean are based on the idea of a fundamental incompatibility between worlds. Emphasising incommensurability above all else separates native from settler, further compounding the colonial condition, leading to historical generalisation, and influencing archaeological interpretation. Here we try to breach this gap. Indigenous-Christian spirituality occupied a central place in the rock art of the caves of Isla de Mona. We focus on one motif in particular which is of interest in understanding religious practices and experiences in the 16th century colonial period, when Christianity was a topic of intercultural exploration. This article challenges the dualist-thinking in interpretations of early colonial worlds and seeks interconnections between ontologies.
Highlights
• Multiple chronometric methods (C14 and U-Th) provide the first dates from indigenous rock art in the Caribbean.
• Phosphorite (from mineralized guano), charcoal, naturally occurring ochres, and clays from cave floors are the key constituents of rock art paints.
• Complex paints were prepared through the deliberate addition of organic binding media from plant gums brought into the caves.
• The diversity of art in 30 cave systems, repeat visits, and retouching of motifs, indicate complex, extended temporalities of chthonic intervention.
we examine the role that the extraordinary cave systems have played in attracting people to the island and into the subterranean realm within. Through a recent study of the extant historical sources and archaeological evidence for past human activity on the island, we trace this historical landscape and seascape in order to review the importance of Mona in wider regional dynamics through time.
and engineers in the humanitarian sector about relationships
between shelter, disasters and resilience. Enabled by
an increase in horizontal excavations combined with highresolution
settlement data from excavations in the Dominican
Republic, the paper presents a synthesis of Caribbean house
data spanning a millennium (1400 BP- 450 BP). An analysis
of architectural traits identify the house as an institution that
constitutes and catalyses change in an emergent and resilient
pathway. The “Caribbean architectural mode” emerged in a
period of demographic expansion and cultural transition, was
geographically widespread, different from earlier and mainland
traditions and endured the hazards of island and coastal
ecologies. We use archaeological analysis at the house level to
consider the historical, ecological and regional dimensions of
resilience in humanitarian action.
Los trabajos de campo en Junio 2014 se enfocaron en el reconocimiento de cuevas, documentación visual, recolección de muestras para determinar el fechado y análisis de composición y sondeos arqueológicos para la recuperación de muestras. El patrimonio cultural de las cuevas en Mona es altamente vulnerable al impacto de los visitantes. Investigaciones y trabajos colaborativas con el DRNA, el ICP y el CEAPRC de análisis y fechado arqueológico de las cuevas, su documentación y la protección de esta herencia única del Caribe esta en progreso.
Abstract: This paper reports on indigenous cave use on Mona island, Puerto Rico. It includes additions to the IACA paper presentation to inform readers of subsequent fieldwork carried out in June 2014. Fieldwork confirmed extractive activities, ritual practices and artistic representations deep inside caves in more than twenty-five cave systems across the island. The evidence for indigenous activities, building on the work of predecessors such as Dr Pedro Santana and Dr Ovidio Dávila, not only dramatically expands the repertoire of pre-Columbian iconography, but has the potential to transform understandings of past cave use, as well as traditional definitions of rock art in the Caribbean.
Fieldwork in June 2014 focussed on cave survey; visual documentation; sampling for dating and compositional analysis; and small-scale excavation for retrieval of samples. The cultural heritage of the caves on Mona is highly vulnerable to visitor impact. Collaborative work and research with the Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe to analyse and date the archaeology of the caves and document and protect this unique Caribbean heritage is underway.
Fieldwork in June 2014 focussed on cave survey; visual documentation; sampling for dating and compositional analysis; and small-scale excavation for retrieval of samples. The cultural heritage of the caves on Mona is highly vulnerable to visitor impact. Collaborative work and research with the Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe to analyse and date the archaeology of the caves and document and protect this unique Caribbean heritage is underway.
into social dynamics, especially with respect to the intra-settlement ethos of harmony and community.
Affiliation: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge (1), Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, British Museum, London (2), Oficial de Manejo, Isla de Mona, Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales de Puerto Rico (3).
Title: New discoveries of pre-Columbian cave use, Isla de Mona, Puerto Rico
Abstract: This presentation reports on recent discoveries of pre-Columbian cave use on Mona island, Puerto Rico, including mining activities and intensive ritual and artistic practices deep inside caves.
Previously unreported designs cover the walls and ceilings of hundreds of metres of the darkest caverns and tunnels in more than half a dozen caves across the island. Designs were executed by the application of pigments to cave walls, and by incising and dragging fingers through the very soft wet plaster-like deposit on the cave walls leaving white trails of surprising freshness, complexity and elaborateness. Strikingly these finger incisions and the large surfaces witnessing vigorous finger scratching appear to have been related to harvesting the soft calcite deposit on the cave walls in all caves visited. These extractive activities, or evidence for ancient mining, rather than being indiscriminate movements, were systematic and deliberate actions leaving astounding designs imprinted in the walls of the cave. The evidence for pre-Columbian activities builds on the work of Ovidio Dávila, not only dramatically expanding our repertoire of pre-Columbian iconography, but integrating cave use into other indigenous fields of action, with the potential to transform understandings of past cave use, as well as traditional definitions of rock art.
These caves are incredibly well preserved sites, at high risk of future destruction due to the soft texture of the walls and confined spaces for visitors to gain access. Collaborative research to analyse and date the archaeology of the caves and document and protect this unique Caribbean heritage is underway.""
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Have a listen and find out how this object was used to bring people together, during the earliest colonial encounter as well as today!
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