View of the Main Plaza from the southwest.
the coastal plains and the volcanic formations of the central mountains. The settlement is composed of a variety of highly distinctive archaeological features, including several dis- crete cultural deposits and nine stone struc- tures (ball courts, plazas and “causeways”) which have been restored for the enjoyment and education of the public. The structures present at Tibes, while not
Map of the Indigenous Ceremonial Center of Tibes showing the location and name of the ball courts and plazas.
clear that our premises and assumptions were wrong. The positive outcome is that we had to regroup and re-interpret the evidence, result- ing in what we think can be a more realistic view of the past. Tibes is located near the south-central
coast of Puerto Rico just north of the modern city of Ponce, approximately eight kilometers from the shore. The site was established on the alluvial terraces of the Portugues River in a biogeographic and geological transitional zone between the Southern Coastal Plains and the Southern Semiarid Hills of the piedmonts of the Cordillera Central. Geologically, it lies between the limestone sedimentary rocks of
30 AMERICAN INDIAN SPRING 2017
as spectacular as the ones found in Meso- america and the Andes, are still considered monumental. The main central structure can be considered a sunken plaza whose construction consisted of removing a great amount of soil, leveling and the transporta- tion of suitable rocks from the river and the nearby hills. Although it is difficult to deter- mine precisely the activities that took place in the structures, in general most Caribbean archaeologists agree that round and square structures most probably were plazas used in communal activities such as areytos (or feast- ings) and the cohoba ceremony (a ritual that involved the use of a hallucinogen, cohoba, to contact the supernatural world). Rectan- gular structures are normally interpreted as ball courts; a game took place probably simi- lar to the one registered by the early colonists for other parts of the Greater Antilles. This game was similar to a combination of soc- cer and volleyball, where the ball had to be passed from one side (or team) of the court to another without hitting the ground. The ball could not be touched with the hands,
CHART COURTESY OF ANTONIO CURET, PREPARED BY JILL SEAGARD
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