more from the perspective of the household, the basic unit of social organization. Our ideal expectation was that we would be able to dis- cover elite and commoner households (and their corresponding trash) and trace them back in time in order to understand better the shift from an egalitarian to a stratified society. Keeping this purpose in mind, our field ef-
forts were directed toward discovering houses. This is not an easy task in the tropics, since the structures were built of perishable materials. Most of the time the only observable remains are the hard, compacted dirt floors and the post-holes. Thus, to ensure some degree of success in finding the households I decided to conduct a number of “probing” strategies that included using different techniques and meth- ods. These were successful in the discovery of at least three structures that, at that time, we thought might have been houses, a cooking area and its trash midden, with burnt shells, bones, cooking pottery, charcoal and ashes. Further, we were able to find one of the earli- est deposits of the site belonging to the early Saladoid period (around A.D. 490), as well as a possible area near the entrance of the main plaza where ritual paraphernalia was disposed of and also boulders buried at the entrance of a ball court as possible offerings (cache). After identifying these areas, we began ex- panding our excavations. It was in this stage that the project began producing results that are groundbreaking in Caribbean archaeology. For example, the radiocarbon or C-14 tech- niques are producing dates indicating that the site may have been turned into the ceremonial center as we see it today more likely around A.D. 1000–1100, not necessarily around A.D. 600–900. Thus, the changes involved in the process of shifting from a farming village to a civic-ceremonial center may have occurred later than we thought. Also,
archaeobotanical analyses of the
charcoal obtained from different units have detected the presence of the cohoba tree (Peptedina peregrina, a hallucinogen used in ceremonies), the first positive archaeological identification of this species in the Carib- bean. Faunal analysis has also indicated the presence of guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus), a rodent species not endemic from the Carib- bean, but originally domesticated in South America. The small number of guinea pigs in our samples suggests they were a high-status food, used in rituals, or both. Both the guinea pigs and the cohoba come from deposits that
32 AMERICAN INDIAN SPRING 2017
Student collecting soil and charcoal samples from a post hole northwest of the Main Plaza. Throughout the years the project has depended on the participation of volunteers and graduate and undergraduate students from Puerto Rico, the United States and several other countries.
Students and volunteers excavating the Macroblock, an excavation area southwest of the Main Plaza. Tens of post holes were found in this area of 12 square meters. The presence of the post holes indicates the location of an ancient structure probably made of wood and straw.
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