[Aztlan] New Discoveries at a in Puerto Rico

[Elaine Day Schele]

Puerto Rico site opens window into culture of Taino Indians

Austin American Statesman

By MIKE WILLIAMS

mwilliams at coxnews.com

Sunday, December 30, 2007 

 

NEAR PONCE, Puerto Rico - The steep canyon walls echoed to the sounds of
humans for nearly a thousand years before Columbus arrived in the Americas.
Those voices were lost after Europeans settled the Caribbean, however, as
the Taino Indians were nearly wiped out by disease and enslavement.

 

Now, as a result of plans to build a flood control dam nearby,
archaeologists have stumbled onto a major discovery that may help
reconstruct the rhythms of life of those early Caribbean inhabitants.

 

Elsa Jimenez, a public affairs officer for the US Army Corps of Engineers,
points to carvings on a rock discovered in Puerto Rico.
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/shared/news/82908231_PUERTO_DIG1.htm
l  Archeologists from Atlanta working under a Corps contract discovered the
carvings while surveying the area prior to construction of a flood control
dam. The site will now be protected, and is considered one of the finest
found of pre-Columbian Taino Indians, who inhabited the Caribbean before
Europeans arrived.  

 

An Atlanta-area archaeology firm working for the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers has uncovered the outlines of a very large Taino ball court and
ceremonial site, complete with human graves, trash mounds, building imprints
and a few carved petroglyphs that are among the most intricate and detailed
ever discovered in the region.
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/shared/news/82908231_PUERTO_DIG4.htm
l 

 

"Suddenly it went from a very good site to an extraordinary site," said
Chris Espenshade, who led a team of local archaeologists and workers from
New South Associates of Stone Mountain, Ga. at the dig this past summer and
fall. "Part of what makes it extraordinary is that we have everything here,
the midden (refuse) mound, the batey (ceremonial site), the house patterns,
the burials and the rock art."

 

Puerto Rican archaeologists are excited by the find, which will be turned
over to the island's government for preservation and future research.

 

"This is a premium site," said Aida Belen Rivera, an archaeologist with the
Puerto Rican Office of Historical Conservation. "It's a piece of flat land
next to the river, a lovely site. In my opinion it's too large and too
important to have served just the immediate area. It could've been regional
in scope. It's an intriguing site."

 

The Taino Indians were part of the Arawak people who settled the Caribbean,
most likely venturing from the northern coast of South America, their canoes
carried by ocean currents onto the string of islands that curve like an arc
through the tropical sea.

 

Several indigenous villages have been uncovered on Puerto Rico and other
islands, but the recent find by the banks of the Portugues River appears to
be one of the most extensive ever unearthed.

 

The discovery came about because of the river's eons-old pattern of
flooding. First, after the site's Taino originators died out, the river
covered over the remains of their lives, protecting the artifacts from
looters and farmers who might have dug out the stones to clear the area for
cultivation.

 

Then, 30 years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a dam on the river
to control the floods which periodically wreaked havoc on the string of
small villages leading down the river to nearby Ponce, a large city on
Puerto Rico's south coast.

 

Archaeologists first found a few artifacts in the 1970s, but the size and
importance of the site wasn't known until this fall, when the flood control
project finally near construction. Espenshade's team worked through the
summer, but only in the past few months unearthed enough to determine the
major scope of the site.

 

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime find," said David McCullough, a Corps
archaeologist from the agency's Jacksonville office, who said preliminary
estimates show the site dates to around 600 A.D. "The petroglyph carvings
are outstanding, with various human-looking faces and bodies. Another
remarkable thing is the site is so well preserved. It was covered by the
river's flooding and wasn't looted or cleared for farming."

 

The project has not been without controversy. After its importance became
known, some Puerto Rican archaeologists complained that the early excavation
work was done too hastily and without enough care, and that local experts
were not kept informed.

 

"Our concerns were that we didn't know what was going on and that they were
sending things to the States without our knowledge," said Miguel Rodriguez,
a member of the Puerto Rican Archaeological Council. "Puerto Rico isn't a
state, it's a commonwealth. We have our local laws and feel that sometimes
the Corps doesn't respect these."

 

Responding to the concerns, Corps officials re-designed their flood control
project, moving a disposal area originally planned for the site to another
location. They also agreed to turn the land over to the Puerto Rican
government, and have committed to return all artifacts to the island after
the completion of a report on the archaeological significance of what's been
found so far.

 

Meanwhile, the site will be reburied to protect what is there, and armed
guards have been posted to protect the artifacts from looters.

 

"This will be a site for future archaeologists and the government of Puerto
Rico to decide what to do with," said Elsa Jimenez, the Corps spokeswoman in
Puerto Rico. "It's a great challenge and opportunity."

 

 

 

 

Elaine Day Schele

Maya Meetings Volunteer Coordinator

PhD Student

University of Texas 

Latin American Studies

eschele at austin.rr.com

http://www.utmaya.org/

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