ARCHEOLOGY AT LOWER CAMP

Culebra Island National Wildlife Refuge
Puerto Rico
Department of the Interior
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

BACKGROUND

In September1989, Hurricane Hugo devastated the island of Culebra. Among the casualties were the office and residence facilities of the Culebra National Wildlife Refuge (CNWR). As a result, new facilities were scheduled to be constructed in Lower Camp. Federal laws require that before ground modifications-including building construction-can take place as part of a federally landed or permitted project, the responsible agency must determine if there are any significant prehistoric or historic sites that could be impacted by the project. The National Park Service, serving as advisors to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, noted a scatter of prehistoric artifacts requiring the attention of archeologists. In February 1992, archeologists from the Atlanta based firm of Garrow & Associates, Inc., headed by Puerto Rican archeologist José R. Oliver, began the first scientific archeological excavations of a prehistoric site on Culebra Island.

THE SITE INVESTIGATIONS

The Lower Camp site consists of an oval scatter of prehistoric and historic artifacts. By conducting a series of small (30 x 30 cm) excavations, archeologists determined that much of the prehistoric site had been disturbed by both humans and natural causes. One of these small tests, however, revealed an intact deposit of cultural materials-the remnants of a prehistoric occupation in Lower Camp.

Archeologists excavated seven two-by-two-meter units in the undisturbed prehistoric deposit in ten-centimeter layers until no further artifacts and/or features (soil stains) were found (±30 cm below the surface). As excavations proceeded, the earth was screened and prehistoric ceramics (pottery), shell, stone, and coral artifacts were recovered along with an abundance of prehistoric food remains. Traces of two hearths, seen as ash stains mixed with land crab claws and other food remains, were also discovered. One charcoal sample from the bottom of the deposit was radiocarbon dated to A.D. 642 (1,350 years ago).

THE ARTIFACTS

In all, over 2,000 ceramic fragments and nearly 9,000 items of food remains, such as crab claws and fish bones, were recovered. The artifacts include small shell beads, a large "bat-winged" shell pendant (see left), and stone flakes used to cut and scrape. Some coral fragments appear to have been used as grinding instruments. The site yielded an abundance of well-made but mostly undecorated ceramic vessel fragments. (Shaded areas in the pottery illustrations indicate actual sherds recovered.) The vessels include at least ten different forms. There are necked jars, open bowls, boat-shaped vessels, platters, and several receptacles with incurving or inflected sides, some with D-shaped handles. One of the vessels is a flat clay griddle (burén), probably used to bake cassava bread made from manioc flour. The vessel rims were painted red; a few geometric lugs were attached to the rims of open bowls as decoration. By comparing artifacts found at the bottom of an excavation with those near the top, archeologists can study changes in ceramic forms through time. Few changes were noted in the ceramic assemblage from Lower Camp, suggesting that the occupation did not last long, perhaps 100 to 200 years.

SUBSISTENCE ADAPTATION

The Lower Camp site lies between two mangrove stands, close to the Ensenada Honda Bay. A small rise or hill projecting onto the bay protects the site from the trade winds. It was not pure chance that this location was selected. Situated adjacent to the rich terrestrial food resources found in mangroves, the site also afforded inhabitants direct access to the varied marine life of the littoral and rocky reefs in the bay.

The prehistoric food remains, analyzed by Yvonne Narganes Storde at the University of Puerto Rico, tell us that Lower Camp occupants primarily consumed marine life easily obtained from the coral/rocky reefs around Ensenada Honda. Cotorros and loros (parrot fish), meros (groupers), capitanes (wrasses), and pargos (snappers) provided a rich source of protein. The inhabitants captured various marine turtles and possibly collected their eggs. They also gathered mollusks, particularly the burgao conch (Cittarium pica) and the Codakia bivalve. The Queen Conch (Strombus gigas) provided not only protein, but a hard shell for manufacturing objects, such as beads and shell discs.

The most abundant terrestrial food resource was the juey, or land crab, found in the sandy inner edges of the adjacent mangroves. Land mammals, however, were scarce. They are represented in the Lower Camp archeological collection by a single hutía (an extinct native rodent) tooth. Also, few bird bones were found. This suggests that the abundant resource of birds was not exploited as a protein source.

As the clay griddles and other ceramic vessels suggest, the inhabitants probably cultivated plots (conucos) with manioc, which provided a source of carbohydrates. Other crops suitable to Culebra's soils, such as cotton, were also grown. It is likely that the interior parts of the island were largely utilized for farming.

THE ANCESTRY OF LOWER CAMP INHABITANTS

The people of Lower Camp, archeologically known as the Cuevas, were direct descendants of Saladoid groups that migrated from the Orinoco River in Venezuela to Guianas-Trinidad and then through the Lesser Antilles, reaching Puerto Rico around 250 B.C. As they migrated, they absorbed and eventually replaced the Archaic hunter-gatherer-fisher groups that populated the Antilles. Initially all the Saladoid peoples shared a culture rooted in mainland South America. Their material culture (ceramics, etc.) and ways of adapting to the environment were fairly uniform from one community to another. They settled in coastal areas protected from the trade winds, facing reef barriers, and near river outlets.

Archeologists have noted that by A.D. 400 (about 1,600 years ago), the Saladoid culture had begun to diverge. As the descendants of early migrants became more familiar with the local environment and more efficient in exploiting local resources, they began to lose some of their ancestral South American cultural traditions and develop new ones adapted to their surroundings. They were becoming true "islanders".

Puerto Rico was the first island the Saladoids encountered that had appreciable natural resources and space. As they became more efficient, the population began to expand, primarily into the foothills and interior mountains. As these late Saladoids established settlements in Puerto Rico's interior, their culture also began to change. They abandoned the traditional painted vessel designs; the ceramic designs no longer portrayed animals endemic to South America; and the intricate incised decorations and elaborate ceramic lugs became less prevalent. They were evolving into different peoples and, hence, different cultures.

With the growing population, preferred settlement locations were quickly occupied, forcing other splinter communities to settle in less desirable localities. Some migrated from the more bountiful islands to those on which agriculture was far more difficult, and water and raw materials scarce. Around A.D. 640, one such splinter Cuevas community settled at Lower Camp on Culebra.

Not all communities in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands changed at the same pace, and not all relinquished their traditions in the same manner. Most of the native communities in Puerto Rico had diverged considerably from the ancestral Saladoid culture, eventually forming what archeologists refer to as the Ostionoid series of peoples and cultures. These groups established new patterns in laying out their villages (the first structured dance and ball courts appeared at this time) and created new kinds of ceramic vessels and different types of ceramic decoration.

Meanwhile, Lower Camp was settled by the more conservative Cuevas people who remained faithful to the values of their ancestral Saladoid heritage. They continued to produce traditional ceramics, to exploit their environment in a similar fashion to their ancestors, and to settle in coastal locations. One explanation for this is that interaction was very limited between the Lower Camp community and those from Puerto Rico that had already adopted the "new Ostionoid order".

Eventually, the Lower Camp inhabitants also abandoned many of the traditional ways of decorating vessels and used fewer types of vessels to cook, store, and serve food. Overproduction of some of the traditional vessels, such as the open bowl with red-painted rim and concave/convex base, compensated for the loss of vessel types. The ceramics recovered during the excavations, in contrast to the Cuevas ceramics of Puerto Rico, were far less varied and mostly undecorated.

THE AFTERMATH

Lower Camp was eventually abandoned. The reasons may never be known, but it is likely that descendants of Lower Camp moved to another location in Culebra or to adjoining islands, such as St. Thomas, Vieques, or Puerto Rico. More than likely, as a result of the inevitable forces of change, they adopted the Ostionoid culture that dominated the Greater Antilles.

The site remained unoccupied until about 1881, when the Spanish colonial town of San Ildefonso was established slightly to the north. In 1902, after the Spanish-American War, the U.S. Navy established Camp Roosevelt, from which Lower Camp derives its name. As a result, the inhabitants of San Ildefonso were relocated to the town of Dewey, Culebra. Substantive remains of San Ildefonso were not found within the site boundary. However, beer and wine bottles, white earthenware, rusted metal, and spent bullet cartridges, found during the archeological survey and testing, attest to the United States occupation of the Lower Camp area.

In the early 1980s, Lower Camp was transferred to the United States Department of the Interior, who then turned it over to the Associated Free State of Puerto Rico. Today, through an agreement between the Associated Free State of Puerto Rico and the federal government, portions of the area are utilized for the Culebra National Wildlife Refuge.

With this brochure, we encourage visitors to not only enjoy the natural beauty and surroundings as the ancient inhabitants of Lower Camp did, but to see it through their eyes.

José R. Oliver, Ph.D.
Senior Archaeologist
Garrow & Associates, Inc.

RECOMMENDED LITERATURE

Rouse, Irving
-1992 The Tainos: Rise and Fall of the People Who Greeted Columbus. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Brochure prepared and edited with the assistance of the Interagency Archeological Services Division, National Park Service, Atlanta.