
- 356 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Life in an Indigenous town during an understudied era of Haitian history
This book details the Indigenous Taíno occupation at En Bas Saline in Hispaniola between AD 1250 and 1520, showing how the community coped with the dramatic changes imposed by Spanish contact. En Bas Saline is the largest late precontact Taíno town recorded in what is now Haiti; the only one that has been extensively excavated and analyzed; and one of few with archaeologically documented occupation both before and after the arrival of Columbus in 1492. It is thought to be the site of La Navidad, Columbus’s first settlement, where the cacique Guacanagarí offered refuge and shelter after the sinking of the Santa María.
Kathleen Deagan provides an intrasite and spatial analysis of En Bas Saline by focusing on households, foodways, ceramics, and crafts and offers insights into social organization and chiefly power in this political center through domestic and ornamental material culture. Postcontact changes are seen in patterns of gendered behavior, as well as in the power base of the caciques, challenging the traditional assumption that Taíno society was devastatingly disrupted almost immediately after contact. En Bas Saline is the only archaeological account of the consequences of contact from the perspective of the Taíno peoples’ lived experience.
A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Supplemental Materials
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction: Archaeology and En Bas Saline
- 2. The Taino People of Hispaniola before 1492
- 3. Caciques and Commoners
- 4. Polities and Places
- 5. The Social Landscape
- 6. Defining En Bas Saline
- 7. Excavation and Data Ordering
- 8. Houses and Households
- 9. Community Space and Ritual
- 10. Foodways
- 11. Food-Related Material Technology
- 12. Artisanal and Craft Production
- 13. Columbus, Guacanagari, and La Navidad
- 14. After Columbus: Postcontact Occupation at En Bas Saline
- 15. En Bas Saline in Retrospect
- Notes
- References Cited
- Index
- About the Author