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Carribean Human Ecodynamics

07Session - Sessíon

Sommaire • Contents • Contenidos

421

AbstractDomestic architecture in the Greater Antilles, Turks and Caicos, and Virgin Islands gives insights into pre-Columbian human ecodynamics. The increase in extensive horizontal excavations in the Caribbean over the last decades combined with high-resolution settlement data from recent excavations in the Dominican Republic enable a regional synthesis of house data spanning almost a millennium (1400 BP- 450 BP). Results identify the house as an institution which mediates human-environmental interactions through embodiment of traditional ecological knowledge in indigenous building practices. Shared architectural characteristics reveal adaptations to island and coastal environments forming a “Caribbean architectural mode”. The Caribbean architectural mode probably emerged in a period of prehistoric expansion and cultural transition, was geographically widespread, different from earlier and mainland traditions, adapted to island and coastal ecologies, and durable and resistant to extreme weather events..

Key words : pre-Columbian house architecture, building strategies, human ecodynamics, extreme weather and seismic events.

Resumen La arquitectura domestica en Las Antillas Mayores, en las islas Turcas y Caicos, y en las Islas Vírgenes, nos permite conseguir una visión mas precisa de las ecodinámicas humanas precolombinas. El aumento a lo largo de las ultimas décadas, de excavaciones horizontales amplias en el Caribe, combinadas con informaciones de estructuras de asentamiento, de alto detalle, obtenidas en recientes excavaciones en la República Dominicana, ayudan a construir una síntesis regional de datos sobre contextos residenciales que abarca casi un milenio (1400BP-450BP). Estos resultados identifican las casas como una institución que media en las interacciones humano-ambientales al encarnar el conocimiento ecológico tradicional a través de las practicas de construcción indígenas. Las características arquitectónicas rebelan adaptaciones al medioambiente insular y costero, conformando un «modo de arquitectura caribeña ». El modo de arquitectura caribeña probablemente emerge en un periodo de expansión y transición cultural prehistórica. Resulto geográficamente extenso, diferente a las previas y tempranas tradiciones continentales, adaptado a la ecología insular y costera, y perdurable y resistente a los eventos climáticos extremos.

Palabras claves : arquitectura precolombina residencial, estrategias de edificación, ecodinámicas humanas, eventos climáticos extremos y sísmicos.

Résumé L'architecture domestique dans les Grandes Antilles, îles Turques et Caïques, et Îles Vierges donne un aperçu plus profond en l’écodynamique pré-colombienne. L'augmentation au cours des dernières décennies des fouilles horizontales des grands décapages dans les iles, et les données de haute résolution sur les faits d’habitat provenant de fouilles récentes dans la République dominicaine, permettent une synthèse régionale des structures domestiques qui s'étend sur presque un millénaire (1400 BP-450 BP). Les résultats identifient la maison en tant qu'institution qui négocie les interactions humaine-environnement pour incarner le savoir écologique traditionnel à travers des pratiques Amérindiens de construction. Les caractéristiques architecturales communes révèlent des adaptations à des écologies insulaires et côtières qui forment un « mode architecturale Caraïbe ». Le mode architecturale Caraïbe a probablement émergé dans une période d'expansion préhistorique et de transition culturelle, était différent de traditions antérieures et sur le continent sud-américain, était adaptée à l'île et des écologies côtières et était durable et résistant à des événements météorologiques extrêmes.

Mots clefs : architecture pré-colombienne des Caraïbes, stratégies de construction, écodynamiques humaines, les événements climatiques extrêmes et des événements sismiques.

The wise woman built her house upon the rock: Architectural resilience in the Greater Antilles,

Turks and Caicos and Virgin Islands.

Alice V. M. SAMSon - Caribbean Research Group, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University

[email protected]

Sommaire • Contents • Contenidos

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Actes du 24e congrès de l’AIAC - 2011 A. Samson

Introduction

The title of this chapter, a corruption of a biblical parable, refers to the fact that pre-Columbian domestic architecture was explicitly adapted to local environmental conditions, and that in the matrilineal and matrifocal societies of the Caribbean, networks of kinswomen were key in settlement-level decision-making, and undoubtedly active in design and house-building (as a complex multi-person, multi-task activity) (Deagan 2004; Keegan et al. 1998; Murdock and Provost 1973; Sued-Badillo 1979). Archaeological data recovered especially in the last decade from indigenous Amerindian sites across the Greater Antilles, Turks and Caicos, and Virgin Islands indicate that engagement with and materialization of the domestic environment, explicitly through the structure of the house, is comparable across the region. Despite the cultural mosaic of peoples in the region and the diversity of Caribbean ecosystems, shared building traditions coalesced into what can be called a “Caribbean architectural mode”. The “Caribbean architectural mode” embraces a range of building strategies and technological choices responsive to settlement preferences, climatic conditions and environmental hazards. This mode results in new housing traditions, shared across a wide region, and adapted to island and coastal ecologies. In this chapter I concentrate on the material aspects of living structures inferred from the more complete available archaeological plans to distil a number of common features. These can be summarised as: 1) similar architectural footprint; 2) careful siting; 3) similar small size; 4) high-pitched roofs; 5) reinforced facades; 6) prepared floors; 7) securely anchored foundations; 8) durability.

Human-environment-housedynamics

Attention to the role of the house in human-environment relations, namely the ways in which agents materialize their relationship with their environment through houses and house construction, has been overlooked in recent scholarship. This is the case for the Caribbean where the interpretive emphasis has been on reconstruction of cosmology and socio-political change (Curet 1992; Deagan 2004; Righter 2002; Schinkel 1992; Siegel 2010; Veloz Maggiolo 1984; Veloz Maggiolo and Ortega 1986). Notable exceptions have been the research at Golden Rock, St Eustatius where deep house foundations were interpreted as a hurricane defence system (Schinkel 1992), and especially the recent research carried out at the site of Los Buchillones, on the north central Cuban coast, which demonstrated how people employed building strategies for resisting coastal and rainwater flooding thus successfully planning for and surviving climate events (Cooper 2012; Cooper and Peros 2010). However, the downplaying of ecological factors in post-processual and social archaeologies is partly due to an aversion of functionalist approaches to settlement. Although one of the basic considerations in house-building is the need for shelter, this has been translated as a desire to keep nature out (i.e. Hodder’s (1990) domus vs. agrios). Whereas house design

and construction should be investigated as the dynamic interplay of human agency, environmental conditions, historical processes, and explicitly invite nature in!This chapter focuses on the extent to which building traditions emerge as outcomes of specific “human ecodynamic pathways” (McGlade 1995). We address vulnerability and resilience in housing construction practices in the pre-Columbian Caribbean, expressed through domestic architecture. Household vulnerability is defined as the potential for loss and harm of property and human life due to exposure to shocks. Household resilience is defined as the ability to buffer shocks while maintaining core functioning and characteristics (Redman 2012; Redman and Kinzig 2003). Here we focus on environmental shocks, predominantly weather and seismic events rather than political or social, encountered in the Caribbean. Social scientists, disaster response experts and humanitarian organisations are increasingly pointing out that vulnerability is as much a function of the shock, as of social and cultural factors (political organization, preparedness etc.) and should be addressed holistically within social-ecological systems (Cooper and Sheets 2012; Nelson et al. 2012). This is clear when one considers the impacts of disasters in densely populated, marginalized areas of the globe (Haiti 2010, New Orleans 2009). Indeed, in mapping population projections and geographic patterns of hazard events, the World Bank projects a doubling of the number of people exposed to tropical cyclones and earthquakes in large cities in 2050 (World Bank 2010, p. 172). Hurricanes, tropical storms and to a lesser extent seismic events such as earthquakes and volcanoes are a common experience of the Caribbean in the past and present. Between 1900 and 2003 for example, seventeen hurricanes (categories 1-5) crossed the Dominican Republic. Archaeological research is increasingly showing that past climatic variation had a significant local impact on settlements through sea-level fluctuation, flooding and drought events and storms (Beets et al. 2006; Cooper and Peros 2010; Lane et al. 2009; Malaizé et al. 2011). In other words, in the pre-Columbian Caribbean climatic variation and especially hurricanes would have been directly experienced within the lifetime of individuals.

Archaeological context

A reorientation of societies in the Greater Antilles from 1400BP/AD600 reflected in several domains of material culture and landscape reorganisation (population expansion, agricultural intensification, ceremonial centres and settlement hierarchies) marks the transition to the period known as the late Ceramic Age or Ostionoid. This coincides with the moment in which Amerindian house plans first become archaeologically visible. An absence of house data pre-1400 BP and very little before 1000 BP means this domestic transition has not been adequately documented. However, although we do not have a clear idea what earlier houses were like in the islands, their very invisibility may suggest they were significantly different from what came afterwards. A synthesis

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of data from excavated structures suggests it is within this cultural context that we can first recognise the emergence of a “Caribbean architectural mode”, or set of shared building practices in domestic architecture. Ethnographic analogy with lowland South America, and early European chronicles have been used as proxies for absence of archaeological evidence from Caribbean sites. Early investigations such as the site of Golden Rock on St Eustatius (Schinkel 1992), and the presence of burnt posts over two metres deep at Caguana, Puerto Rico, recovered at the start of the 20th century (Mason 1941, pp. 12, 233-247) indicated sites represented potentially excellent opportunities for excavation of indigenous post-built structures. Despite this, information on houses has been drawn from outside the region from areas with different, continental ecologies and below the hurricane boundary, or from scant descriptions in colonial texts (Oviedo 1851; Las Casas 1875). A review of archaeological excavations however, reveals a substantial dataset of complete domestic structures. Data from the Lesser Antilles is not included in this chapter, although its incorporation potentially extends the geographic extent of the Caribbean architectural mode (Samson et al. forthcoming). Most structures have been recovered from the period post 1050 BP, from the larger Caribbean landmasses, especially Puerto Rico, with others on Cuba, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Jamaica and St Thomas, U.S.V.I.. Several summaries marshalling this array of Caribbean data present a picture of architectural diversity with round, oval, square, stilted, subterranean, large and small structures indicating a variety of insular traditions (Boomert 2000; Bright 2003; Duin 1998; Kaplan 2009; Morsink 2006; Ramcharan 2004; Samson 2010). This chapter concentrates on sites with published structure plans from the Greater Antilles, Turks and Caicos, and Virgin Islands (Carlson 2007; Curet 1992; Goodwin et al. eds., 2003; Jardines Macías and Calvera Rosés 1999; Medhurst

1976, 1977 in Allsworth-Jones 2008; Oliver 2003; Pendergast et al. 2002, 2003; Righter ed. 2002; Rivera and Pérez 1997; Rivera and Rodríguez 1991; Robinson et al. 1983, 1985; Siegel 1989, 1992; Sullivan 1981 in Keegan 2007; Valcárcel Rojas 2005; Valcárcel Rojas et al. 2006). The analysis is supplemented with a number of incomplete domestic structures from other sites and regions by virtue of the shared technological choices apparent in their partial archaeological plans.Figure 1 presents twelve sites across the Caribbean for which ca. 100 structures have been published. Individual sites frequently demonstrate a palimpsest of multiple centuries of habitation, although the lack of radiocarbon dates from house features provides little intra-site chronological control. Structures date from 1400 BP to 450 BP, or from the start of the late Ceramic Age expansion up to European colonization, with most evidence available from 1100 BP onwards. Around 60 of these structures have been interpreted by excavators or the present author as houses (as opposed to mortuary, ancillary or boundary structures). The number of structures per site is a reflection of the size of the excavated area, rather than the site or settlement size. Site types range from isolated farmsteads, such as Playa Blanca 5, small villages such Río Cocal-1, to towns of multiple contemporaneous houses such as El Cabo and Tutu. Not all sites yielded equally reliable plans, nor all publications sufficient detail, and the discussions below rely to a certain extent on interpretive bootstrapping from data from sites such as El Cabo and Tutu for which multiple structures are available (Righter et al. 2002; Samson 2010).In terms of settlement preferences and environmental setting, all sites are situated on the seashore or are within several kilometres of the coast (max. 13km). The coastal orientation of the majority of sites is an indication of the economic importance of marine subsistence. Settlements are often sited on elevated landscape features such as hilltops or ridges. Those settlements on the Atlantic

Figure 1. Map of Greater Antilles, Turks and Caicos and Virgin Islands with sites mentioned in text. Sites with complete archaeological structure plans (white dots) and use of bedrock for structure foundations (black stars).

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coasts would have experienced stronger winds and exposure to the elements than those on the Caribbean coast, and many are offered partial protection from ocean swells by being situated behind coral reef systems. Larger islands, or those with greater elevations, experience more precipitation than lower, smaller islands. The houses of El Cabo

The recent, extensive and house-oriented excavations at the site of El Cabo have doubled the number of pre-Columbian structures known from the Greater Antilles. El Cabo, a late Ceramic Age settlement in the eastern Dominican Republic, was first investigated by the Museo del Hombre Dominicano in the late 1970’s, and again between 2005 and 2008 by Leiden University (NWO grant no. 360-62-030, PI Menno Hoogland) in collaboration with the Museo. The site is situated on a low coastal promontory, ca. 5m asl, which forms the edge of an uplifted carbonate marine terrace and looks out across a 120km wide sea passage to Puerto Rico, waves breaking over a coral reef a short distance offshore. The immediate terrestrial landscape of the site is full of karstic features such as caves, especially within the cliff faces of the higher terraces ca. 1.5km inland. Thin soils and subterranean water sources provide the only fresh water in the region.The goal of the latest research in El Cabo was to develop an archaeological perspective on the indigenous house and settlement dynamics (Hofman et al. 2006, 2008; Samson 2010, 2011a,b; Samson and Hoogland 2007). These aims were pursued by a horizontally extensive fieldwork strategy which documented habitation features, domestic structures and settlement space. Excavation of the main unit, situated on the edge of the coast, revealed over two thousand features in 1000m² (Samson 2010, pp. 134-146). The overwhelming majority of these features were interpreted as postholes, the unique preserva tion of which, directly cut into the limestone bedrock, enabled identification of over fifty structures. Thirty of these structures were interpreted as houses, in addition to a communication platform, storerooms for community regalia, fences, wind breaks and work huts (Samson 2010, pp. 151-244). The extended biographies, physical characteristics and practices associated with houses, the dominant architectural form, indicate they were primary units of social reproduction. In addition to the evidence from house features, a small number of burials, mainly from midden areas, as well as a large assemblage of pottery, shell, bone, coral, and stone artefacts attest to the daily and long-term place-making activities of the community.Although the site was occupied from ca. 1450 BP, it was the later occupation which was the focus of research. From 1100 BP to around a decade after European colonization El Cabo was a town consisting of some half a dozen neighbouring groups of houses in linear arrangement along the edge of the coast. Individual houses were periodically rebuilt, or renewed. The archaeological traces of this process are sequences of multiple, contiguous, overlapping house-plans of the same type, forming what can be termed House Trajectories. House Trajectories are the physical manifestation of

long-lived estates whose members were likely able to trace their ancestors back to common, house origins (Samson 2010, 2011b). Houses themselves were circular structures which most commonly range from 6.5 to 10m in diameter and consist of two post circles; an outer perimeter wall of closely-spaced, slender posts, and an inner, roof-bearing configuration of eight, large support posts, aligning on a westerly doorway, facing inland away from the sea (figure 2). House structures (n=31) are consistently larger and incorporate more symmetry in their plans than other structures (n=21), and are the locations of commemorative acts and closing rituals.Such high-resolution archaeological data from El Cabo enables a re-evaluation of certain characteristics of structures from sites with single or a few houses and for which physical data or detailed plans are lacking.

Characteristics of the Caribbean architectural mode

The plans from the sites in figure 1 belong to small, round and semi-round post built structures. Many of the plans have internal features such as hearths and burials, although this is by no means standard, and many other plans lack any internal features. Features exterior to the structures include pathways, fences, and small ancillary buildings interpreted as kitchens, windbreaks, mortuary structures and domestic tools. Although a systematic study of internal and external features and associated artefact assemblages would be an important step in defining whether these structures fulfilled similar roles (a single purpose, i.e. sleeping place, or a multifunctional setting), this is beyond the scope of the current chapter. So other than an air of global vernacular, what do these houses have in common? At least eight shared construction characteristics can be identified:

Figure 2. 3D rendition of the plan of house Structure 11, El Cabo, Dominican Republic. Note the internal symmetries of the plan in the two close-set entrance postholes aligned on an internal configuration of eight paired posts, probably supporting tie-beams and a ring beam. The two postholes of the entrance (top of picture) are the largest in the structure, flanked by postholes decreasing in size towards the back of the house.

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1) Architectural footprint

Firstly, the majority of structures are circular to oval in form providing an even distribution of vertical and horizontal loads and avoiding the complex joinery of corners. All structures use a combination of large and small post elements distributed regularly throughout the building. In all sites there is a clear distinction between heavier, roof-bearing posts, and smaller wall elements. Although the hardness and durability of tropical hardwoods, such as mahogany (Los Buchillones), and sapodilla (El Cabo), mean that even slim posts could have supported considerable loads. On the smaller, exposed islands availability of suitable trees may have been an issue, such as on such as the Turks and Caicos, indicated by structures on MC-6 which rely on stone construction material probably in addition to timber (Sullivan 1981 in Keegan 2007).Studies of European roundhouses indicate that structures up to twelve metres in diameter have no need of internal roof supports (Pope 2008), nevertheless even though most of the Caribbean structures are considerably smaller than this, numerous solutions are adopted for supporting the roof: by the external wall, internal post rings or a central post(s). Structures from several sites in Puerto Rico share the same heavier four-post framework incorporated into the outer wall; a pattern first spotted by Rivera and Rodríguez (1991) for Playa Blanca 5 (Curet 1992) and occurring more frequently on the island (El Bronce and Río Cocal-1) (Curet 2003; Robinson et al. 1983, 1985). Four-post central configurations occur at several sites across the region such as structures at Río Tanamá (Structure 6), Luján I and Tutu (Structures 2 and 7) (Carlson 2007; Righter 2002; Rivera and Pérez 1997). Elsewhere, such as Los Buchillones and El Cabo, inner post rings provide roof support (Pendergast et al. 2002, 2003; Valcárcel Rojas 2005; Valcárcel Rojas et al. 2006). A centre post(s) is not standard, only occurring in some structures in less than half of sites. The expectation of a centre post in pre-Columbian Caribbean houses is based on concentric principles in Amerindian cosmologies often reflected at the house and settlement level (Siegel 2010). In El Cabo for example, the site with the most houses, centre posts were sought, but conspicuously absent in all thirty houses. Ethnohistoric documents suggest houses had closed walls of woven vines (bejucos), although this may not have always been the case. Open walls may have allowed breeze to circulate inside structures, with the use of windbreaks, first documented in Golden Rock, to mitigate strong gusts and provide sheltered areas to work in and around houses (Tutu, El Cabo).

2) Careful siting

Many of the sites mentioned above are situated on elevations in the landscape, such as hills coastal promontories and ridges in river valleys, and are close to hills and caves. In terms of the settlement configuration ethnohistoric accounts describe settlements as informal agglomerations of irregularly sited houses surrounded by trees and other home garden plants and separated by pathways and plazas. The only settlement with a more formal street plan in colonial

times was Higüey, reportedly laid out in the form of a cross (Las Casas 1992, pp. 299, 525; Lovén 1935, p. 336).

3) Size

Third, in terms of floor area, three clusters can be observed (figure 3): a group of houses around 20m² which represents about forty percent of structures, secondly, houses between 30 and 60m² representing fifty percent of the sample, and lastly a small percentage (ca. 10%) of structures between 75 and 100m². From the available date, it can be observed that overall houses are small structures, which fall most credibly within the range of 20 to 60m², with an average area of 39m² (figure 3). Using Curet’s (1998) formula for estimating prehistoric populations this equates to four to eleven inhabitants, which may represent a small extended family, or imply the distribution of members of an extended household over multiple structures. In terms of chronological variation, there is currently not enough dating resolution or a body of reliable early plans to identify trends through time. A reported decrease in house size over time in eastern Puerto Rico has been interpreted as materializing the transformation from a communal to a lineage-based ethos, although the relevance of this model for other regions still needs to be put to the test, and environmental co-factors such as the decreasing availability of timber due to prehistoric deforestation need to be taken into account (Curet 1992; Curet and Oliver 1998). In terms of geographic distribution, size variation occurs within and between sites. In general, houses in all periods are smaller than houses of the South American mainland, where for example, the average floor plan of a variety of house structures discussed by Schinkel is ca. 430m² (1992, p. 184). Ultimately only more large-scale horizontal excavations will shed light on the full diversity of house structures, and at present, the size of known archaeological structures is closely related to the size of the excavated area.

Figure 3. Histogram showing the frequency of house floor areas. This table excludes five reportedly larger structures from Cuba (Los Buchillones, 530 m²), Puerto Rico (Maisabel, 576 m², Luján I, 346 m²) and Haiti (En Bas Saline, two oval plans 15m diameter) due to their incompleteness or lack of published details

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4) High-pitched roofs

Houses probably had high-pitched roofs. This is suggested based on evidence from Tutu, Playa Blanca 5 and El Cabo. The documented roof-pitch for Type 1 houses in this last site was 40º based on the incline of the postholes of the outside wall which also formed the roof (Samson 2010, p. 239).

5) Monumental facades

Fifth, house facades may have been reinforced and emphasized. This is most apparent in the case of El Cabo where large posts either side of the entrance run up to a third of the perimeter of the house, gradually decreasing in diameter and depth towards the back (figure 2). All house structures in El Cabo and three from Tutu (Structures 1, 2 and 6) have either double or enlarged entrance features. This can be seen in figure 4 showing two structures from El Cabo with characteristic narrow, but monumentalized westerly entrances, and a structure from Tutu with a portico represented by doubled postholes facing east (Righter 2002, p. 316). Although not explicitly stated by excavators, an inspection of plans indicate that structures at the sites of Luján I (Structures 1, 6 and partial 7) and Río Tanamá (Structure 2) may also have had entrance features consisting of paired heavy-set posts. In the case of Luján I these entrance features appear to align on internal configurations, as in El Cabo, and open onto a central clearing (Rivera and Pérez 1997). Large posthole pairs in the south-eastern perimeter of Luján Structure 1 and the western perimeter of Structure 6 can be discerned in figure 4, however without publication of further details this remains tentative. In general doorways are narrow and low, perhaps requiring one to duck, and wide enough for one person to pass through at a time (Samson 2010, p. 269-270). In general it appears as if both environmental factors as well as spatial organisation play a role in house orientation with structures taking account of wind direction, or other settlement features such as a plaza.

6) Prepared floors

There is evidence for prepared floors. In some sites creating a level living surface was relatively easy, whereas in others it required significant effort. At Playa Blanca for example the irregular surface of the hill on which the house was built was cleared and leveled by removing rubble and rocks (Rivera and Rodríguez 1991). In El Cabo, rather than concentrating building activities in areas of softer deposits, the hard, uneven peaks of the dipping limestone bedding planes had been removed to form a flat surface inside structures.

7) Securely anchored foundations

There is a preference at many sites of selecting the bedrock substrate for securing house foundations. This is the case for the sites in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and sites on the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic (see figure 1). An alternative means of securely anchoring structures was used at MC-6 on Middle Caicos where stone-lined, semi-pit circular structures with low limestone rock walls were documented. Where foundations are bored directly into the bedrock, postholes are extremely regular in plan and cross-section and must have been made with great skill using perhaps shell picks or chisels. Over two thousand such features in El Cabo ranging from a few centimetres to well over a metre deep testify to the skill and explicit choices of the inhabitants. This practice is also documented for sites in the Lesser Antilles such as Golden Rock where the deepest house posts were buried metres down through layers of volcanic tuff and at Anse à la Gourde, Guadeloupe (Hofman et al. 2001; Schinkel 1992).

8) DurabilityLast, it appears many structures lasted a considerable length of time, through either rebuilding or the replacement of parts. This is something already noted for pre-Columbian settlements in the northern Lesser Antilles by Versteeg, Schinkel and Wilson (1993; Schinkel 1992) who contrast long-lived island settlements with ephemeral village-occupation from the South American tropical lowland ethnographic record. On a functional level this durability is facilitated by drier conditions and fewer pests in the islands compared to infestations, poor ventilation and moisture which accelerate processes of organic decomposition in the mainland interior. Figure 4 shows rebuilding and replacement in the doubling of features of the perimeter walls of structures in El Cabo, and we suggest, along the back walls in Luján I. This is the case with most sites where either structural elements were replaced over time, or the feature patterning suggests repairs and replacements. In the case of the spectacular, waterlogged structures at Los Buchillones, Cuba, dates from house 1 span 360 years, leading investigators to propose indigenous conservation of important structural elements and modifications prolonging the building’s life over centuries (Pendergast et al. 2002). Although the occupation of many of the sites spans several centuries, the number and spatial distribution of features often relate to two and up to five, probably

Figure 4. House plans from top left to bottom right: El Cabo (structures 4 and 14, black), Tutu (structure 2, grey), and Luján (structures 1 and 6, white). Tutu and Luján plans adapted from Righter 2002 and Rivera and Pérez 1997.

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related building phases. This is indicated by the feature clustering interspersed with empty spaces at sites such as Tanamá, Luján I, Maisabel, Río Cocal-1, El Bronce, Tutu and particularly exemplified by the exceptionally clear house trajectories in El Cabo. In the latter site, overlapping and contiguous house-plans from House Trajectory 2 provide an eleventh century date for one of the first houses, and early colonial material directly related to the last house in the sequence. This provides compelling evidence for 500 year’s of dwelling history, or over 25 generations (Samson 2010).

Discussion

From initial colonisation ca. 6000-7000BP, peoples in the islands adapted to coastal and maritime ecosystems and weather regimes markedly different from the continental tropics of South America. The diversity of island landscapes are nevertheless unified by a shared maritime climate, diurnal rhythms of constant trade winds, and periodic dramatic climatic events such as hurricanes, tropical storms and seismic events such as earthquakes, and volcanoes in the Lesser Antilles. From the outset, pre-Columbian Caribbean peoples were oriented towards the sea. This maritime orientation is reflected in settlement of predominantly littoral zones and subsistence economies which straddled both land and sea.

The appearance of Caribbean houses in the archaeological record after 1400 BP may be attributed to several factors including research bias, and their regular, and solid physical characteristics in contrast to earlier, more ephemeral structures. This proposed formalization in the emergence of a house-building tradition may be attributed to multiple interrelated factors including successful adaptation to insular environments, the localization of social identities, and the increased importance of the household unit and formalisation of settlement space (Curet and Oliver 1998, p. 231; Siegel 2010; Veloz Maggiolo 1984). The emergence of a Caribbean architectural mode within this context is illustrative of the interrelation of cultural and environmental cofactors, and systematically demonstrates resilience to local environmental conditions and hazards.

In terms of climate, houses demonstrate adaptations to the winds, precipitation and heat of the Caribbean. High-pitched roofs fixed to the ground deflected wind over and around the houses and ensured good water run-off. Moreover, the irregular pattering of houses within a settlement and windbreaks and partitions help break up the wind gusts and reduce vulnerability. The elevated position of many settlements would have reduced the impact of flooding. The roof was often secured with points of anchorage spread throughout the structure, its weight distributed over the walls or an internal post ring with house foundations generally secured the structure deeply, frequently in the bedrock. House facades formed an additional point of anchorage for the structure, and the use of larger posts arranged either side of a small entrance made access points sturdy so that the face of a house was also one

of its strongest elements, and moreover would have provided a sheltered activity area outside the front of the house.

In terms of hazard response, houses would have performed well in terms of both survivability and speed of reconstruction. This is due to the specific choice of making use of postholes in the bedrock. Foundations were secure in high winds and earth tremors, and facilitated house dismantlement at the approach of bad weather (using knowledge of weather regimes and local forecasting). Structures could quickly have been made storm-safe, limiting damage, the main posts could be laid flat, and the most valuable and labour-intensive parts of the construction (large support posts and foundations) would remain intact and available for reuse. Shelter could be sought in the cliffs or other natural refuges. After initial storm impact structures would have been particularly suited for repair and reconstruction. As soon as the storm has passed, posts could be reassembled in the original foundations. The same postholes may have been reused multiple times for multiple replacements of the same house. Moreover, as has been noted for Los Buchillones (Cooper and Peros 2010), the shedding of building materials in storms and seismic events, would cause relatively little harm to inhabitants. Ease and speed of dismantlement may also have favoured smaller, rather than larger houses, and the choice of smaller, and thus more numerous dwelling structures over larger houses may have increased building survivorship ratios. Houses thus incorporated and shared a “sacrificial principle” by virtue of their combination of robust and replaceable lightweight elements providing an effective recovery system. This finding backs up Cooper’s study in which household resilience is defined in terms of speed of recovery, rather than resistance to impact, and in which it is observed pre-Columbian pole and thatch houses far outperform their contemporary solid, cement, counterparts (Cooper 2012, see fig 4.2).

Conclusion

In one of the earliest written texts on architecture, Roman architect Vitruvius (1791) states that the three main conditions of architecture are strength, functionality and beauty (De Architectura, Book 1, chapter 3, paragraph 2). Later on (book 6) Vitruvius emphasises the role setting and climate play in design and building. These factors have been overlooked in studies of vernacular architecture in sedentary prehistoric communities, where traditional ecological knowledge and social organisation is design in action. In this chapter an attempt has been made to draw together some of the form and design characteristics of the Caribbean house, a key category of material culture, to provide a basis for regional and interregional comparison, and to develop a perspective on pre-Columbian human ecodynamics in terms of strategies in architectural resilience. The above discussion presents additional vectors of variation for the interpretation of posthole data in addition to their interpretation as social, cultural and cosmological blueprints (Curet 1992; Siegel 2010).

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Pre-Columbian Caribbean communities developed house-building traditions which were successful local adaptations to their preference for living in littoral and near shore environments and the ecological conditions of the islands. What emerges are small, carefully sited, designed and evenly anchored structures with high-pitched roofs and reinforced facades. These houses experience considerable longevity due to deliberate prolongation of their lives through rebuilding and replacement. This review of Caribbean

data indicates that in the pre-Columbian past, building strategies and technological choices were resilient, extreme-event resistant and widespread, producing what can be termed a “Caribbean architectural mode”. This discussion contributes data on the small-scale of individual structures to complement multi-scalar and multi-temporal studies of past human-environment relations (Bertran et al. 2004; Cooper 2012; Cooper and Peros 2010; Fitzpatrick and Keegan 2007; Fitzpatrick and Ross 2010).

Acknowledgements

This chapter is based up on a presentation given in a session on Caribbean Human Ecodynamics, chaired by Dr Jago Cooper and Dr Sophia Perdikaris at the 24th Congress of the International Association of Caribbean Archaeology, University of the Antilles and Guyane, Martinique. I thank the organisers for the opportunity to participate and the editors for inviting me to contribute to this volume. Research in El Cabo, Dominican Republic was carried out under the project Houses for the Living and the Dead, funded by NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) under principal investigators Dr Menno Hoogland and Professor Corinne Hofman, Leiden University and in cooperation with the Museo del Hombre Dominicano and the local people of the village of El Cabo. Thanks to members of GHEA, and the Caribbean Research Group, Leiden University and Dr Peter Siegel for comments and feedback.

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