Publication Date

2024

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Bardolph, Dana N.

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Anthropology

Abstract

Macrobotanical analysis of Taíno habitation sites throughout the Caribbean has provided evidence of what comprised the Taíno diet. Although those analyses are important to our understanding of the Taíno, there has been a lack of analysis from ritual sites, and the data recovered from existing sites are limited. This thesis presents the results of analysis of paleoethnobotanical remains from Cinnamon Bay (VIIS 191), a shoreline Taíno ritual site located on St. John in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) that dates to approximately 1000 CE – 1490 CE, in order to gain a better understand how Indigenous Taíno people interacted with their environment for ritual purposes. Paleoethnobotanical data from Cinnamon Bay are compared to data from previously excavated contemporaneous habitation sites on St. John (the Trunk Bay site), and St. Thomas (the Tutu Archaeological Village site), to establish a baseline comparison of domestic vs. ritual plant use. At Cinnamon Bay, maize was present consistently throughout the site, among other cultivated and gathered plants. This site represents only the third in the Caribbean to have macrobotanical evidence of maize, which may have been a high-status food for the Taíno people.

Extent

56 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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