FEWKES] CULTURE AREAS IN THE WEST INDIES 61 



tion, probably also came from the Porto Rican area, although 

 ascribed to Guadeloupe. 



The general character of Jamaican antiquities seems to indicate 

 that the culture in that island was different from that of Haiti and 

 Porto Pico, and the stone implements thus far known from there 

 are certainly more closely allied to those from eastern Cuba. Stone 

 collars, elbow stones, and three-pointed stones do not appear to have 

 been indigenous in Jamaica or Cuba. Their absence is sufficient to 

 separate Jamaica and western Cuba, culturally, from Porto Eico.^^ 



It has been difficult to clearly differentiate minor archeological 

 culture areas of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, since sporadic 

 specimens are found in one that do not occur in others, and the diffi- 

 culties are increased by the fact that in many collections the pro- 

 venience of specimens is often wrongly labeled. It is also to be 

 pointed out that there is no material from several of the islands, 

 making our classification of prehistoric objects and references to 

 areas provisional. These areas can, therefore, only be accepted 

 in a general way. 



Since three-pointed stones and collar stones are limited in their 

 distribution to Porto Eico and Santo Domingo it may be taken for 

 granted that this type originated there or that they are autoch- 

 thonous on these islands. By the same course of reasoning the 

 fishtail and winged implements, limited especially to the volcanic 

 areas, as St. Vincent, Grenada, and Guadeloupe, probably originated 

 where they are found buried in great numbers.^" 



The study of Antillean linguistics ought to greatly aid the arche- 

 ologist in the study of West Indian culture areas. "Words and 

 phrases, like objects, are archeological evidences handed down from 

 a remote past. 



Some light on the existence of the prehistoric culture areas above 

 suggested may be shed by a study of words for animals or plants 

 still current on different West Indian islands. It is instructive to 



'* The more general use of caves for burials and for habitations, and the great number 

 of middens, would indicate an earlier phase of Antillean culture surviving longer in 

 Jamaica than in the other Greater Antilles except Cuba. 



"Father Laliat (Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de I'Am^rique, vol. 1. pp. 142-143) de- 

 scribes a custom among the Dominican Caribs of burying in a cache such valuables as 

 they wished to conceal. These have l>een found in caches in St. Vinc<'nt. in cutting roads 

 through the country, anil may be explained in this way : " When the inhabitants fear 

 pillage this is how they hide what they want to save. For such as will resist humidity, 

 such as objects of iron, plates and dishes, kitchen utensils, barrels of wine and brandy, 

 they make a hole on the seashore 8 or 10 feet deep so that the soldiers sounding with 

 their swords can touch nothing harder than sand. After the cache is filled up and 

 covered with the same sand the balance is thrown overboard so that no elevation of the 

 sand may be noticed. Water is also thrown on it to solidify it, and care is taken to align 

 it with two or three neighboring trees or big stones, in order to enable the cache to be 

 subsequently located more easily by lining up the same marks. 



■' When objects can not be carried to the seashore, holes are made in dry ground or 

 among the canes ; if it is in a savanna the (top) ground must be carefully lifted as when 

 one lifts sod, after which cloths are put around the place where the hole is to be dug 



