268 ISLAND CULTUKE AREA OF AMERICA Ieth. an.\. 34 



In the Bahamas the relationship of prehistoric aborigines with 

 those of North America is shown most strikingly in the character 

 of their f)ottery. The Bahamas also suffered from the incursions 

 of the Carib, and their aboriginal culture shows strikingly the marks 

 of this influence. 



From the data now in hand we can distinguish three cultural 

 epochs in the West Indies. The earliest people were cave dwellers,^' 

 a mode of life that had not wholly disappeared at the advent of Co- 

 lumbus, who recorded the existence of cave dwellers in Cuba and the 

 western extension of Haiti. This cave dwelling culture, or the earli- 

 est known in the West Indies, was not generally dissimilar to what 

 has been recorded in coastal South and Central America. It appar- 

 ently extended throughout both the Greater and Lesser Antilles, 

 but on account of the absence of caves it naturally did not exist in 

 the Bahamas. It appears to have been allied to that of the coast 

 of Florida. As the great shell heaps occurring on the islands would 

 indicate, and the pottery from these shell heaps emphasizes, the life 

 of the caves is almost identical with that of the kitchen midden. 

 The absence of fine stone objects separates the West Indian ca^^ 

 man from that of a following epoch, the agricultural AVest Indian, 

 whose stonework reached a jDerfection not excelled elsewhere in the 

 two Americas. The characteristic of the agricultural epoch, which 

 was highest in development at the time the islands were discovered, 

 is best known from the stone collars, stone idols, ornaments, and 

 various other artifacts which have been described in the preceding 

 pages. While pottery was more highly developed in the Lesser An- 

 tilles than in the Greater, the celts and objects made of stone of the 

 Lesser Antilles were as a rule inferior to those of Porto Rico. This 

 superiority in pottery found in Trinidad and neighboring islands 

 is undoubtedly due to the vicinity of South America, the coarse pot- 

 tery of Porto Eico not being highly influenced in that way. The 

 archeological evidences of the third epoch, or that of the mixed race 

 formed by an amalgamation of agricultural and Carib elements, 

 appear to indicate a decline in the arts, as would naturally be ex- 

 pected from the nature of the life of the inhabitants. All three 

 states of culture — caveman, Tainan, and Carib — coexisted in the 

 West Indies when discovered. The first mentioned had been driven 

 to isolated, undesirable localities; the Tainan held the Greater 

 Antilles, but had been submerged on the Lesser except in Trinidad; 

 the Carib occupied the islands between Trinidad and Porto Rico 

 and was slowly encroaching on the Greater Antilles when Columbus 

 gave a new world to Castile and Leon. 



■^The difference between pottery found in the Cueva de los Golondrinos and that from 

 cares in the interior of the island of Torto Rioo is easily recognized. 



