Subsistence, Environment, and Ceramic Technological Variability at Puerto Hormiga and Monsú, Early Pottery Sites of the Caribbean Colombia

Summary

Archaic to Formative transitions in the Intermediate Area of Latin America have been discussed in terms of the timing of agriculture, population growth, sedentism and mobility, use of coastal resources, and the appearance of pottery. The Caribbean Colombia has among the earliest dates for pottery in the New World. Sites such as Puerto Chacho and Puerto Hormiga, shell middens near the coast, were occupied by ca. 5,000 B.P., during the wet period. Monsú, a mound in the riverine environment, was in use by ca. 4250 B.P., during the dry period. Faunal-based subsistence practices differed at these sites. Technologically, whereas pottery from Puerto Hormiga has fiber temper and sand inclusions, that of Monsú has shell temper and sand inclusions. Degrees of residential mobility and reliance on cultigens have been debated. In this presentation, we focus on Puerto Hormiga and Monsú that were recently re-excavated, evaluating the inter-site and intra-site diachronic relations of subsistence practice, environment, and ceramic technology. We investigated the variability of their pottery technology and their faunal assemblages, and compared them with results from existing lithic and paleoethnobotanical studies. This research provides new insights on the behavior and change at the early ceramic sites of the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• New Data for Old Problems: Recent Approaches to Archaeological Research at Caribbean Lowlands

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