Results from a Bone Surface Modification Analysis of Sloth Bones from Padre Nuestro Cavern, Dominican Republic

Summary

Between 2005 and 2010, scuba diving teams from the Indiana University Bloomington Center for Underwater Science performed surface collections of the entrance chamber to Padre Nuestro Cavern, a submerged freshwater limestone cavern located in the East National Park in the southeastern peninsula of the Dominican Republic. They extracted Chican ostionoid ceramics indicating use of the cave by the Taino culture (ca. AD 1000-1492), Casimiroid lithics indicative of the Archaic culture (ca. 6000-500 BC), and faunal remains including extinct sloth (Parocnus serus, Acratocnus ye, and Neocnus spp.), extinct platyrrhine monkey (Antillothris bernensis), and various other terrestrial and marine taxa. This paper will present the results of the faunal analysis and the methods used to analyze the bone surface modification located on many of the sloth bones, suggesting evidence for butchery of sloths by Archaic groups.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17231