Shrines, Pilgrims, Pilgrimages in the Caribbean?

Summary

There is some suggestion in the literature, most explicitly developed by Espenshade (2014) for Puerto Rico, that major enclosures, particularly with rock art, at some point in their life cycle could be considered shrines or special religious places that increasingly attracted visitors or pilgrims from non-local on- and off-island locations. Pilgrimage rounds are well-established components of religious systems both past and current in various parts of world, including the incorporation of a prehistoric rock art site in a present-day Voudou sacred journey on Haiti. The degree to which this concept applies in a prehistoric Caribbean setting will be examined through detailing probable archaeological correlates of pilgrimages and comparing rock art locations in the Greater and Lesser Antilles.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20946