ANTILLEAN PICTOGRAPHS AND PETROGLYPHS: PATTERNS AND PROCEDURES WHICH CAN BE APPLIED

IN THE STUDY OF THEIR LOCATION IN TIME

Marcio Veloz Maggiolo, Plinio Pina ,

Elpidio Ortega and Bernardo Vega

Our exper ience in the es tabl ishment of a typology for the "modus operandi" of the Antil lean Indian in the crea t ion of pictographs and petroglyphs has been obtained in field work in the Dominican Republic. We feel it is wise , the re fo re , to begin by stating that we s t a r t off from the types existing in the Dominican Republic in our at tempt to es tabl ish some forms and express ions common to the Caribbean a r e a .

By the m a t e r i a l and method by which they have been made , Antil lean pictographic and petroglyphic s i tes can be divided into: 1) Sites where drawings have been produced with vegetable or mine ra l substances (pictographs). 2) Sites where drawings have been produced by working on stone with pointed tools , which were ha rde r than the stone on which they have been applied (petroglyphs).

P ic tographs we divide into 3 ca tegor ies : A) Abs t rac t and geomet r ica l f igures plus forms without any possible re la t ionship with an apparent rea l i ty (Fig. 1). B) Natura l i s t ic d rawings , usually copies of surrounding rea l i t i es (Fig. 2). C) Schematic f igures , r e p r e ­senting rea l i ty but made with childish pa t t e rns . They include anthropomorphic , an thro-pozoomorphic , physiomorphic , and zoomorphic express ions (Fig. 3).

Pet roglyphs we divide into two ca tegor ies : A) Abs t rac t and geomet r ica l f igures , v e r y s imi l a r to a b s t r a c t p ic tographs . This m e a n s , geometr ic fo rms , concentr ic c i r c l e s , " F r i e z e s " and l ines which have no re la t ion with a given real i ty and which do not " r e p r e ­sen t" a physical rea l i ty (Fig. 4). B) Schematic f igures , represen t ing real i ty but with childish p a t t e r n s , f igures with cruciform hands , anthropomorphic or zoomorphic r e p r e ­senta t ions . The major i ty of the petroglyphic complexes a r e in this ca tegory (Fig. 5).

The production method of pictographs included the use of vegetable or m i n e r a l m a ­t e r i a l s , such as the juice of Bija (Bixa ore l lana) , jagua (Genipa amer icana ) ; mangroove (Rizophora mangle) plus unknown vegetable subs tances , ocre and iron oxide. Thick l ines a re th icker than 4 m i l i m e t r e s and fine lines less than 4 m i l i m e t r e s .

The methods of producing petroglyphs include the use of pe rcuss ion and pecking in­s t rumen t s plus incising and pointed tools . Evidence of these methods of product ion can be seen at the Chacuey and Yuboa s i tes in the Dominican Republic.

There were var ious ways of working on the rocks : I) Linear incision (coarse or fine) or pecking. II) Pecking or picking a dot ( large or smal l ) . Ill) Combinations of in­cis ions and points (dots). TV) Incised and bar relief. V) Combinations of these four methods .

If we use w e s t e r n Cuba as a r e fe rence , in an effort to s t a r t to es tabl i sh p a t t e r n s , we might conclude that the p ic tor ia l fo rms of that a r e a should belong to p r e c e r a m i c cu l -

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Fig. 3. Schematic pictographs

Both from Cueva de Las Marav i l l a s , San Pedro de Macor i s , Dominican Republic.

Similar p ic tographs a re also found in Cueva Pichardo and S ie r ra Cubitas, Cama-guey, Cuba.

4 PICTOGRAPHS, PETROGLYPHS: PATTERNS, PROCEDURES

Fig. 4. Abs t rac t pet roglyphs .

F i r s t th ree from S ie r ra P r i e t a Cave (Guacara del Comedero) , Cotui, Dominican Republic; Republic; fourth, from Punta del Este Cave, Isla des P inos , Cuba.

VELOZ, PINA, ORTEGA AND VEGA

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Fig. 5. Schematic pet roglyphs .

Both from Yuboa, Bonao, Dominican Republic.

6 PICTOGRAPHS, PETROGLYPHS: PATTERNS, PROCEDURES

t u r e s which can be placed, as they should be , within the P a l e o - or Meso-Indian s tage . We would then obse rve that va r ious fo rms of the wes t of Cuba appear a l so in the Dominican Republic suggesting to us the poss ibi l i ty that these types of Dominican r ep re sen t a t i ons a r e a l so p r e c e r a m i c and p r io r to the schemat ic r ep resen ta t ions (P ic tographs ca tegory " C " and pet roglyphs Category "B") .

The c e r a m i c - ag r i cu l tu ra l i s t groups did not r each the w e s t e r m o s t p a r t of Cuba. The re fo re , the paintings of that a r e a were made poss ib ly by the Meso-Indian inhabitants known as "Ciboney". Based on th i s , we have taken the models which se rve us for our working hypothes i s . If the f i r s t Meso-Indian inhabitants of Cuba reached that is land in the year 2000 before Chr i s t (Tabio 1967) and if there was Meso-Indian traffic which included the is land of Santo Domingo, one can suppose that s imi l a r a r t i s t i c exp re s s ions in Santo Domingo a r e con tempora ry to those of Cuba.

We would like to point out that one of the c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of the European Mesoli thic was formal decadence in the p ic tor ia l a r t s and a tendency towards the abs t r ac t . There w a s , after the decay of the "megafauna", a way of life which did not need the g rea t magic of the Upper Pa leo l i th ic . Some authors consider that the abs t rac t ion i s t f igures (decadent a r t ) of the European Mesoli thic re la te to the old ways without any meaning and to r i tua l s which had lost the i r dignity. Juan Comas (1971:172) points out and s u m m a r i z e s the point of view of Goury stating that the Mesoli thic man p rac t i ced a formal i s t ic magic "without conviction, drawing cabal is t ic signs which no longer probably had any meaning to h im. They were probably degenera ted r emin i scences of the magic re la ted to hunting. . . " On the other hand, human f igures , dist inct from the pictographic and petroglyphic a r t of the higher paleoli thic and also uns imi la r to the meso l i th ic , show themse lves in a schemat ic fashion in a l l the European and African Neolithic with the same childish l ines as in A m e r i c a , where there a r e , of c o u r s e , important except ions.

These Cuban f o r m s , of a poss ible Meso-Indian or igin, can be studied in "Emis ión Breve sobre las p in turas de los Aborígenes de Cuba", Museo Montane, Universidad de La Habana, Marzo de 1970 ( repr in ted in Revis ta Dominicana Arqueología y Antropología , No. 1) and in the book by A. Nunez J imenez , "Cuevas y P ic tog ra f í a s " , published by the Cuban Academy of Science in 1964. As we have pointed out, they cor respond to geomet r i c m o ­t ives , concentr ic c i r c l e s , and oval forms with p a r a l l e l l ines and some of these probably reached the Neo-Indian s tage.

In the Dominican Republic, these f o r m s , in thei r p ic to r i a l a spec t , can be found in the Borbon Caves , in San Cr i s toba l , and in the S i e r r a P r i e t a caves in the h e a r t of the mountains of the Cord i l l e ra Cen t ra l . They a r e c h a r a c t e r i z e d by the g rea t quanti t ies of c r o s s e s surrounded by l a t e r a l l ines , s im i l a r to those of the Ambros io and V a r a d e r o caves in Cuba (Fig. 1).

In the Dominican c a s e , incision is used as the product ion method for pe t rog lyphs . It is impor tan t to point out that , with r e spec t to na tu ra l i s t i c f igures , the fish s e e m s to be an impor tan t symbol of the p r e c e r a m i c stage since it a p p e a r s , in styl ized form, both the Dominican Republic (Borbon) and Cuba (Isla de Pinos) caves (Fig. 2).

Having thus analyzed the p rob lem, we can see that the p r e s u m e d p r e c e r a m i c pa in t ­ings of the a r e a would co r re spond to what we have es tabl i shed as abs t r ac t and na tu ra l i s t i c p ic tographs and, under pe t rog lyphs , schemat ic f igures . They would then co r r e spond to the c e r a m i c and agr i cu l tu ra l per iod . Other a rguments in favor of this thes i s a r e :

VELOZ, PINA, ORTEGA AND VEGA 7

1. It is possible to co r r e l a t e these schemat ic express ions at s i tes where ce r am ic m a t e r i a l has been identified near "ba teyes" as at Chacuey and Anamuya in the Dominican Republic and Utuado in Por to Rico, and near sources of water and places where the re was extensive cultivation as at Yuboa in the Dominican Republic. Many stones which formed p a r t of ball games p l a z a s - - a typical cul tura l form of the ce r amic per iod in the Grea te r Anti l les - - have petroglyphs of this type.

2. The ample profussion of pictographs and pet roglyphs , which belong to the sche ­mat ic ca t ego r i e s , demons t ra te the p resence of a much more numerous group than that which produced the abs t r ac t and na tura l i s t ic f igures which we have p resen ted hypotheti-cally as Meso-Indian. In the Dominican Republic, one site alone, Yuboa, has around 550 of these petroglyphs and quanti t ies can also be found at Chacuey, Anamuya, and Las Marav i l l a s (a cave in San P e d r o de M a ç o n s Province) .

3. The min imal amount of abs t r ac t and na tura l i s t ic f igures (both in pic tographs and petroglyphs) found in the Dominican Republic shows that the group that made these f igures was re la t ive ly smal l compared to that which made the other ca t egor i e s .

4. Ceran ics have not been found in s i tes in Cuba or the Dominican Republic where abs t r ac t or na tura l i s t i c pictographs or petroglyphs appear .

In conclusion, we point out that for the classif icat ion of pictographs and petroglyphs and their co r re l a t ion with t ime in the Antil lean region the following factors should be taken into account:

F i r s t : The method of production could have been the same in both the p r e c e r a m i c as well as the ce r amic per iod, and, the re fore , it is not the way they were made but thei r de ­sign typology which gives us information about thei r or igin, e i ther p r e c e r a m i c or c e r a m i c .

Second: That it is n e c e s s a r y to es tabl i sh p a t t e r n s , like the one we a r e now p ropos ­ing, in o rde r to place the Antil lean pictographic and petroglyphic a r t within t ime pe r iods , s ince , many t i m e s , the archaeological a r t i fac ts of s i tes where pictographs and petroglyphs appea r , may be e a r l i e r , or l a t e r , than the date of the making of the drawings , and this p laces the a rchaeologis t always in a doubtful situation.

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8 PICTOGRAPHS, PETROGLYPHS: PATTERNS, PROCEDURES

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