Origins of the Tainan Culture, West Indies

IV. Ceramics

CHAPTER IV. Ceramics. It is through the pottery, above all, that we have come to discern an archaic era in Mexico, Central America, and also in South America. In the West Indies, the archaic pottery arrived from the northeast of South America with the Arawaks. Since then it has developed on the different islands more or less independently. The ceramic moulded lugs in the form of grotesque human heads characterizes the proper Tainan culture, that came into existence on Puerto Rico and Espanola. The ceramic evolution has been most individual on Jamaica, which lies somewhat apart from the other islands. The I,esser Antilles that were inhabited by the Igneris, in a by far higher degree than the Tainan Cireater Antilles, have been exposed to later South American influences. Pottery, painted before firing, made its way northwards from Trinidad at a late period and replaced the archaic ceramics of the Igneris. On the Greater Antilles, however, the pottery remained always archaic , even up to the time of the Discovery, when its development ceased. \Ve have found genuine archaic pottery in the Arawak shell mounds along the coast of British Guiana, which in its pronounced moulding is nearly equal to the proper Tainan pottery. The American archaeologists are agreed that the archaic era in Mexico and Central America must have embraced a long period of time. \Vhat they comprehend as archaic ceramics in Mexico, possesses very different qualities and grades of development . SPINDEN has shown us the different stages in the representation of the eyes of the little clay figures.I ) In the archaic ceramics of Mexico and Central America may be ranked pottery with ') See Notes on the Archeol. at Salv., p. 453, and Anc. Cit'. of }vlexico etc. Fig. 15. 225 painting of good quality, not only with lugs, but also with handlesl ), with permanent tripods, etc. The vessels are "heavy and simple in shape" and as to form open or "globular with a constricted neck".2) Both lugs and handles occur. The decoration is essentially moulde. The clay head may be more naturalistic and artistic than the ones that occur in the archaic ceramics of South America and also in the West Indies, and extends into the middle cultures,3) which include a large part of what earlier was designated by the term "archaic culture". In South America such archaic clay heads are attached to the open vessels where they are turned towards the interior. However, up to the present date no pottery has been found either in Mexico or in Central America , that is so primitive and of such poor quality to correspond to the first archaic ceramics of South America. This must therefore have reached South America at a very early stage of development in Central America. When we are considering the ceramics of the lowlands in eastern South America, we ought not to give the designation "archaic " the same extension as in Mexico and Central America. The archaic pottery in South America is of coarse material. The decoration is incised and moulded. The modelled heads or faces are turned towards the interior of the open vessel. The still more primitive pottery is undecorated. No well-grounded motive exists for tracing this to Central America, and thus on the whole the invention of pottery from Mexico and Central America. LINNE gives an account of the different methods of building up vessels in America. Of these the moulding method can be counted out in this connection, as it is found only among "peoples of more advanced civilization4)." The archaic pottery of South America is made with the coiling method. In western South America it preceded the ceramics of the higher civilizations. The direct shaping method Linne regards as "undoubtedly the simplest and typologically the most primitive one." Among relatively primitive 1) SPINDEN, Anc. Civ. of Mexico, p. 55. 2) SPINDEN, Anc. Civ. of Mexico, sec, ed., New York, 1922, p. 55. 3) See GEORGE C. VAII,I,ANT, Excavations at Ticoman, Anthrop. Pap. Mus. Nat-History, Vol. 32, pt. 2, New York 1931, some on PI. 58, PI. 66 c, PI. 68 d-f. ') The Technique of South American Ceramics, Gothenburg, 1925, p. 81. 15 226 races in South America it therefore occurs.I ) Basket-moulded clay vessels are found in isolated instances in a region occupied by primitive tribes in eastern Brazi1.2) However, this is not the place to discuss the different centers, where pottery can first have been made in South America. In the...