Hikers on Caribbean island of Montserrat find ancient stone carvings

Hikers out for a stroll on the Caribbean island of Montserrat have discovered ancient stone carvings that archaeologists believe could offer valuable insight into the island’s pre-colonial history.

The petroglyphs – which appear to depict geometric designs as well as beings of some kind – were carved into the side of a mossy boulder in the densely forested hills in the island’s north.

Petroglyphs left behind by the Caribbean’s indigenous peoples have been found throughout the region but until now had never been seen on Montserrat or nearby Antigua.

Locals stumbled across the carvings while hiking through the island’s densely forested hills in January, but officials delayed announcing the discovery until the petroglyphs authenticity could be confirmed by researchers. Read more.

Smoked Meat and Pirates,

Before Europeans arrived in the Caribbean the native Arawaks had their own methods of smoking and preserving meats.  One such method used the buccan, which was a simple wooden rack on which the meat was laid upon over a fire to slow cook, dry, and smoke.  When French settlers began to settle some Caribbean islands, they learned to smoke meats with the buccan from the Arawak.  Thus they were often called boucanier.

By 1630 the Caribbean was a sea of turmoil as English, French, and Dutch privateers and pirates preyed on the rich Spanish treasure fleets carrying gold, silver, and jewels from America to Spain.  Since pirates often spent long months on the open ocean without a friendly port of call to get supplies, they too had to learn how to smoke meat.  Just like the French boucanier they learned the Arawak technique of smoking meats on a buccan, thus they were often nicknamed buccaneers.

Open Access Archaeology Digest #101

Open Access (free to read) articles: Improvements in Intra-Site Spatial Analysis Techniques http://caaconference.org/proceedings/online/1988/06_djindjian_caa_1988-i/ Historical Archaeology in the French Caribbean: An Introduction to a Special Volume of the Journal of Caribbean Archaeology http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/jca/kellyintro.pdf A Grampian stone circle confirmed [Brandsbutt, nr Inverurie] http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/psas/contents.cfm?vol=113 A Viking burial from Kneep, Uig, Isle of Lewis http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/psas/contents.cfm?vol=117 Cove Harbour. http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/psas/contents.cfm?vol=97

Learn more about Open Access and Archaeology at: http://bit.ly/YHuyFK

Slavery shouldn’t distort the story of black people in Britain

Black History Month should address the fact that many assume Africans in 16th- and 17th-century England were slaves, as Miranda Kaufmann writes in this article for London’s Guardian.

When I tell people I study Africans in Renaissance Britain, they often reply: “Oh, you mean slaves?” Despite the fact that Black History Month – currently being celebrated – is now in its 25th year, and that it’s more than 60 years since the Windrush brought the first postwar Caribbean migrants, it’s clear that many wrong assumptions about the black presence in Britain are still made.

It seems the emphasis on the horrors of slavery, including the commemoration of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act’s bicentenary in 2007, can leave many, especially the young, with a very bleak image of black history. The assumption that Africans in 16th- and 17th-century England must have been slaves is not only wrong, but dangerous.

Of course, slavery………….

Don’t forget to check our sister blog The Black Me

Yúcahu, Taíno God

Yúcahu, was the masculine spirit of fertility in Taíno mythology,. He was one of the supreme deities or zemís of the Pre-Columbian Taíno peoples along with his mother Atabey who was his feminine counterpart. Dominant in the Caribbean region at the time of Columbus’ First voyages of Discovery, the peoples associated with Taíno culture inhabited the islands of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and theLesser Antilles.

“They call him Yúcahu Bagua Maórocoti” is the earliest mention of the zemí taken from the first page of Fray Ramón Pané’s Account of the Antiquities of the Indians. As the Taíno did not possess a written language, the name is the phonetic spelling as recorded by the Spanish missionaries, Ramón Pané, and Bartolomé de las Casas. The three names are thought to represent the Great Spirit’s epithets. Yúcahu means spirit or giver of cassava. Bagua has been interpreted as meaning both “the sea” itself and “master of the sea.” The name Maórocoti implies that he was conceived without male intervention.

He was also later known as “El Gigante Dormido”, or “Sleeping Giant”.

Yúcahu was believed to live and have a throne in the mountainous tropical rainforest ‘El Yunque’, now known as the Caribbean National Forest. He resided in the same manner of the Greek gods residing in Mount Olympus. El Yunque is a large mountain located at the reserve, that diverts hurricanes from hitting the island. The people said that Yúcahu fought with his brother Huracán (or Juracán), the hurricane god, to protect his people.

Yúcahu is also known as the god of agriculture, as well as the god of peace and tranquility, he represented goodness. This was contrasted greatly by his evil brother and Huracán. Huracán was responsible for storms, earthquakes and bad crops. He was associated with the more aggressive Caribs.

Yukiyu was also the Taino name for the region where “El Yunque” resides within. Today, it is known as Luquillo… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukiyu