Art and Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Cuba presents a number of works, sixteen reproduced in color, by pre-Columbian artists from the archipelago, covering three millennia of human life in Cuba. Living under difficult conditions, the first Cubans sculpted their emotions, fears, and hopes on stone, shell, wood, and bones. Much of their art has not previously been available either within or outside of the Caribbean. Ramon Dacal Moure and Manuel Rivero de la Calle describe and interpret the two kinds of prehistoric art found on the island: that of original settlers, the Ciboneys, and that of the Tainos, who had largely replaced the Ciboneys by the time of Columbus. More than one hundred photographs culled for Cuban museums and collections reveal the superb artistry of the Ciboney and Taino cultures. Idols and amulets carved of stone, coral, and wood; shell masks; stone axes; petroglyphs and pictographs are among the art works never before seen outside of Cuba. Art and Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Cuba is the first report of archaeological findings in Cuba since 1959 and the first synthesis of Cuban prehistoric art and archaeology since Mark Harrington’s Cuba Before Columbus, published in 1921. Since 1959, Cuban archaeologists have been isolated from research being carried out on other islands in the region, just as other scientists have been unable to work on Cuba or communicate easily with their Cuban colleagues. While popular interest in and scholarly knowledge of prehistoric art and archaeology have grown in recent years, the Caribbean has been neglected, and Cuba especially. Through Art and Archaeology of Pre-Columbian Cuba, archaeologists and other professionals as well as general readers will come to admire and respect the talent visible in these examples of aboriginal art.

No detailed description available for "Essays in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology".

Organized by El Museo del Barrio in New York to coincide with a major exhibition, this is the first comprehensive English-language publication on the fascinating legacy of Taiacute;no art and culture. Showcasing over one hundred rare and beautiful ceremonial and domestic artworks and individual masterpieces of this ancient culture -- produced in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas between A.D. 1200 and 1500 --Taiacute;noincludes examples of finely detailed and polished sculptures carved in wood, precious ornaments of shell and bone, and ceramics decorated with animals, birds, and intricate geometric motifs. The contributors include ten of the foremost scholars of pre-Columbian culture and art, and an appendix features writings from Spanish explorers who had contact with the Taiacute;no. Of Arawak descent, the Taiacute;no -- whose ancestors migrated to the Caribbean from the Amazon Basin in South America during the sixth century -- were the first people encountered by Christopher Columbus. Although they ceased to exist as an autonomous society within sixty years of the arrival of Spanish colonizers, the Taiacute;no -- skilled agriculturists and navigators and accomplished weavers, potters, and carvers -- developed a complex political, religious, and social system, and made a substantial contribution to the biological, cultural, and linguistic makeup of large areas of the Caribbean. To this date, Caribbean communities in the Antilles and in New York and other large American cities exhibit the survival of Taiacute;no practices in their worldviews, religious beliefs, language, music, and food.

During Spanish colonization of the Greater Antilles, the islands’ natives were forced into labor under the encomienda system. The indigenous people became "Indios," their language, appearance, and identity transformed by the domination imposed by a foreign model that Christianized and "civilized" them. Yet El Chorro de Maíta retained many of its indigenous characteristics. In this volume--one of the first in English to examine and document an archaeological site in Cuba--Roberto Valcárcel Rojas analyzes the construction of colonial authority and the various attitudes and responses of natives and other ethnic groups. His pioneering study reveals the process of transculturation in which new individuals emerged--Indians, mestizos, criollos--and helps construct the vital link between the pre-Columbian world and the development of an integrated and new history.

"Examines the largely unexplored topics in Caribbean archaeology of looting of heritage sites, artifact fraud, and illicit trade of archaeological materials"--

Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology provides a politically and historically informed review of Cuban archaeology, from both American and Cuban perspectives.

Introduction -- Pre-Columbian peoples of the Caribbean -- Ceramics of the eastern Caribbean -- Ceramics of the Greater Antilles -- Rock art -- Sculpture -- Personal adornment -- Epilogue: Living legacies