Puerto Rican precolonial history etched in stone

The precolonial history of Puerto Rico and of the rest of the Antilles has long been constructed on the basis of the pottery-based chrono-cultural framework devised by the late Irving Rouse. In my study, which is framed from a materialist-based historical perspective, I put the major assumptions embedded in Rouse's model to the test using as primary lines of evidence the analysis of the technological styles reflected in the production of more than 8500 stone artifacts as well as an inventory of 560 radiocarbon dates from Puerto Rico. Using these lines of evidence, I propose an alternative perspective about the precolonial history of Puerto Rico since its initial discovery by our earliest ancestors to the time of the arrival of Europeans. The recently generated data from Puerto Rico indicate that the origins of agriculture, pottery production, and the initial transformations of the botanical and zoological landscape of the island were registered by the Pre-Arawak peoples. The analysis of the lithic materials from La Hueca-Sorce and Punta Candelero also allowed me to delve into the "La Hueca Problem" and to argue that the La Hueca and the Cedrosan Saladoid cultural manifestations represent two distinct ancestral traditions whose major influences can be traced back to the Isthmo-Colombian area and somewhere in northern South America respectively. I then argue that the late cultural arena of the island was configured as a landscape of plurality rather than homogeneity, which resulted from the myriad 18 of interactions and negotiations that took place between the peoples that inhabited Puerto Rico through time. Such plural scenario not only emerged from the inter-societal engagements that were taking place within Puerto Rico but also from the macro-regional relationships that were being registered with peoples that inhabited surrounding continental regions, most notably with those of the Isthmo-Colombian area. I conclude by proposing a reticulate model for Antillean archaeology in opposition to the phylogenetic framework that is still dominant in the area and the consideration of the Greater Caribbean as a geohistorical area of study.