A Tale of Three Middens: Comparing the composition of mollusk taxa at three Middle to Late Ceramic shell midden sites in coastal Pacific Panama (680 CE to 1500 CE)

Darién Province is an area which has until very recently received little attention from archaeology, mostly due to its remote geography and lack of infrastructure. The nearby Pearl Islands, by contrast, have recently seen a significant amount of research and field work including excavations. The Late Ceramic Period sites of San Antonio and Piangual (12th to 16th centuries CE) on the Darién mainland and the Middle Ceramic L-106 (7th to 10th centuries CE) on Pedro González island in the Pearl Islands are midden sites composed mainly of mollusk shells. The exploitation of these species appears to have been central to the foodways of the people who inhabited these areas before the Spanish colonial period. This thesis aims to change the perception of Darién as a place without an archaeological past and increase our understanding of the area by comparing the two sites on the mainland with the one on the island, focusing on the composition of mollusk species present at these sites. To...Show moreDarién Province is an area which has until very recently received little attention from archaeology, mostly due to its remote geography and lack of infrastructure. The nearby Pearl Islands, by contrast, have recently seen a significant amount of research and field work including excavations. The Late Ceramic Period sites of San Antonio and Piangual (12th to 16th centuries CE) on the Darién mainland and the Middle Ceramic L-106 (7th to 10th centuries CE) on Pedro González island in the Pearl Islands are midden sites composed mainly of mollusk shells. The exploitation of these species appears to have been central to the foodways of the people who inhabited these areas before the Spanish colonial period. This thesis aims to change the perception of Darién as a place without an archaeological past and increase our understanding of the area by comparing the two sites on the mainland with the one on the island, focusing on the composition of mollusk species present at these sites. To achieve that goal, I use new data collected in 2019 and 2022 from the mainland and data from earlier excavations on Pedro González island. To compare these sites, I discuss the taxonomic composition of the mollusk species from each site and compare them in terms of the relative frequency of each species, typical habitats of the mollusk species represented, and in the case of the mainland sites their structure as midden contexts. Based on the results, I conclude that the species found in the island context barely overlap with those from the mainland, meaning few species are present at all three sites. For the habitat portion of the comparison I find that the habitats of the majority of mollusk taxa in each midden correspond with habitats near the sites. I also argue that Piangual is a predominantly modern, refuse midden context while the midden at San Antonio is a more complex site, containing at least two different types of occupation and one species of mollusk (Pinctada mazatlanica) that is rarely found in shell middens in the region. Finally, I acknowledge that more research and field work is needed before these results can be fully confirmed and understood.Show less

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A Tale of Three Middens: Comparing the composition of mollusk taxa at three Middle to Late Ceramic shell midden sites in coastal Pacific Panama (680 CE to 1500 CE)