El Flaco is an Amerindian site located in the northwestern part of the Dominican Republic and has been excavated by the ERC-synergy research project NEXUS 1492. El Flaco is a precolonial hamlet...Show moreEl Flaco is an Amerindian site located in the northwestern part of the Dominican Republic and has been excavated by the ERC-synergy research project NEXUS 1492. El Flaco is a precolonial hamlet which was occupied between the 10th and 15th centuries AD. One of the goals of the NEXUS 1492 project is to gain new information about the human plant dynamics of the site. One way of investigating this is to conduct paleoethnobotanical analysis on hearth features in which food plants, fuel plants, and plant foods were processed, cooked, and consumed in different ways. The research described in this thesis consists of macrobotanical and phytolith analyses of five hearth features from El Flaco. The main aim of this research is to investigate which plant foods could have been part of the diet of the former inhabitants of El Flaco. With the macrobotanical analysis, only one taxon could be identified, which is Portulaca spp. This taxon is edible, but since it is a highly invasive plant, it was likely accidentally charred and not consumed. The results of the phytolith analysis showed that five taxonomic groups (six taxa) were likely consumed: Marantaceae/Cannaceae, Annonaceae, Cucurbitales (wild), Cucurbita spp. (domesticated), and Zea mays.Show less
The ERC-Synergy project Nexus1492: New World Encounters In A Globalising World is, amongst others, investigating past activities in the indigenous Caribbean. One of these activities was the...Show moreThe ERC-Synergy project Nexus1492: New World Encounters In A Globalising World is, amongst others, investigating past activities in the indigenous Caribbean. One of these activities was the production of pottery. This thesis aims to investigate the chaîne opératoire of pre-colonial pottery through studying the 'act' of incising and punctating ceramic vessels during the Late Ceramic Age. This research was executed through the macroscopic analysis and comparison of 35 Meillacoid and Chicoid pottery sherd samples with 44 experimentally manufactured clay-slabs which were incised and punctated with 16 different experimental tools of various material types. The archaeological samples which were studied in this research are all originating from the pre-Columbian archaeological site of El Flaco, Dominican Republic. An inland site situated along the 'Ruta de Colon' and at the southern foothills of the Cordillera Septentrional at a distance of approximately 20km from the ocean. The main focus of this research is the potter's toolkit re-creation, comparing archaeological sample sherds with experimental clay-slabs with the goal of figuring out which tools were probably part of the potter's toolkit for the sake of incising and punctating ceramic vessels and which were not. Other variables like the dryness of clay vessels at the time of incising and punctating and the different possible gestures or motions are also discussed in this study. Preliminary conclusions include, but are not limited to a probably extensive toolkit with many tool-types as possible utensils for producing specific incisions and punctations, with tools from the category plant matter (read small wooden sticks and twigs) as the most important part of this toolkit. Additionally, it seems plausible that incisions and punctations were more likely to be applied to pre-colonial pottery on a relatively plastic clay, as opposed to a drier vessel.Show less
In the summer of 2013 and 2014 research was conducted by the Nexus-1492 project on the Amerindian site El Flaco in the Dominican Republic. This site contains platforms and montículos. Montículo A...Show moreIn the summer of 2013 and 2014 research was conducted by the Nexus-1492 project on the Amerindian site El Flaco in the Dominican Republic. This site contains platforms and montículos. Montículo A is excavated in diagonal 2 by 2 m units by using the box-grid method. These units are excavated in arbitrary layers of 10 cm. Montículo A contained a lot of archaeological material, such as ceramics, shell and fauna material. This research contributed to the reconstruction of the formation process of montículo A, which is investigated by J.A.M. Vermeer. Vermeer is investigating the formation process of the montículos on the site El Flaco. He does this by looking at the geological and archaeological components used for the phasing of the montículos. This study contributes to this research by examining the taphonomy and larger context of the shell material. The results of the shell material support Segaar’s hypothesis that there were two phases of occupation on the site, a possible Meillacoid and a Chicoid occupation. Next to that, the composition of the shell material is analyzed and divided into three classes: bivalves, gastropods and crustaceans. Furthermore, the habitat of the shell species is investigated to provide an indication of the food strategy or the ‘food network’ that was used by the Amerindian inhabitants. It is likely that a large portion of this diet consists of one gastropod, the Pleurodonte formosa. However, palynology is needed to provide a definitive answer to this problem.Show less
