New Questions and Old Paradigms: Reexamining Caribbean Culture History

One of the central goals of archaeology isthe definition of regional cultural succes-sion. The works of Kidder (1915, 1916,

1917), Kroeber (1916a, 1916b, 1919), Ford (1938,1949, 1954a), and Childe (1925, 1929), among oth-ers, stand as paramount examples of what came tobe known as Culture History.1 Since at least the1960s, archaeologists of the Processual and Post-processual schools have purported to have movedtheir research programs beyond the normativesequencing of material remains and people throughtime and across space. Yet, as Lyman and col-leagues (1997:1) have noted, “those [culture his-torical] principles are still so ingrained in ourthinking that we often fail to realize that we use

them day in and day out as we go about our researchand teaching.” In this paper, we present a critique of the con-

tinued uncritical use of the products of Culture His-tory in archaeological research. To do so, weexamine one aspect (i.e., the Cuevas style of theCedrosan Saladoid subseries) of the culture historyof the Caribbean. In doing so, we attempt to illus-trate the limitations that this practice imposes onunderstandings of the lifeways of past peoples. Inthe end, this work is intended to be a self-criticalassessment of the shortcomings of Caribbeanarchaeology vis-à-vis issues inherent in that region’sdominant culture-history framework. Moreover, itaims to provide an example for Caribbeanists, and

NEW QUESTIONS AND OLD PARADIGMS: REEXAMINING CARIBBEAN CULTURE HISTORY

William J. Pestle, L. Antonio Curet, Reniel Rodríguez Ramos, and Miguel Rodríguez López

One of the central goals of archaeology is the definition of regional cultural succession. Since at least the 1960s, archae-ology has purported to have moved beyond the strictures of Culture History, and yet the constructs of that paradigm (styles,periods, cultures) continue to be used routinely. This work aims to show that by doing so, one is still implicitly subscribingto that theoretical perspective’s assumptions and biases. In the end, this article is intended to be a self-critical assessmentof the shortcomings of Caribbean archaeology vis-à-vis issues inherent in that region’s dominant culture-history frame-work. Moreover, it aims to provide an example for Caribbeanists, and archaeologists working in other regions, of the valueof moving beyond the products, and not just beyond the term, Culture History.

Definir la sucesión de culturas a niveles regionales ha formado, y en muchos casos sigue formando, una de las metas cen-trales de la arqueología. Desde por lo menos los 1960s, la arqueología ha reclamado que ha superado las limitaciones delparadigma de Historia Cultural, pero sus construcciones (estilos, periodos, culturas) continúan siendo usadas regularmente.El presente trabajo tiene el propósito de demostrar que al seguir utilizando estas construcciones, el investigador implícita-mente sigue adscribiéndose a las premisas y prejuicios de esa posición teórica. La intención principal de este trabajo es unaautocrítica de los problemas de la arqueología caribeña concernientes con las problemáticas inherentes en el marco teóricode la Historia Cultural que sigue siendo utilizado en la región. Aún más, tiene la finalidad de proveer un ejemplo para losarqueólogos del Caribe, y para arqueólogos trabajando en otras regiones, sobre el valor de sobrepasar no tan sólo el nom-bre Historia Cultura, sino también sus productos.

William J. Pestle � Department of Anthropology, University of Miami, 102E Merrick Hall, Coral Gables, FL, 33124([email protected])L. Antonio Curet � Department of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago,IL 60605-2496?Reniel Rodríguez Ramos � Social Sciences Program, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Utuado, Puerto Rico 123, Utuado00641, Puerto Rico.Miguel Rodríguez López � Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe, Calle Cristo #52, Viejo San Juan,Puerto Rico

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archaeologists working in other regions, of the valueof moving beyond the products, and not just beyondthe name, of Culture History.

Culture HistoryCulture History, with its emphasis on culture-chronological sequences, informed the over-whelming majority of American archaeology untilat least the middle of the twentieth century, when itwas denounced and discarded in favor of firstProcessual, and eventually Postprocessual, world-views. Here we briefly discuss the central tenets andevident weaknesses of Culture History; we referthe reader to the works of Lyman et al. (1997), Wil-ley and Sabloff (1993), and Trigger (2009:Chapter6) for more detailed discussions on the topic.The fundamental goal of Culture History, as

described by Alfred Kidder (1932:8), was to fullyunderstand the “problems of cultural evolution” ata given place and through time. In working towardthis goal, techniques (e.g., typologies, seriation,stratigraphic excavations) were developed to detectvariation and patterns in artifact attributes andassemblages in the archaeological record. Whilemost Cultural Historians agreed on the goals ofarchaeology (classification, culture history, andlifeways), disagreements arose at the level of epis-temology and methodology regarding the inter-pretation of the resultant classifications. Oneparticular point of conflict was whether the typolo-gies being produced were emic or etic (e.g., Ford1954a, 1954b; Spaulding 1953, 1954). Irving Rouse, the principal Culture Historian in

the Caribbean region, strongly argued for the emicnature of his approach, arguing that modes (thebasis for his system of classification, furtherexplained below) were “attributes which conformto a community’s standards, which express its con-cepts, or which reveals its customary ways of man-ufacturing and using artifacts” (Rouse 1960:313).Furthermore, such modes were inherent in artifactassemblages and represented “a natural unit of cul-tural study” (Rouse 1960:318). As such, theRousean taxonomy was, and remains, a systemconceived by its creator as reflecting the shared andinherited mental templates of the people who madeand used the materials being classified.A corollary of the construction of these cate-

gories, by Rouse and other Culture Historians, was

a highly normative view of the past. Models suchas Rouse’s assumed that “the patterning observedin the archaeological record is a result of the sharedideas and values of a group of people” (Binford1977:30), norms that become embodied in the pat-terns of the material culture that those people pro-duce (see also Cordell and Plog 1979). Theapplication of this highly normative approachresulted in the construction of charts in whicharchaeological cultures were boxed in discrete andhomogeneous (normative) chronological and geo-graphical categories (Trigger 2009:244), with lit-tle or no explanation of the mechanisms ormotivations for the observed changes (Caldwell1959:304). At best, diffusion and migrations wereinvoked as a means of explaining changes throughspace and time (Trigger 2009; Willey et al. 1956). Recent studies in the Caribbean (e.g., Hofman

et al. 2007; Hofman et al. 2010) have echoed therallying cries of American New Archaeology of the1960s, heralding a break from Culture History, andhave argued that Caribbean archaeology is poisedfor a new era of discovery, one that is free of theencumbrances of Culture History’s worldview.However, as we hope to show in this work, whilethe paradigm of Culture History may have beenrejected, its attendant methodology and productslive on, to the great detriment of those working inthe Caribbean and their research.A Break at What Level? Paradigm, Ontology,Epistemology, and MethodologyThe definitions and meanings of these conceptscan vary from scholar to scholar (compare Bate1998; Clark 1993; Kuhn 1962), but for the sake ofsimplicity, we follow Clark (1993) by definingparadigm as the totality of beliefs, values, andtechniques shared by a scientific community. It isthe paradigm that determines the important ques-tions its adherents need to address. Because a par-ticular field of study can include multiple scientificcommunities, several paradigms can co-exist in adiscipline. Ontology is that aspect of paradigm thattries to answer the question of the nature of “real-ity” or the nature of the “knowable.” Epistemol-ogy describes the relationship between theobserver and the knowable or what he or she wantsto know. Finally, methodology is the set of logicaland technical principles and procedures that directsinvestigations.


From the perspective of Culture History, theimportant question was: who was where when?The ontology of this approach was realist, whereasits epistemology was empiricist. The Culture His-torical methodology involved grouping traits,types, or traditions into supposedly meaningful,homogeneous, and normative units (e.g., archaeo-logical cultures), then summarizing their distribu-tion through time and space, thereby making aculture history.2Although multiple methodologieswere developed within Culture History, most werebased on a series of assumptions that flowed fromthat theoretical framework. Among their generalpremises, the following five are most relevant tothis discussion (Cordell and Plog 1979; Trigger2009). For each, we cite exemplar studies from theCaribbean and other archaeological regions; how-ever, as these are assumptions, they are most oftenimplicit in the referenced works and rarely do theirauthors specifically enumerate them.1. Patterns of attributes in archaeological assem-

blages reflect mostly ethnic identities, archaeolog-ical cultures, or “peoples.” Childe’s works (1925,1929:v–vi) are replete with this assumption (seealso Rainey [1940:105–111] and Rouse [1952]),although Ford (1954a) expresses a more utilitariantake on types.2. Therefore, local populations can be grouped

into homogenous archaeological cultures that thencan be bounded temporally and geographically (inthe form of culture areas) (Childe 1935; Kidder1924:163; Rouse 1939, 1951).3. Both categories, archaeological cultures and

culture areas, are empirical categories that are inde-pendent of the researcher and can be summarizedin cultural and/or chronological charts (see Brain-erd [1951] for the notion of “objective” types;Krieger [1944:279-280]; and Spaulding [1953] onthe idea of “valid” types). This assumption is par-ticularly explicit in the case of Rouse’s “modes,”and the countless charts he produced (Rouse 1939,1992).4. Major cultural changes were the product of

migration or diffusion (Rouse 1986, 1990; Willeyet al., 1956:9-23).5. Changes, as represented in the chronological

charts, happened in all aspects of culture at thesame time in the totality of its geographic exten-sion; otherwise, the lines representing the divisionsin time and space would be revised, as Rouse (1990,

1992) often did. This is particularly true if thechange in material culture was a harbinger of a true“revolution” (Childe 1935).In the Caribbean, the shift away from Culture

History was considerably different from that expe-rienced in North American archaeology. CultureHistory remained the dominant theoretical frame-work in the region until the 1990s, and still is themain approach in some of the islands and withinsome archaeological circles. More important, thesupposed shift from Culture History began with-out a healthy critique of its paradigm, let alone acomplete disconnection from it. On the contrary,the asking of new types of questions was not seenas a harbinger of a new worldview (or worldviews),but as a complement, extension, or logical pro-gression of the old Rousean theoretical framework. Most critiques of Rouse’s chronology from the

1980s and earlier were made from Culture Histor-ical perspectives, and focused more on differencesin interpretation than on the rejection of funda-mental premises (e.g., Chanlatte Baik 1981, 1986;Oliver 1999; Veloz Maggiolo 1991). Theoreticalcritiques of the epistemology and methodology ofRouse’s approach did not appear until a decade ago(e.g., Curet 2003, 2004, 2005; Gutiérrez andRodríguez 2009; Keegan 2001, 2010; RodríguezRamos 2007, 2010; Ulloa Hung 2005). This lackof a clean break between the new and old theoret-ical frameworks led Caribbeanists to continue touse the categories of Culture History without ade-quate questioning of their veracity (see Cordell andPlog [1979] for a similar case in American archae-ology during the heyday of the New Archaeology).In fact, a sense of admiration and loyalty towardRouse, his approach, and its results so permeatedCaribbean archaeology that any attack against hisposition normally encountered strong resistance,even from researchers who considered themselves“Processualists.” Examples can be found in Curet(2005), Siegel (1989), and Keegan (1994, 1996,2000), among others.In this respect, many archaeological approaches,

not only in the Caribbean, but also in other regions,have failed to recognize a potentially serious prob-lem. While most of these new approaches can beconsidered new paradigms, which have newontologies and epistemologies and which ask newquestions, these approaches still use Culture His-torical methodology and products. By continuing

Pestle et al.] NEW QUESTIONS AND OLD PARADIGMS 3


in this vein, they are (1) consciously or uncon-sciously adopting most or all the premises andunfounded assumptions used in their constructionand (2) are using a methodology or product that isnot in accord with the supposed new theoreticalworldview.By the simple act of using the products of Cul-

ture History, one encounters not only method-ological problems but also epistemologicalproblems. When one uses the Cultural Historicalcategories of periods and cultures or— as in thecase of the Caribbean, styles, subseries, or series— one implicitly accepts that these are natural unitsthat can (or must) be used in any type of study. Indoing so, one engenders a disjunction between, onthe one hand, the new paradigm and its questionsand, on the other hand, the units of observation andanalysis. For example, recent studies on issues ofpolitical economy, agency, and social and politicalprocesses (Curet 2005; Hofman et al. 2010; Kee-gan 2009; Oliver 2009; Siegel 2010; Torres 2012)acknowledge that many of these phenomena areshaped by decisions made within meaningful socialunits such as households, kinship groups, or com-munities. By using the culture history produced bythe Culture Historical approach, however, theyinstead accept Culture Historical units (i.e., peri-ods, series, cultures, styles) as the significant units,whether consciously or unconsciously. This is, ofcourse, not unique to the Caribbean, but the prob-lem is more acute in that region because the chrono-logical, cultural, and social units are considered tobe the same. Of course, this discrepancy betweenwhat one wants to study and the categories one usesas the basis for analysis limits the explanatorypotential of such studies and the validity of theirconclusions.To advance the cause of Caribbean archaeology,

we cannot simply condemn Culture History whilecontinuing to use the methodology to which it gaverise. Instead, we must consciously re-evaluate theappropriateness of the arbitrary categories and pre-cepts of Culture History in our research agenda. Todo so requires knowledge of the development andstatus quo of Caribbean Culture History.

Culture History in the CaribbeanIn his culture history of the Caribbean, Rouse (1960)employed a method that was notably distinct from

the familiar typologies of other regions in the NewWorld. Whereas many Culture Historians of histime concentrated on identifying diagnostic attrib-utes with spatial and chronological significance,Rouse was more concerned in identifying the attrib-utes chosen by a community of artisans based on a“conceptual framework within which the artifactswere produced” (Read 2009:46). Thus, the job ofthe archaeologist was not merely to identify attrib-utes that changed in patterned ways in time andspace, but also to identify those attributes chosenby the cultural guidelines of the artisans. He calledboth the conceptual framework and the chosenattributes modes (Rouse 1960:313), and he termedhis method modal analysis. Definitions of some ofRouse’s basic terms and concepts follow.Mode. “(1) concepts of material, shape, and dec-

oration to which the artisans conformed and (2) cus-tomary procedures followed in making and usingthe artifacts” (Rouse 1960:313). In summary,modes are all the culturally determined (i.e., notintrinsic biological, chemical, or physical) quali-ties that are manifested in artifact attributes, andthey represent the smallest and most basic unit ofRousean analysis (Rouse 1939:11-12; Siegel1996:675). Examples of modes include red color-ing matter in clay, eversion of rim, loop handle,zoomorphic head lug, line and dot incision, etc.(Rouse 1939). To Rouse (1960:318), each of thesemodes was “a natural unit of cultural study, whereasthe type is an arbitrary one.” As Read (2009:48)points out, modes were “conceptual decision pointsthe artisan presumably undergoes in the process ofmanufacturing an artifact.” Modes are additive, asthey represent steps in the manufacturing processrather than products and can appear in a variety ofconfigurations stemming from an artisan’s adher-ence to a shared mental template. The analogy tophonemes in linguistic analysis is an obvious one,and one that Rouse expressly acknowledged (Siegel1996:672). The division of an assemblage intoclasses (styles, subseries, series) can thus proceedon the basis of the common appearance of mater-ial attributes resulting from modal decisions.Style. “Sum total of a people’s wares [all or part

of a ceramic style (Rouse 1992:185)] and modes”(Rouse 1992:175). Styles are the smallest classifi-catory unit (modes being analytical rather than clas-sificatory), and they represent all the ceramics foundwithin a temporally and spatially bounded area



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defined by their modal similarities (Rouse 1952).Like all of the higher levels of classification (dis-cussion follows), styles are defined by artifactassemblages, and an artifact can only be said to beof a particular style based on its membership in suchan assemblage (Siegel 1996). Styles represent localmodal manifestations (Rodríguez Ramos 2007:36),and the various styles take the name of the site inwhich they were first discovered. As Rouse con-strued them, styles crucially represent both the mate-rial assemblage of a given place and time (typicallyceramics), and, with the addition of informationregarding other aspects of a group’s lifeways, thepeople and culture that created them (Curet 2004;Petersen et al. 2004; Rouse 1990, 1992).Series. “Cultural complexes or ceramic styles,

together with the peoples and cultures they define,that are known to have descended from a commonancestor” (Rouse 1992:184). The concept of serieswas devised by Rouse and José Cruxent (1963)after a realization that certain ceramic styles theyobserved in Venezuela were temporally or spatiallyrelated to each other. The naming convention of aseries involves the addition of “-oid” at the end ofthe name of a site or region that typifies its ceram-ics (e.g., Punta Ostiones site, Ostionoid series).Series are the broadest time-space category of theRousean system, as some series last for more than1,000 years, and, at certain points, almost theentirety of the Caribbean can be subsumed undera single series designation (e.g., the Saladoid series,which stretches from the Orinoco River valley toeastern Hispaniola).Subseries. “Division of a series consisting of

styles or cultures that share a common ancestor”(Rouse 1992:184). Subseries designations were thefinal augmentation to the Rousean system, havingbeen added in the 1980s at the suggestion of GaryVescelius (1985). Subseries represents smaller geo-graphical and chronological groupings of stylesthan do series groupings and are denoted by the “-an” suffix (e.g., Meillacan Ostionoid subseries).While more restricted in spatial and temporal dis-tribution, the logic guiding subseries groupings isthe same as that behind the higher-order divisionof series.Using these concepts, Rouse made a career of

devising and refining the cultural and chronologi-cal sequence for the pre- and proto-historicCaribbean (and other regions of the world [Rouse

1986]). Rouse (1990:59) described his process asfollows:I form styles or complexes of pottery and otherartifacts, each of which is indicative of a sin-gle people and culture, and plot their distrib-ution on chronological charts in order todetermine their units in time as well as in space.Then I group the styles into series and, fol-lowing the lead of the late Gary Vescelius, havebegun to divide the latter into subseries. I plotthe series and subseries on my charts in aneffort to distinguish the successive waves ofpeoples that have engulfed the Antilles duringthe Lithic, Archaic, and Ceramic Ages.

Rouse conceived of these units and their relation-ships in biological terms, as styles had ancestorsand descendants and were linked and grouped onthe basis of genetic similarities (Siegel 1996).Rouse’s culture history was thus dendritic and tax-onomic, reflecting his training in forestry andbotany. As mentioned in this description, one of thesalient features of Rouse’s many publications hasbeen the construction of elaborate culture-chrono-logical charts that graphically represent the culturehistory of the Caribbean (Figure 1). From the 1930sthrough the 1990s, as new findings emerged fromprojects conducted in the region, Rouse wouldupdate and alter his culture history and charts (butnot his methodology) accordingly. Since its initial development, the system Rouse

devised has become ubiquitous in Caribbeanarchaeology. Indeed, almost every study performedin the region has used the Rousean classification,chronology, or nomenclature to some degree.Notable exceptions include the work of Luis Chan-latte Baik and Ivonne Narganes Storde of the Cen-tro de Investigaciones Arqueológicas at theUniversity of Puerto Rico; since the early 1980s,Chanlatte Baik (1981, 1985) and Narganes Storde(1983, 1986) have advanced and revised an alter-nate culture history for the Antilles. Also in Cuba,the influence of Marxist and Leninist perspectivesresulted in the production of culture histories dis-tinct in foundation and nomenclature from that ofRouse (Febles Dueñas 1995; Guarch Delmonte1990; Tabío 1978; Tabío and Rey Betancourt 1966,1979, 1985; Torres Etayo 2008).These few exceptions aside, ceramics, other

material culture and the presumptive inhabitants of



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any given Caribbean archaeological site are almostuniformly described in the terms Rouse devised.For example, ceramic artifacts from a given exca-vation unit can be called Cuevas (style), Cedrosan(subseries), and Saladoid (series); the stratigraphiclevel at which they were found can be described asSaladoid, as opposed to a later Ostionoid level, andeven the people who produced the goods found inthat level can be termed Saladoid.The Particular Case of CuevasThe Cuevas style was originally defined by Rouse(1940) on the basis of ceramics in the Yale PeabodyMuseum. The north coast site of Cuevas was cho-sen over other sites as the eponym for this stylebecause its materials were thought to be more rep-resentative of the entire temporal duration of thestyle (Rouse 1952:336). Cuevas, so defined (Rouse1952:336-341), encompassed all materials ofPeriod II (the Early Ceramic Age) in Puerto Rico(Rouse 1952:331-332), and its modes, as originallydefined, included fine paste, thin walls, bell-shapedbowls, flat bottoms, everted rims, triangular rimtops, decoration on parts of vessels (primarily,shoulders), D-shaped and lug handles, peg lugs(some with perforations), red slip, red-painted rims,white-on-red designs, incisions filled with whitepaint, and cross-hatch incisions, among others.From the time of this style’s initial definition,

however, Rouse did acknowledge some stylisticdifferences through time. While Cuevas ceramicswere meant to represent the entire Early CeramicAge of Puerto Rico, excavations at some sitesrevealed that early “Cuevas” materials tended topossess white painting, a mode that was generallyabsent from later Cuevas ceramics, thereby requir-ing a division of Period II and the Cuevas style intoPeriod IIa (Cuevas with white paint) and Period IIb(Cuevas without white paint) (Rouse 1952:332).Other examples of characteristics differentially dis-tributed in time can be found in Rouse (1940:59).Eventually, many characteristics of the earlyCuevas manifestations became part of the HaciendaGrande style (see following discussion), and asearly as 1952, Rouse (1952:309) writes that find-ings from the Hacienda Grande site might presentproblems for his nascent classificatory system.Based on deposit depths alone, the first estimatefor the duration of Cuevas was A.D. 929-1193(Rouse 1952:564), a surprisingly precise range,

given the method by which it was obtained.By 1955, after seeing materials excavated from

the site of Hacienda Grande in Loíza (both thoseprovided by Ricardo Alegría and those in the col-lections of the Harvard Peabody Museum), Rouseopted to re-arrange his system for the Early CeramicAge of Puerto Rico (Rouse and Alegría 1990:8).While the Cuevas style would continue to exist, itwould thereafter only refer to the later, less heav-ily decorated, and less “complex” materials of theEarly Ceramic Age, with the earlier, more deco-rated, and more technologically sophisticated pot-tery belonging to the newly-coined HaciendaGrande style (Rouse and Alegría 1990:39). In termsof ceramics, the Hacienda Grande style is charac-terized by (a) monochrome, bichrome (in particu-lar, white on red), and polychrome designs thatnormally depict curvilinear and anthropomorphicdesigns, (b) some use of incisions, especially finezone-incised crosshatched designs and wider inci-sions filled with white paint on a red background,and (c) particular vessel forms such as outflaringopen bowls, bell-shaped vessels, effigy vases, andbottles (Rouse and Alegría 1990). Having lost itsearlier, now Hacienda Grande style characteristics,the Ceuvas style’s characteristic traits were reducedto (a) an infrequent use of polychrome painting,modeling, and incisions, (b) white-on-red paintingbeing retained but in smaller proportions and rep-resenting mostly geometric designs, and (c) a grad-ual disappearance of the use of paints (includingwhite-on-red decoration), leaving, by the end, onlymonochrome painting and simple modeled facelugs (Rouse 1964, 1982; Rouse and Alegría 1990).With the addition of Hacienda Grande, Cuevascame to designate the terminal style of the lowlandVenezuela-derived Saladoid series in Puerto Rico(recalling that the series concept was first employedby Rouse and Cruxent [1963]). From 1963 onward, Rouse and his colleagues

made substantial use of the then-novel techniqueof radiocarbon dating to provide some degree oftemporal rigor to the region’s culture history (Ale-gría 1965; Rouse and Alegría 1978; Rouse et al.1963; Rouse and Cruxent 1963). As part of thiseffort, a single bulk charcoal radiocarbon date ofA.D. 510 ± 80 (1440 ± 80 B.P.) (SupplementalTable 1) was secured from the Cuevas site and wasused to provide the first absolute date for the style,with the standard error of that date serving as the



range of the style (Rouse and Alegría 1978; Rouseet al. 1963).Finally, after Rouse had added the concept of

subseries to his regional classificatory scheme inthe mid-1980s (Vescelius 1985), the Cuevas stylebecame the terminal style of the Cedrosan sub-series of the Saladoid series in Puerto Rico. Thisfinal alteration established Cuevas as the last PuertoRican ceramic manifestation possessing strongroots in the South American continent or adjacentcontinental islands, location of the type-sites forboth the Cedrosan subseries (Cedros, Trinidad) andthe Saladoid series (Saladero, Venezuela). By thetime of Rouse’s last publication (Rouse 1992), andon the basis of the first Cuevas date (above) andthree more bulk charcoal radiocarbon dates (two

from the site of Monserrate and one from PuntaOstiones) (Rouse and Allaire 1978), the Cuevasstyle was given a final temporal range of A.D. 400-600 (uncalibrated) (Figure 1).Refining or Rejecting CuevasIn recent years, the temporal dimensions of theCuevas style, and that of most Puerto Rican cul-tural manifestations, have begun to be re-evaluated.While early indications of problems with the tem-poral and stylistic boundaries of Cuevas were foundby Oliver (1995) and Lundberg (2007), the clear-est challenge to the style’s temporal integrity comesfrom the large radiocarbon database amassed byReniel Rodríguez Ramos (2007, 2010). As pre-sented in his dissertation and in other works,


Figure 1. Rouse’s culture-history chart for Puerto Rico.


Rodríguez Ramos and colleagues (2010) haveshown that the supposedly temporally distinct anddiscrete styles of the Rousean culture history wereinstead overlapping in both their temporal and geo-graphic distributions. While we are generally con-vinced of the veracity of Rodríguez Ramos’sfindings, because his samples are drawn from avariety of published and unpublished works car-ried out by scholars using different methods ofexcavation and analysis, and because the culturalattribution of each date is based on each excava-tor’s possibly idiosyncratic analysis of the ceram-ics and other materials, it is possible that sometemporal error may be present. To test the accuracyof this temporal rearrangement, we use a series ofradiocarbon assays from the site of Punta Can-delero as a test case for the temporality of Cuevas.Beyond reassessments of the chronology of

Rouse’s culture history, however, in recent yearshis entire system has been criticized on the level ofits methodological premises and assumptions. Sixmain charges have been leveled, many of whichecho those made by the New Archaeologists againstthe Culture Historians a generation earlier. The per-ceived points of weakness of the systems include(a) its focus on only one class of material culture:pottery (Sued-Badillo 1992:603); (b) its normativeperspective (Paynter 1989; Rodríguez Ramos2007); (c) its troublesome correlation of local pot-tery manifestations with distinct notions of groupidentity and superstructural processes (Petersen etal. 2004:22); (d) its tendency to ignore the socialaspects of phenomena and processes (Curet 2004;

Hofman 1995; Rouse 1990); (e) the inaccuracy ofthe homogenous groups created (Curet 2003, 2004;Curet et al. 2004; Keegan 2000, 2001, 2004;Petersen et al. 2004; Rodríguez Ramos 2007; Wil-son 2001); and (f) the unfounded assumption of thepresence, at any one time and place, of only oneculture (Rodríguez Ramos 2007; Rouse 1990;Siegel 1996; Wilson 2001). Using the temporalreassessment of the Cuevas style as a starting point,we return to many of these criticisms (discussionfollows) in a demonstration of the hazards of thecontinued uncritical use of Culture History con-structs such as Cuevas.

The Test Case: Punta CandeleroThe site of Punta Candelero is located in south-eastern Puerto Rico, on a sandy peninsula that jutsinto the Vieques Sound (Figure 2). The existenceof the site was first documented in 1986, and is onthe grounds of the Palmas del Mar, a major touristresort complex; extensive excavations were madeat the site between February 1988 and June 1989(Rodríguez López 1991). These horizontally andvertically expansive excavations revealed a morecomplex pattern of habitation than initiallyexpected. The excavators have argued for two peri-ods of habitation at the site— the earlier componentbeing associated with the La Hueca complex; andthe later, with the Cuevas style. In this later phase,the site took the form of a semi-circle of domesticspaces and work areas arranged around an opencentral plaza. Eight charcoal dates for this portion


Figure 2. Map of Puerto Rico, showing sites mentioned in text.


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of the site’s occupation were obtained from bothrefuse deposits and domestic structures (houseposts) (Supplemental Table 1).In the course of their work at Punta Candelero,

excavators also recovered remains from no fewerthan 106 human burials, principally from the openspace within the semi-circle of dwellings. Basedon location, stratigraphy, and grave offerings(including numerous graves with unarguablyCuevas-style whole vessels), the excavators wereunequivocal in associating all the burials with theCuevas phase of the site (Rodríguez López1991:612). In his dissertation, Pestle (2010)attempted AMS dating of these burials, therebyallowing us to test, in a very localized and con-trolled instance, the temporal bounds of Cuevas.Of the 63 burials that could be located, 50 possessedsufficient unaltered collagen for AMS dating (Pes-tle and Colvard 2012). AMS dates for those 50skeletons, first reported in Pestle (2010), are pre-sented in Supplemental Table 1.In Figure 3, we present the calibrated date ranges

for the various radiocarbon samples discussed ear-lier and listed in Supplemental Table 1. Calibration

for all dates was performed using Calib 6.0 soft-ware (http://calib.qub.ac.uk/calib/) and the Int-Cal09 terrestrial calibration curve (Reimer et al.2009). The represented dates include (1) the earlyradiocarbon assay used by Rouse in his initial tem-poral definition of the Cuevas style, (2) the exca-vators’ charcoal dates from the Cuevas portion ofPunta Candelero, (3) AMS bone dates from osten-sibly Cuevas individuals at Punta Candelero, and(4) the series of radiocarbon assays representingCuevas manifestations from across the island gath-ered by Rodríguez Ramos (2007, 2010, RodriguezRamos et al. 2010). Beginning at the left end of Figure 3, we pre-

sent the calibrated range (cal A.D. 426-726 at theextremes of the 2� range) of Rouse’s original radio-carbon assay (1440 ± 80 B.P.) for Cuevas (Rouseand Alegría 1978; Rouse et al. 1963). To facilitatecomparison with the recently obtained radiocarbondates, the shaded band represents the approximatecalibrated equivalent (cal. A.D. 500-700) to theuncalibrated A.D. 400-600 range Rouse proposedfor the Cuevas style in his final revision (Rouse1992) of the region’s culture history (an exact cal-


Figure 3. Calibrated radiocarbon dates for Cuevas manifestations in Puerto Rico. For detailed description, see discus-sion in text.


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ibration of such a date range being impossible with-out accompanying standard errors). Moving to theright of Rouse’s original proposed dates are theeight charcoal assays from the Cuevas componentof Punta Candelero obtained during the course ofthe site’s original excavation (Rodríguez López1991). Based on these dates alone, Cuevas appearsto be notably more recent and longer-lived. It is onlyat the oldest extremes of their 2� ranges that thesedates even overlap with the calibrated range ofRouse’s dates for the style; the average of themedian probabilities of the eight dates is anextremely late cal A.D. 834; and the upper extentof the 2� ranges extends into the eleventh centuryA.D. (cal A.D. 1022).Shown next in Figure 3 are the 50 AMS dates

from the demonstrably “Cuevas” skeletons of PuntaCandelero. While all 50 of the burials are associ-ated with the excavators’ proposed Cuevas com-ponent, on the basis of position, stratigraphy, orgrave goods, the eight dates indicated by blackarrows are more securely “Cuevas” in that the gravegoods each included complete Cuevas-style ves-sels. While the 2� range of dates derived from these50 skeletons entirely subsumes both Rouse’s andRodriguez Lopez’s dates for Cuevas, they also sub-stantially extend both the upper and lower tempo-ral bounds thereof. At the limits of their 2� ranges,Cuevas at Punta Candelero, based on the dating ofshort-lived specimens (humans) in clear associa-tion with Cuevas goods, now stretches from nearlycal A.D. 388-1206.3 Even as judged by measuresof central tendency, the average of the median prob-ability calibrated dates for these skeletons is calA.D. 760, well outside of the calibrated range ofthe temporal boundaries Rouse (1992) proposed forCuevas.Finally, at the rightmost extent of Figure 3, we

present the 31 additional radiocarbon dates forCuevas deposits from eleven sites across the island,as gleaned from the radiocarbon database ofRodríguez Ramos (Rodríguez Ramos 2007, 2010;Rodríguez Ramos et al. 2010). As judged by thesedates, any lingering semblance of the temporalcoherence of the Cuevas style as traditionallyunderstood (in terms of discreteness and lack ofcontemporaneity with other styles) disappears. Atthe limits of their 2�probability ranges, these datesnow show that Cuevas (however that ends up beingdefined, see following discussion) could have

lasted as long as 1,400 years, from as early as 41cal B.C. (PO-39) to as late as cal A.D. 1395 (LilyCaribe). Even without the two late outlying datesfrom Lily Caribe, the span of Cuevas (again, at thelimits of the 2� ranges) could still be more than1,200 years. Important in terms of testing the coher-ence and accuracy of Rodríguez Ramos’ radiocar-bon database, the 50 AMS dates from the PuntaCandelero burials are statistically indistinguishablefrom these dates for Cuevas manifestations at sitesacross the island.

Discussion and ConclusionIn interpreting these results, we (1) assess theirimplications for Puerto Rican/Caribbean archae-ology and the culture history that archaeologistsworking in the region followed almost uniformlyfor the past 70 years, (2) examine what implica-tions such findings have for the broader relation-ship between Culture History (or its lingeringassumptions, premises, and biases) and currentarchaeological endeavor, regardless of region, and(3) provide some constructive suggestions aboutfuture directions for archaeological research in apost-Culture Historical era.Caribbean Culture HistoryAt the most local scale, these results have seriousramifications for the Rousean culture history of theCaribbean. To begin with, the temporal findingsfrom the Cuevas skeletons of Punta Candelero ver-ify the broader accuracy and integrity of RodríguezRamos’s findings regarding the temporal dimen-sions of the Cuevas style and serve to wholly inval-idate the temporal boundaries of the style proposedby Rouse. This observation is not meant to criti-cize Irving Rouse, nor is it made from a positionof ignorance of the chronometric methods ofarchaeology in the 1960s and 1970s. Instead, it laysbare our error in assuming, rather than demon-strating, the validity of these earlier culture histor-ical findings. Taken together, these new chronometric find-

ings, as seen in Figure 4, indicate that Cuevas lastedfrom sometime around cal A.D. 248 through calA.D. 1318, based on median probabilities (or pos-sibly longer, when the 2� ranges are considered).While this study can only speak to the specific caseof Cuevas, by confirming one aspect of Rodríguez



Ramos’s deconstruction of the Rousean chronol-ogy, it lends greater credence to his findings as awhole. As noted by Rodríguez Ramos and col-leagues (2010:21), Rouse’s notion of “typologicaltime is inappropriate for addressing issues of vary-ing scales of temporality and . . . it blurs the hori-zontal and vertical variability that existed in theisland through time.” Rouse’s thinking, in thisaccount, is emblematic of Culture History’sAssumption Number 2 (temporally and geograph-ically bounded cultural homogeneity), and it is thisprecise sort of thinking that the present findingsinvalidate. By showing that manifestations of theCuevas style lasted ten centuries longer than Rouseproposed and overlapped temporally with seven ofthe eight other styles that he proposed for the island(all of which also overrun their supposed bounds,see Figures 1 and 3), the error of this line of Rouseanthinking is manifest.The natural question that follows from these

findings concerns the continuing utility of terms

such as “Cuevas” or the other seemingly hollow ele-ments of the Caribbean’s culture history. If mani-festations of something called “Cuevas” lack anyof their supposed temporal coherence, what can orshould the term continue to mean, and should iteven be retained? Do the supposed natural cate-gories of the Culture Historian (Assumption Num-ber 3, that archaeological cultures are natural andexist independent of the researcher) retain anymeaning once they have been invalidated? Thereare at least three possible answers to these questions. One possibility is that Cuevas, as some sort of

identity, actually existed to some degree in accor-dance with Rouse’s definition, but that the times-pan associated with the style was simply muchlonger than Rouse estimated it to be. The alterationof the style’s temporal boundaries by itself invali-dates the mono-ethnic precept of the Rousean/Cul-ture Historical method that could conceive of onlyone people existing in one place at one time (acorollary of Cultural History Assumption Number


Figure 4. Isotopic evidence of diachronic dietary shift at Punta Candelero.


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#2). Stylistic overlap, of the sort demonstrated here,raises the possibility of multiethnic communitiesor social plurality as Rodríguez Ramos (2010) haspreviously argued.Alternatively, the recovery of Cuevas style

materials can no longer be seen as reflecting a par-ticular cultural or ethnic identity, much less as anindex or marker fossil. Cuevas style ceramics, aspresently defined, were produced for over a mil-lennium across the island’s width and breadth, andoverlapped entirely with the production of numer-ous other styles of ceramic, both within sites(Rodríguez Ramos 2007:302-303) and at differentcontemporary sites. Thus, there is nothing chrono-logically unique or exclusive about the culturalmanifestations (ceramics) traditionally lumpedunder the term “Cuevas.” From this perspective,referring to Cuevas sites, Cuevas occupationphases, or Cuevas burials (as at Punta Candelero)appears meaningless (as traditionally defined), asthere is no such aspect as a discrete “Cuevas.”Instead, whatever it is that we call Cuevas wouldappear to be only a distinct ceramic assemblage,an assemblage of Rousean modes— without a soleaccompanying ethnicity, style, culture, or society.This invalidates Culture History Assumption Num-ber 1 (patterns of archaeological attributes reflectethnicity). Perhaps, as Carlson and Torres(2011:420-421) have observed, Cuevas ceramicsrepresent some sort of long-surviving fine or serv-ing ware, the production of which remained rela-tively continuous and long-lasting despite changesin the underlying utilitarian wares. If Cuevas isthus reduced to only denoting a set of ceramic-manufacture conventions, the way that other cul-tural phenomena previously lumped under theheading of Cuevas are now understood, undergo-ing a radical revision. A third possibility is that the previous two expla-

nations could be combined. Under such a scenario,Cuevas began its existence in association with a spe-cific cultural identity, but over time was reduced toa set of ceramic-manufacture conventions that wereused by multiple peoples/cultures, following aprocess of emulation, appropriation, or transcultur-ation. Such a scenario would invalidate Culture His-tory Assumption Number 4 (changes in materialculture follow events of migration or diffusion).Regardless of the preferred explanation, this revisedtemporal understanding of whatCuevas is changes

our understanding of actual lifeways and processesin ancient Puerto Rico. Here we present two briefexamples of the impact of such revised under-standings, both of which are illustrative of the lackof merit of Culture History Assumption Number 5(simultaneous change in the totality of a culture).Recent studies (e.g., Curet 2005) have used the

traditional Rousean chronology and assumed thatthe burials from Punta Candelero were a) contem-porary and b) restricted to the period A.D. 400-600,concluding that the site was a short-lived migrantcommunity. If these assumptions had guided Pes-tle’s study of paleodiet at Punta Candelero (Pestle2010), he would have developed a normativeunderstanding of the nature of the “Cuevas” diet atthe site, thereby looking past significant variationsin diet among the various individuals buried there.Instead, with dates in hand for every burial in ques-tion, and with the actual broad temporal span of theburials revealed, Pestle was able to see the diver-sity in dietary signature at the site as the result oflong-term diachronic shifts from a heavy relianceon reef and seagrass-derived protein to a muchheavier reliance on terrestrial protein sources (Fig-ure 4). Such a shift not only belies the sort of nor-mativity that is at the very heart of the CultureHistorical approach, but also demonstrates theobvious lack of universality of cultural change, asdiet in Punta Candelero changed dramatically whileceramics remained the same.On a broader, islandwide scale, the significantly

later terminus of Cuevas questions widely heldunderstandings of the development of socialinequality and the centralization of political poweron the island. As traditionally understood (Curet1992, 1996, 2005; Siegel 1992), material cultureof the Cuevas style was thought to be the productof people possessing an egalitarian political con-figuration. The first indicators of increasing socio-political inequality, so it has been argued, appearin the form of monumentalized ball courts andplazas at civic-ceremonial centers at the begin-ning of the following series (the Ostionoid), aroundA.D. 600. Thus, Cuevas materials in deposits atsuch sites were believed to precede their monu-mentalization and the amassing of individual polit-ical power. Now, as it has been demonstrated thatCuevas lasted well past cal A.D. 1000, perhaps weneed to understand the appearance of Cuevas mate-rials at ceremonial centers not as leftovers from an



earlier phase of occupation or use, but rather asevidence that such sites functioned as multiethnicgathering place, wherein unifying, rather than dif-ferentiating, activities took place (e.g., Torres2012). This revised temporal understanding thuscan have much more important and interestingprocessual reverberations.Paradigmatic ImplicationsWhile the temporal redefinition of the Cuevas stylehas obvious local implications, it also serves as anobject lesson about the nature of Culture Histori-cal products and the problems that result from theircontinued use. Put more simply, what we proposeis not a simple chronological tweak to the system,as the factual inaccuracy of the region’s dominantculture history provides entry into an examinationof its fallacious underpinnings. As detailed above,even if one rejects Culture History, in using itsproducts, such as the Cuevas style, one is stillimplicitly subscribing to that paradigm’s assump-tions and biases. In instances of gross factual inac-curacy, such as demonstrated here, the harm causedby such continued use is greatly compounded. Inthis sense, these locally significant findings haveramifications not just for Puerto Rico or theCaribbean; because similar problems exist in otherregions of the world, they can inform the processof building culture history in any region. By referencing a culture history construct/prod-

uct when discussing a site, phase, assemblage, orartifact, one is in effect using reductive shorthandthat is meant to rapidly bring others up to speed onthe cultural context of one’s findings. In saying thatobject X is Cuevas, one denotes that it is a productof the period A.D. 400-600 (or whatever is the con-sensus of the date range for that style at a givenmoment), that it was made in a society possessingan egalitarian political configuration, by peoplewho shared a uniform, demonstrable, and emic cul-tural affinity with all the other people who madeCuevas objects. Furthermore, if one reports the dis-covery of a Cuevas deposit overlain by materialsof the Ostiones style (Ostionan Ostionoid sub-series), one is implicitly communicating culturaldiscontinuity, temporal succession, total culturalchange along a uniform vector, and the evolutionor replacement (absorption, acculturation, eradi-cation) of a less “developed” culture (and people)by a more advanced one. While few contemporary

archaeologists, Caribbean or otherwise, would con-fess to believing or subscribing to all of the above,by using any construct of Culture History (e.g.,Cuevas), one perpetuates such notions. In eitherinstance, the use of culture historical categoriesreinforces their supposed reality.The problem confronting archaeologists is, in

many respects, akin to that seen within physicalanthropology during the last century. Physicalanthropologists of the nineteenth and early twen-tieth centuries worked primarily within a racialist(and racist) paradigm that reduced the variation ofthe world’s human inhabitants to a handful of sup-posedly meaningful racial types (Cook 2006;Spencer 1982). Since Boas’s (1912) seminal workat the turn of the twentieth century, nail after nailhas been driven into the coffin of this racialistworldview and the specious products (types suchas “Caucasoid” and “Negroid”) that it yielded(Gould 1981). Thus, one would be hard-pressed tofind a contemporary physical anthropologist (withthe possible exception of forensic anthropologists,who necessarily are required to identify a subject’s“race”) who still uses such groupings, having beenshown to be without merit, in the course of theirwork. To employ such units of analysis would beto subscribe to the flawed theoretical assumptions(in this case, Eurocentrism and racism) that pro-duced them.In the present case, where we can demonstrate

the factual inaccuracy of the culture historicalproducts, we would state categorically that thetime has come to leave these last vestiges of Cul-ture History behind. However, even in regionswhere the chronology developed by Culture His-torians is secure and accurate, the assumptions thatguided their construction of categories/types/cul-tures are still not in concordance with contempo-rary approaches. Thus, the first step in anyre-evaluation of a region’s culture history must bea critical reassessment or testing of our workingassumptions (e.g., Can more than one people livein one place at one time?). In such a way, a cul-ture history free of Culture History can be made.Only when this step has been taken can other approaches— including, but not limited to, net-work theory, computational modeling, landscapearchaeology, gender theory, agency theory, behav-ioral ecology, Marxist archaeology, historical ecol-ogy, etc.—be applied without the invalidating



encumbrance of Culture History’s paradigmaticassumptions. Future DirectionsAlthough the prospect of leaving behind the com-fort of the “pillowed squares that form the basis of(t)his model” (Rodríguez Ramos 2007:326) isdaunting, in the following pages we provide a fewmodest suggestions on profitable ways forward.First, in the absence of reliable time-markers in

material culture (e.g., Cuevas style ceramics nolonger connote a particular restricted period oftime), we suggest the use of multiple approachesto control for chronology in future studies. Our firstsuggestion is to begin identifying new chronolog-ically diagnostic markers at more localized levels(e.g.. sites or river drainages). In choosing thesediagnostic markers, we should avoid falling intothe conceptual trap of the Culture Historians inassuming that almost any change in material cul-ture was the result of a change in ethnicity or eth-nic makeup (Culture History Assumption Number1). Rather, we should leave ourselves open to thefull range of social, cultural, economic, techno-logical, and environmental forces that might pro-vide the impetus for technological change, all ornone of which might have functioned concomi-tantly with ethnic change(s).Furthermore, instead of seeking to construct a

typology that includes and explains all prehistoriccultural manifestations across a broad region (whichwas the ultimate goal of the Culture Historicalperiod even if it had more localized beginnings), ourwork should seek to identify temporal patterning inmaterial culture on a local scale and in accordancewith our research problem. Only when this local cul-ture history is well characterized should we seek tobroaden our scale of reference (geographically orin terms of research problem)—this time howeverwithout the premises of Culture History. To accom-plish this goal, we are free to use the same excel-lent techniques (not methods) developed by theculture historians to detect and identify changes inthe archaeological record (i.e., stratigraphy, classi-fication, seriation). Of course, this is a long-termeffort, and the next two approaches are more imme-diately available to most researchers. Given the ubiquity and relatively low cost of

radiocarbon (or other absolute) dating techniques,the second approach is to report archaeological

findings by reference to such dates rather than beinglumped under a certain culture history construct.While radiocarbon dating has serious limitationsand caveats (see Nash 2009), knowing, for instance,that two radiocarbon-dated phenomena were con-temporary (or that one was earlier or later) is moreuseful than knowing that they both belong to thesame temporally incoherent culture history group-ing. Again, the goal of this approach is to build achronological sequence without the assumptions(e.g., homogeneity within cultural categories,exclusivity from other cultures, any notion of tem-poral boundaries, uniformity in cultural change)implicit in the Culture History products. Whereasevery archaeologist wants a good chronology, fewhave been sufficiently willing to pay the price ofadmission. However, in light of the crumblingvalidity of the assumptions that have guided ourchronology building to date, the possibly heavyprice must be paid. We fully acknowledge that theimplication of this suggestion will likely be achronology with ubiquitous temporal overlap, butthis muddied culture history will bear a far closerresemblance to actual past events than the stylizedversion we possess today.We do acknowledge that situations exist of

which no absolute dates can be obtained. Probablythe most familiar of these are regional studies,where most of the information is obtained from sur-face collections, but museum collections and exca-vations without the necessary financial resourcesalso fall into this category. In these cases, we sug-gest an approach that combines both some of thetraditional techniques developed by the CultureHistorian, particularly classification and seriation,and quantitative and statistical methods adapted toarchaeological problems (e.g., cluster analysis,multi-dimensional scaling, and correspondenceanalysis). This approach has been used throughoutthe world to order various kinds of archaeologicalevents (e.g., occupation of a site, ceramic types),and while it provides only relative dating, it hasbeen used successfully to interpret large amountsof archaeological data that otherwise would havebeen undatable (Chou 1994; Curet 1992; Curet etal. 1994; Duff 1996; Halekoh and Vach 2004;Scwaiger and Opitz 2003; Smith and Neiman 2007;Stark and Curet 1994).Third, in evaluating “mixed” archaeological

deposits, which are the rule rather than the excep-



tion in many sites in Puerto Rico (for a list of suchdeposits, see Rodríguez Ramos 2007:302-303), weought to free ourselves of the strictures that Cul-ture Historical thinking placed on us. While thesemixed deposits have often been thought to be theresult of a lack of contextual integrity (see, e.g.,lengthy discussion in Rodríguez Ramos et al.2008), we now find ourselves free to embrace thefact that they might actually indicate the coeval per-formance of multiple pottery-making traditions.Notwithstanding the effects of cultural or naturalformation processes, perhaps such contemporane-ity of cultural manifestations indicates the pres-ence of multiethnic or plural contexts. Whiledifferentiating between mixing (which does hap-pen) and true plurality may not be straightforward,the widespread coexistence of pottery of suppos-edly distinct styles (as in the examples presentedin Rodríguez Ramos et al. 2008) ought to be givenserious consideration rather than being dismissedahistorically as a few “intrusive” sherds.Fourth, in developing local chronologies, we

should not make the error of the Culture Histori-ans, who, in the abstract, realized that total culturalchange was not the rule, but in practice oftenassumed the universality of the systems theydevised (e.g., Rouse equating changes in ceramicstyle with evolutions and revolutions in ethnic,political, and social realms). How things are orga-nized across space and time will likely changedepending on the sort of research questions beingasked. This perspective acknowledges that noteverything in a specific region changes at the sametime. Thus, some changes in the archaeologicalrecord may reflect changes in social organization,whereas others might reflect differences in ideol-ogy, environment, or economy, none of which nec-essarily happened at the same time or producedsimilar effects (see previous discussion of stylis-tic/technological change related to, and separatefrom, changes in ethnicity). This is the phenome-non that Braudel (1974:57) referred to as the plu-rality of historical time.In conclusion, work aimed at constructing new

culture histories must (a) be carried out with strongreference to absolute chronology, (b) keep an openmind to overlap, hybridism, creolization, and plu-rality, (c) work bottom-up, and (d) be open to alter-ation, depending on the research questions at hand.As such, we must consciously and explicitly reject

all of the enumerated assumptions of Culture His-tory, embracing the fuzziness of our bounded cul-tural groups, and not fetishizing the constructs thatwe develop. We must remember that what we arecataloging is nothing more than a shared set of mate-rial cultural manifestations, and that such shared setsof modes or types or styles need not connote com-monality of belief nor heritage. By these means, theconstruction of our culture histories might finallybe free of the shadow of Culture History.Acknowledgments. The authors wish to extend their sincerethanks to the editors for their stewardship of this manuscriptand to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful com-ments. Portions of the material presented here are based onwork supported by the National Science Foundation underGrant No. BCS-0612727.

Data Availability Statement: A complete digital copy of thedata presented in this article is available for interested partiesthrough William J. Pestle’s research website, http://www.as.miami.edu/anthropology/people/#pestle.

Supplemental Material. Material for this article includesSupplemental Table 1, “Radiocarbon Dates for Cuevas Mani -festations in Puerto Rico.”

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Notes1. In this paper, when we refer to Culture History (with

initial capitals), we are referring to the paradigm (Kuhn 1962)that dominated American archaeology through the first halfof the twentieth century. The Culture Historical method refersto the premises, strategies, and methods used by adherents ofthe Culture History paradigm in developing culture histories.Finally, by culture history/histories (uncapitalized), we referto the chronological sequence of material manifestations in aparticular location/region/site (e.g., the culture history of



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Alabama). This product (culture history) need not be theresult of the Cultural Historical method, as alternativepremises, strategies, and methods can be used to developsuch chronological sequences.

2. It is important to note that here we refer solely tomethodology and not to techniques (which, while related tomethodology, are severable from them). We agree that tech-niques developed by the early Culture Historians to detectand track changes in the archeological record (stratigraphy,seriation, classifications) are excellent contributions andlandmarks in the history of archaeology (see Trigger2009:309).

3. Although it is possible that the marine reservoir effectcould be making individuals with higher marine protein con-

sumption appear older (radiometrically) and those withoutyounger, the magnitude of the temporal difference observedin this skeletal series is far greater than that attributable tosuch a cause. For example, employing a mixed marine cali-bration curve, a 60 percent shift from marine to terrestrialprotein (80–20 versus 20–80, a dramatic shift by any mea-sure) only produces a ca.180 year change in calibratedmedian probability AMS date. This is dwarfed by the over600-year range observed in the calibrated median probabilityAMS dates of the Punta Candelero skeletons.

Submitted/Revised/Accepted dates



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Latin American Antiquity

Copyright © 2013 by The Society for American Archaeology

Site Number Lab No. (years bp) Calibrated Date Range(s) Probability Reference

Cuevas n/a n/a 1440±80 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 426: cal AD 711] 0.979595 [cal AD 746: cal AD 766] 0.020405

601 cal AD Rouse, et al. 1963

Punta Candelero n/a Beta-224609 1290±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 653: cal AD 783] 0.950218 [cal AD 788: cal AD 813] 0.035908 [cal AD 844: cal AD 857] 0.013874

722 cal AD Ramos 2007

Punta Candelero n/a Beta-224608 1250±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 674: cal AD 874] 1.


Punta Candelero n/a I 15679 1230±80 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 658: cal AD 906] 0.897117 [cal AD 911: cal AD 971] 0.102883

798 cal AD Rodríguez López 1991



Punta Candelero n/a I 15678 1170±80 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 683: cal AD 997] 0.988472 [cal AD 1004: cal AD 1012] 0.011528

854 cal AD Rodríguez López 1991



Punta Candelero n/a Beta-224607 1140±50 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 774: cal AD 997] 0.990442 [cal AD 1004: cal AD 1012] 0.009558




Punta Candelero A-50 AA75810 1582±46 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 598: cal AD 871] 1.

703 cal AD Pestle 2010

Punta Candelero C-24 AA79415 1566±46 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 559: cal AD 687] 1.


Punta Candelero C-39 AA78513 1557±44 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 594: cal AD 721] 0.918506 [cal AD 740: cal AD 770] 0.081494


Punta Candelero A-78 AA75128 1539±43 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 694: cal AD 702] 0.010563 [cal AD 706: cal AD 748] 0.080438 [cal AD 765: cal AD 905] 0.767991 [cal AD 911: cal AD 971] 0.141009








Punta Candelero F-1 AA79409 1421±48 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 658: cal AD 904] 0.907535 [cal AD 913: cal AD 970] 0.092465




Punta Candelero A-56 AA75804 1401±45 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 622: cal AD 628] 0.010413 [cal AD 631: cal AD 773] 0.989587










Punta Candelero A-76 AA75809 1350±46 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 782: cal AD 789] 0.015265 [cal AD 809: cal AD 849] 0.078573 [cal AD 853: cal AD 1016] 0.906162


Punta Candelero F-2 AA82378 1347±45 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 620: cal AD 774] 1.






Punta Candelero F-3 AA75803 1331±68 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 903: cal AD 913] 0.015606 [cal AD 970: cal AD 1155] 0.984394






Punta Candelero C-15 AA79411 1271±45 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 784: cal AD 787] 0.002799 [cal AD 825: cal AD 841] 0.016713 [cal AD 862: cal AD 1022] 0.980487


Rouse

Punta Candelero charcoal samples

Punta Candelero skeletal samples



Site Number Lab No. (years bp) Calibrated Date Range(s) Probability ReferencePunta Candelero C-5 AA82377 1260±46 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area

[cal AD 678: cal AD 896] 0.982669 [cal AD 924: cal AD 938] 0.017331








Punta Candelero UIUC171 AA72881 1251±42 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 778: cal AD 992] 1.




Punta Candelero E-114 AA75807 1231±77 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 591: cal AD 718] 0.934123 [cal AD 742: cal AD 769] 0.065877






Punta Candelero E-112 AA75813 1214±46 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 716: cal AD 744] 0.043076 [cal AD 768: cal AD 979] 0.956924


















Punta Candelero C-28 AA75127 1160±42 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 568: cal AD 694] 0.969991 [cal AD 703: cal AD 706] 0.003157 [cal AD 748: cal AD 765] 0.026851






Punta Candelero A-37 AA72884 1118±44 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 693: cal AD 748] 0.107212 [cal AD 764: cal AD 903] 0.769934 [cal AD 914: cal AD 969] 0.122854








Punta Candelero UIUC173 AA72886 1006±41 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 654: cal AD 783] 0.913 [cal AD 787: cal AD 824] 0.06039 [cal AD 841: cal AD 861] 0.02661






El Parking (PO-38) n/a Beta-33260 1780±130 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal BC 41: cal AD 543] 1.

248 cal AD Weaver et al. 1992

AR-39 n/a Beta-222869 1630±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 268: cal AD 271] 0.004808 [cal AD 335: cal AD 540] 0.995192

427 cal AD Carlson et al. 2008

Paso del Indio n/a Beta-178670 1580±90 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 258: cal AD 298] 0.043669 [cal AD 319: cal AD 644] 0.956331

475 cal AD Walker 2005

Paso del Indio n/a Beta-87610 1550±60 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 399: cal AD 634] 1.

504 cal AD García Goyco 1998

Punta Guayanes n/a Beta-196704 1550±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 423: cal AD 594] 1.






Island-wide Cuevas dates



Site Number Lab No. (years bp) Calibrated Date Range(s) Probability ReferenceAR-39 n/a Beta-223566 1460±60 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area

[cal AD 434: cal AD 493] 0.102208 [cal AD 506: cal AD 520] 0.016477 [cal AD 527: cal AD 666] 0.881315




Monserrate n/a Y-1240 1440±80 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 426: cal AD 711] 0.979595 [cal AD 746: cal AD 766] 0.020405

601 cal AD Rouse and Allaire 1978

Paso del Indio n/a Beta-87601 1440±60 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 436: cal AD 489] 0.057318 [cal AD 511: cal AD 516] 0.004511 [cal AD 530: cal AD 682] 0.93817

607 cal AD García Goyco 1998

AR-39 n/a Beta-223977 1430±70 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 433: cal AD 494] 0.073331 [cal AD 505: cal AD 523] 0.016447 [cal AD 526: cal AD 695] 0.884723 [cal AD 698: cal AD 708] 0.007688 [cal AD 747: cal AD 765] 0.01781


Lower Camp n/a Beta-52067 1410±70 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 441: cal AD 484] 0.0328 [cal AD 532: cal AD 730] 0.915731 [cal AD 735: cal AD 772] 0.051469

626 cal AD Oliver 1995

AR-39 n/a Beta-223565 1370±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 599: cal AD 712] 0.946947 [cal AD 746: cal AD 767] 0.053053


Monserrate n/a Y-1237 1360±80 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 544: cal AD 870] 1.

674 cal AD Rouse and Allaire 1978

Paso del Indio n/a Beta-77164 1350±70 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 564: cal AD 784] 0.937161 [cal AD 786: cal AD 827] 0.041472 [cal AD 839: cal AD 864] 0.021367


AR-39 n/a Beta-221018 1340±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 637: cal AD 772] 1.


Hacienda Grande n/a Beta-9971 1320±70 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 605: cal AD 879] 1.

714 cal AD Rodríguez López p.c.

Maisabel n/a AA-4114 1315±45 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 639: cal AD 782] 0.981682 [cal AD 790: cal AD 810] 0.018318

705 cal AD Siegel 1992

Barrazas n/a Beta-62531 1310±150 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 432: cal AD 499] 0.042585 [cal AD 501: cal AD 1017] 0.957415

738 cal AD Meléndez Maiz 1993

Maisabel n/a AA-4115 1295±45 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 650: cal AD 783] 0.928557 [cal AD 787: cal AD 822] 0.050453 [cal AD 842: cal AD 860] 0.020989

721 cal AD Siegel 1992



Punta Guayanes n/a Beta-196700 1240±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 680: cal AD 882] 1.


AR-39 n/a Beta-225064 1220±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 685: cal AD 892] 1.


Barrazas n/a Beta-62535 1210±50 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 679: cal AD 899] 0.947926 [cal AD 918: cal AD 951] 0.052074

813 cal AD Meléndez Maiz 1993

Punta Guayanes n/a Beta-196699 1200±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 689: cal AD 752] 0.138045 [cal AD 761: cal AD 899] 0.815411 [cal AD 919: cal AD 948] 0.046545


Punta Guayanes n/a Beta-196701 1130±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 780: cal AD 792] 0.028589 [cal AD 803: cal AD 992] 0.971411


Praderas n/a Beta-215172 1020±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 898: cal AD 920] 0.052471 [cal AD 944: cal AD 1052] 0.792728 [cal AD 1081: cal AD 1128] 0.116972 [cal AD 1135: cal AD 1152] 0.037829

1011 cal AD González Colón 2006

Praderas n/a Beta-215171 940±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 1019: cal AD 1185] 1.

1099 cal AD González Colón 2006

Lilly Caribe n/a Beta-167447 680±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 1263: cal AD 1325] 0.592491 [cal AD 1344: cal AD 1394] 0.407509


Lilly Caribe n/a Beta-167446 670±40 Two Sigma Ranges: [start:end] relative area [cal AD 1268: cal AD 1328] 0.540951 [cal AD 1341: cal AD 1395] 0.459049


New Questions and Old Paradigms: Reexamining Caribbean Culture History

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