Abstract
This study represents the first positive identification of plant gum binding media in pre-Columbian art, and the first dates from indigenous cave art in the Caribbean. Mona Island reveals an extensive and well-preserved pre-Columbian and early colonial subterranean cultural landscape with dense concentrations of newly-discovered cave art in up to 30 caves. A multi-method approach to the research of pigments and binding media, charcoal, and cave sediments was used to elucidate the technologies, chronologies and processes of indigenous art and artists. Analyses included on-site use of a portable X-ray fluorescence (P-XRF) device to inform sample selection, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX) on paint and charcoal samples, polarized light microscopy (PLM) for material characterizations, and gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) for detailed chemical analysis of paint structures and composition. In addition direct dates of cave art using radiocarbon (C14) and Uranium-thorium (U-Th) dating methods are discussed. Results demonstrate multiple centuries of cave use during indigenous occupation and multiple phases and techniques of mark-making in dark zone locations within extensive cave systems. Visitors set out on pre-meditated journeys underground, making rock art using pigments from the cave floors, which they mixed into complex paints with the addition of plant gums from outside. This study is the first of its kind in the Caribbean providing insight into native paint recipes, material choices, and mark-making techniques. The methods have scope for widespread application and advance the integration of cave art research in archaeology.
Highlights
This study represents the first positive identification of plant gum binding media in pre-Columbian art, and the first dates from indigenous cave art in the Caribbean
P-XRF combined with visual examination indicated the repeated use of cave floor deposits in additive cave art
Our research shows that indigenous populations on Mona were making paints from phosphorites, charcoal, and ochres from cave floors to apply to the cave walls, sometimes mixing them with plant gums which they brought into the caves
Summary
This study represents the first positive identification of plant gum binding media in pre-Columbian art, and the first dates from indigenous cave art in the Caribbean. In this paper we use multi-method analyses of materials and techniques to consider how and when Native Americans on Mona Island created cave art during the c.7000 years since the human colonization of the Caribbean This is a first stage in building better interpretive hypotheses about what cave art does as a form of landscape communication technology (Houston, 2004). In the same chambers the systematic removal of the cave wall crust by horizontal and vertical scraping in continuous patches with the fingers/finger-sized tools (Fig. 2B) is interspersed with and sometimes inseparable from figurative and motif making extraction The ubiquity of this practice, as a form of indigenous mining to extract calcium carbonate as well as the creation of complex iconography, brings into question the ontological status of rock art and blurs functional/ritual boundaries
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