Plant cultivation marks a new cultural step. The archaeological record shows several sedentary villages of hunter-farmers in various places of Amazonia from 2500 BC on. These first farmers cultivated bitter manioc (Manihot esculenta and utilissima) in small fields opened by the slash-and-burn system in the forest.
From 2500-1500 BC, elaborated pottery appeared in various sites throughout Amazonia and Guianas. The earliest sites had a preferential location in the flood plains on the banks of the large rivers, such as the La Gruta-Ronquin site on the middle Orinoco (2600-1100 BC). The pottery of this site is attributed to the Saladoid Tradition, which is characterized by elaborate decoration with white-on-red geometrical motifs and zoomorphic adornos with wide incisions applied on the vessel rims (Cruxent and Rouse 1958-59). La Gruta pottery is dated 2100 BC and the Ronquin pottery 1600-1100 BC (Roosevelt 1980).
In Suriname, the earliest ceramics are found in the Kaurikreek site (Figure 16.2), located along a small creek and dated to 2200-1750 BC, which shares aspects with the Venezuelan Saladoid Tradition, especially the La Gruta-Ronquin style (Versteeg 1978). The Kaurikreek pottery decoration is characterized by thin strips of clay applied in geometrical patterns onto the vessel (Figure 16.2:1-2) and very stylized zoomorphic adornos representing frogs, jaguars or birds (Figure 16.2:3-4). Wide handles sometimes have a pointed lug.
Later Saladoid sites are found inland in Guyana and in west Suriname. The Won-otobo site, located on the bank of the Corantijn River in Suriname, is dated between AD 70 and 200 (Boomert 1983; Versteeg 2003). The Saladoid Tradition began in the lower Orinoco before it spread to the north in the Antilles and to the east up to western Suriname.
The Saladoid Wonotobo pottery decoration is characterized by rectilinear and curvilinear motifs painted white-on-red, sometimes with thin incisions (Figure 16.2:5-6), and by thin-zoned crosshatched incisions (Figure 16.2:8). The wide handles with a pointed lug resemble those of Kaurikreek (Figure 16.2:7). The remarkable similarity between Won-otobo pottery and Saladoid ceramics of the Antilles suggests that these people probably shared more characteristics than only material culture. The excavation of the Golden Rock site in St. Eustatius helps us understand how a Saladoid village was organized (Versteeg and Schinkel 1992). In this village, dated at AD 500-800, large rounded malocas 14-19 m diameter surrounded a ceremonial plaza while the dump area or midden was set up behind the houses (Figure 16.3).
Later, the Saladoid Tradition is replaced by the Barrancoid Tradition and in Wonotobo it seems that the Barrancoid influence occurred directly after the Saladoid occupation (Versteeg 2003). Barrancoid pottery decoration is quite different from Saladoid: elaborated motifs made with wide curvilinear incisions (Figure 16.4:1-2-3-4) and sometimes punctations often on an everted rim, abstract or naturalistic zoomorphic adornos with wide incisions (Figure 16.4:5-6-7) and, for the first time in the pottery of the Guianas, some anthropomorphic representations (Figure 16.4:8). It must be noted that most of the animal and human adornos are not very realistic but probably represent forest spirits or zoomor-phized human beings. The Barrancoid Tradition is represented in the Guyana coastal area by the Mabaruma and the Abary cultures (Evans and Meggers 1960).
World History
