| From 1992 to 2002, I participated in five field investigations that documented 256 archaeological sites in central Caribbean Panama, an area of dense tropical forests previously neglected by researchers. Here, I describe the implementation and results of one of these investigations---the "San Juan River Project" (1998--99)---and discuss its results in the context of my major research question: the timing, direction and nature of pre-Columbian settlement in Panama's central Caribbean coast. To make my inferences more robust, I refer to data collected during a subsequent investigation (the "ROCC Survey", 2000--2001). After evaluating previous researchers' ideas about early settlement along Panama's entire Caribbean watershed, I propose a model for my study area which includes four linked hypotheses: (1) colonization began by 5920 rcya (ca. 4785 cal BC), (2) settlers moved into the central Caribbean watershed from the south (i.e., the Pacific slopes), (3) the primary motivation for settlement was landscape pressure on the adjacent Pacific watershed, and (4) initial settlers already cultivated ancestral varieties of maize (Zea mays) and manioc (Manihot esculenta ). The most significant field data yielded by the "San Juan River Project" come from two rockshelters (LP-8 and DO-36) that contain cultural components securely dated to the second millennium BC. LP-8 provided the first documented samples from the Caribbean slopes of Monagrillo Ware, the oldest known pottery in Lower Central America; microbotanical evidence for the coeval use of maize in subterranean ovens; and the only evidence from Panama for the use of polished stone axes during the Early Ceramic period (3,300--800 cal BC). At both shelters an industry of small flakes of cryptocrystalline rock is very similar to others described from Pacific side sites occupied during the Early Ceramic period. At one site documented in 2001 (Pn-53), I found pottery stratified with carbonized seeds dated to 5920 and 5780 rcya (ca. cal 4785--4620 BC), but I am reluctant to argue strongly for this antiquity for ceramics until further fieldwork is undertaken. I conclude with a chronology of pre-Columbian cultural development in the central Caribbean watershed. |
