Fishing, curing and smoking fish at Cueva de los Vampiros: A contextual and archeofaunal evaluation of a purported Pre-Columbian fishing Camp near Parita Bay (Panama, Central Pacific)

This doctoral dissertation is a study of fish remains from a site on the Pacific coast of Panama. The objective is to determine through a study of the fish bones whether fish were subjected to preservative technologies at the site and whether the site may have served as specialized location to prepare fish to transport to settlements situated further inland.;Several lines of evidence: zooarchaeological (vertebrate and invertebrate remains), taphonomical (butchering patterns, postdepositional events), anthropic features (postholes, pits and hearths) and artefactual (pottery, lithic and shell tools) data, which in conjunction; support the hypothesis that Vampiros shelters were a place where Pre-Columbian inhabitants brought large numers of captured fish and prepared them for transport elsewhere. The high frequency of puffer fish here, in contrast with other sites in Central Pacific Panama, suggests that Pre-Columbian inhabitants at Vampiros were perhaps removing the skin, guts, tail and head of puffer fish animals and popping-out two dorsal fillets and exporting the fillets as a delicacy to Sitio Sierra during the dry season.;Non fish vertebrate remains indicate that Vampiros inhabitants were not only exploiting and processing fish and gathering molluscs but they were engaged in other local activities in a highly modified coastal landscape.;The evidence is insufficient to evaluate conclusively the role of the Vampiros shelters in the local and regional economy during the Middle Ceramic Period to provision inland sites like Sitio Sierra with inshore marine fish. However, it does demonstrate that the people of Panama, as early as early as 2200 BP, had developed techniques for preserving fish---techniques that later would be critical for thedevelop of regional trade in fish among the chiefdoms of Panama.;Fish and fish products are reported in ethnohistoric documents of Panama as important trade commodities among the chiefdoms of the region. Two rockshelters at Cueva de los Vampiros show evidence for having been used intensively for fishing and preparing fish between ca. 2200 and 1900 BP. Evidence is presented of human impacts on fish skeletons resulting from the in situ preparation of fish (i.e., gutting, cutting and smoking) providing the opportunity to compare the archaeofaunal data with two other sites, Sitio Sierra and AG-125, and with ethnoarchaeological work conducted by Irit Zohar.;Key Words. Zooarchaeology, Fish, Mollusks, Taphonomy, Intermediate Area, Panama, Coastal Resources, Neotropics...