Intro -- Preface -- Houses for the living and the dead -- Scope of the research -- Dissertation structure and chapter outline -- Introduction -- 1.1 Positioning the El Cabo research within the Greater Antillean archaeological tradition -- 1.2 Overview of structure excavations in the Greater Antilles -- 1.2.1 Summary of Greater Antillean structure characteristics -- 1.3 Positioning the El Cabo research within the archaeological research history of the Dominican Republic -- 1.3.1 The early phase -- 1.3.2 A national Dominican archaeology -- 1.3.3 The Dominican Golden Age -- 1.3.4 The current state of affairs -- 1.4 Positioning the El Cabo research locally -- 1.4.1 Threats to the Dominican heritage -- 1.4.2 Large-scale destruction -- 1.4.3 The relevance of El Cabo to local history and vice versa -- 1.5 Discussion -- Trajectories of social life -- 2.1 Household archaeologies -- 2.1.1 Methodology in household archaeology -- 2.1.2 House theories in archaeology -- 2.1.3 Definitions and approach used in the dissertation -- 2.2 The house as a unit of analysis in the archaeology of the indigenous Greater Antilles -- 2.2.1 The material house -- 2.2.2 Houses and kinship -- 2.2.3 House temporalities -- 2.2.4 Houses, identity and personhood -- 2.2.5 Houses, hierarchy and social complexity -- 2.3 Two sources of analogy as reference points in the study of El Cabo -- 2.3.1 The house and Amazonian sociality: Aesthetics, morals and socialisation -- 2.3.2 Present day El Cabo -- 2.4 Review of data in early colonial sources -- 2.4.1 Physical descriptions of houses -- 2.4.2 House layout, furnishings and activities -- 2.4.3 Settlement layout -- 2.4.4 Household organization -- 2.4.5 Conceptualization and cultural status of house -- 2.4.6 Discussion -- 2.5 Review of house as research focus in Greater Antillean archaeology -- 2.5.1 Discussion of the different approaches.

2.6 Discussion -- Regional and local setting of El Cabo -- 3.1 Research history in the eastern region -- 3.1.1 Previous investigations -- 3.2 El Cabo: Site setting -- 3.3 Geological setting: Dissolving worlds -- 3.3.1 The eastern coastal plains -- 3.3.2 Summary -- 3.4 Ecology and palaeoecology -- 3.4.1 Current ecology of the eastern Dominican Republic -- 3.4.2 Palaeoecology of El Cabo -- 3.5 Land use history -- 3.5.1 Material history -- 3.5.2 Census data and reconstructed history -- 3.5.3 Oral history -- 3.5.4 Summary and discussion -- 3.6 Regional setting: Pre-Columbian and colonial Higüey -- 3.6.1 The archaeology of the eastern region, post-AD 600 -- 3.6.2 Settlement patterns -- 3.6.3 Discussion -- 3.6.4 Higüey: The last cacicazgo and the pacification of the east -- 3.7 El Cabo archaeological research history -- 3.7.1 El Cabo in 1978 -- 3.7.2 El Cabo in 2000 -- 3.7.3 El Cabo in recent fieldwork and historical reports -- 3.8 Discussion -- Current research in El Cabo -- 4.1 Introduction: the processes of discovery or rediscubrimiento in El Cabo -- 4.1.1 Summary of 2005 fieldwork -- 4.1.2 Summary of 2006 fieldwork -- 4.1.3 Summary of 2007 fieldwork -- 4.1.4 Summary of 2008 fieldwork -- 4.2 Fieldwork procedures -- 4.2.1 The site grid -- 4.2.2 The find layer -- 4.2.3 The feature layer -- 4.2.4 Soil descriptions -- 4.2.5 Drawings -- 4.3.6 Off-site processing of find material -- 4.2.7 Coring programme and mapping of site elevations -- 4.2.9 Small unit excavations -- 4.2.10 Main unit excavation methodology and features -- 4.2.11 Surface survey methodology -- 4.3 Discussion -- Reconstructions of the built environment in El Cabo -- 5.1 Methodology of reconstruction -- 5.1.1 Desk-based analysis -- 5.1.2 Confidence classes -- 5.1.3 Presentation of the structure interpretations -- 5.2 Structure interpretations -- 5.2 Remaining features -- 5.4 Structure typology.

5.4.1 Type 1 -- 5.4.2 Type 2 -- 5.4.3 Type 3 -- 5.4.4 Type 4 -- 5.4.5 Type 5 -- 5.4.6 Type 6 -- 5.4.7 Type 7 -- 5.4.8 Type 8 -- 5.4.9 Unassigned structures -- 5.5 Discussion -- The house that Higuanamá inherited: Trajectories of social life in El Cabo -- 6.1 Dating and chronology of built structures -- Phases -- 6.1.1 Phase a -- 6.1.2 Phase b -- 6.1.3 Phase c -- 6.1.4 Phase d -- 6.1.5 Phase e -- 6.1.6 Discussion of phases -- 6.2 Longevity of the estate: House Trajectories in a diachronic perspective -- 6.2.1 House Trajectory 1 -- 6.2.2 House Trajectory 2 -- 6.2.3 House Trajectory 3 -- 6.2.4 House Trajectory 4 -- 6.2.5 House Trajectory 5 -- 6.2.6 House Trajectory 6 -- 6.3 The development of estates and their interaction -- 6.3.1 Trajectories of renewal: The life cycle of the House Trajectory -- 6.3.2 Summary of renewal -- 6.4 House aesthetics and "the beauty of the everyday" -- 6.4.1 Entrances -- 6.4.2 Orientation -- 6.4.3 Regularity -- 6.4.4 Circular arguments and asymmetry -- 6.4.5 Depositions: Dressing the house in closing rituals -- 6.4.6 Discussion -- 6.5 Daily life and the temporalities of the domestic realm in El Cabo -- 6.5.1 Ceramic distribution -- 6.5.2 Griddle distribution -- 6.5.3 Marine shell distribution -- 6.5.4 Bodily adornments, community regalia and cemí items -- 6.5.5 Tools -- 6.5.6 Colonial material -- 6.5.7 Discussion -- 6.6 The yucayeque (survey results) -- 6.6.1 Ceramic distribution -- 6.6.2 Griddle distribution -- 6.6.3 Marine shell distribution -- 6.6.4 Paraphernalia distribution -- 6.6.5 Discussion of distributions -- 6.6.6 Features and artefact distributions across the site -- 6.7 The house within the yucayeque community setting -- 6.8 House and community demography and kinship -- 6.8.1 House and site population estimates -- 6.8.2 El Cabo house and community estimates -- 6.8.3 Social composition of houses.

6.8.4 The dimensions and manifestations of kinship in El Cabo -- 6.9 Discussion -- House Trajectories, the constitution of culture, and social complexity in Higüey -- 7.1 Summary of results -- 7.2 Implications of a house perspective for Late Ceramic Age culture and social complexity -- Glossary -- References -- Appendix 1: Field forms -- Appendix 2: Overview of attributes per structure -- Appendix 3: Features per structure -- Summary -- Resumen -- Samenvatting -- Acknowledgements -- Curriculum vitae.

This study is a contribution to the household archaeology of the Caribbean. The aim of the research was to come to a material definition of the pre-colonial house, rather than rely on the few, short, Spanish colonial descriptions. Archaeological research from the indigenous Taíno site of El Cabo in the Dominican Republic is presented and seven centuries of community history from development and growth, to eventual demise after European contact is narrated through the dominant structure, the house. The interpretation of over 2000 domestic features, associated artefact assemblages and the spatial organization of the settlement between ca. AD 800 and 1504 is described in detail. No archaeological house plans have previously been published for pre-colonial Hispaniola. The data from El Cabo tips the scales the other way, contributing to a history of indigenous life through the study of the native house and its diachronic materialization - the House Trajectory.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.