Archaeologists working in the Caribbean region have identified various types of pottery made and used by the local populations and the Cayo pottery is one of them. This pottery was produced at the Windward Islands, by the Island Caribs or Kalínago, name used to refer to the local population of the Lesser Antilles. Across the Lesser Antilles, around 20 sites present archaeological evidence of Cayo pottery, dating from the late pre-colonial to the early colonial times (AD 400 – 1700).
Cayo pottery was first identified in the 1970s, during an excavation of the site of New Sandy Bay in north-eastern St. Vincent island and after that it was observed in several sites on the island. According to ethnological and archaeological evidence, the vessels were used for cooking and serving drinks in ceremonial and communal meals. Various sources reveal that they were also used for brewing and serving locally produced beer (cassava beer). Some of the vessels were painted and a few were decorated with motifs usually representing animals and creatures – a reflection of the worldview of the local people. Designs with human characteristics (anthropomorphic designs) were rare.
Cayo ceramics (photos: Menno Hoogland in Hofman et al. 2020, 8).
Cayo complex pottery was produced locally, using materials from the local environment, but a few were also imported. The Cayo pottery production is similar in form and decoration with the pottery of the Indigenous people of mainland South America, the Koriabo (in particular Guiana, Brazil, Suriname). The association with the mainland South America, is an indication of either exchange networks between the Lesser Antilles and South America or imitation by the Island Carib population of certain pottery styles used in the mainland.
Map of the Caribbean with inset of the southern Lesser Antilles showing the exchange networks present in the region (map: Menno Hoogland in Hofman et al. 2020, 3).
Cayo pottery, in various occasions, has been discovered together with European artefacts (glass, beads and metal) or Afro-Caribbean pottery. This combination of materials in the archaeological record represents the interaction of different Indigenous, African and European cultures that were present in the Lesser Antilles during the colonial times.
European artefacts intermingled with Amerindian ceramics (Hofman and Hoogland 2012, 8).
Text by Eleni Seferidou, based on original published research (see further reading).
Boomert, A., 1986. The Cayo complex of St. Vincent: Ethnohistorical and archaeological aspects of the Island-Carib problem. Antropologica 66, 3–68.
Hofman, C.L. and M.L.P Hoogland, 2012. Caribbean encounters: rescue excavations at the early colonial Island Carib site of Argyle, St. Vincent. ANALECTA PRAEHISTORICA LEIDENSIA, 43/44. Leiden University Press.
Hofman, C.L., L.S. Borck, Laffoon, J.E., E.R. Slayton, Scott, R.B., T.W. Breukel, Falci G.C., M. Favre and Hoogland, M.L.P., 2020. Island networks: Transformations of inter-community social relationships in the Lesser Antilles at the advent of European colonialism. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, ahead-of-print, 1-27.