Contact: Maridith Geuder
John O'Hear
Mississippi State University archaeologist John O'Hear has spent his entire career exploring early Native American life in the Southeast. But because he grew up in Argentina and speaks fluent Spanish, he recently also has become a co-investigator of a project seeking to unravel archaeological secrets at one of the most important sites in southern Cuba.
The early 16th century site is so significant O'Hear describes it as the equivalent of "1,000 years from now being able to dig at the site of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King's home church in Atlanta."
At a remote location near Cienfuegos, Cuba, O'Hear is in charge of field operations in a project he co-directs with Vernon James "Jim" Knight, anthropology professor at the University of Alabama, and Marcos E. Rodriquez Matamoros of the Provincial Center of Cultural Patrimony in Cienfuegos. John E. Worth, an ethno-historian at the University of Florida, is in charge of the historic document work for the project, and is conducting archival work for the project both in Spain and Cuba. Lee A. Newsom of Pennsylvania State University, a recently named McArthur Fellow, will be studying the plant remains from the digs.
"This is a late-period Indian site that probably dates from sometime in the 1400s up to the Spanish conquest in 1512," O'Hear explained.
Diego Velasquez, the conqueror of Cuba, presented the Indian labor of a large district to a Spanish priest, Bartoleme de las Casas, as a reward for his participation in the conquest. Las Casas and a companion took up residence near the largest village site peopled by the Arawakan Indians, but soon renounced the system the Spanish called an "Encomienda"-a type of feudalism, originally intended to spread a religious message, that quickly evolved into horrible exploitation.
The priest soon moved to South America and became the earliest opponent and a vocal critic of Spain's treatment of people native to the New World. "In essence, Las Casas became the first Civil Rights activist in the Americas," O'Hear said.
Located in south-central Cuba about two miles from the Caribbean, the excavation site known as Loma del Convento sits on a high bluff overlooking the Ariamao River Valley near Cienfuegos. The research team is concentrating its archaeological sleuthing at nine mounds they suspect originally were Indian homes.
"Loma del Convento is especially significant because it is the only Caribbean village site known to have been under the ecomienda system," O'Hear explained. The archaeologists hope it will yield important clues about the natives' relationship to the environment, the impact of the Spanish conquest, and contacts between the Arawakans and other indigenous people.
Knight said the site was originally located in the 1970s by a regional archaeologist, with follow-up projects verifying its historical and cultural importance.
"Our project is advancing a 1980s effort that began as a joint Cuban-Soviet project but ended with the dismantling of the Soviet Union," he explained. He added that the archaeological collaboration is the first between the Cuban and U.S. researchers. Intensive fieldwork is scheduled to begin in January 2005, with a team of approximately 35 Cuban and U.S. archaeologists, specialists and students.
Travel to Cuba is allowed for full-time academic research purposes, within limits placed by the U.S. Treasury Department. The University of Alabama in 2002 received a special license from the federal department to allow travel and academic research in Cuba by faculty and students.
For more information, telephone O'Hear at 662-325-3826.