ELISABETH S. WING
ANIMAL REMAINS EXCAVATED AT THE
SPANISH SITE OF NUEVA CADIZ ON CUBAGUA
ISLAND, VENEZUELA
Archeological excavations were made by Drs. J. M. CRUXENT
and J. M. GOGGIN in December 1954 at the early Spanish site
of Nueva Cadiz on Cubagua Island. These excavations consisted
of 15 trenches of which 2 were in house remains and 13 were
across low middens. I have studied the animal remains that were
excavated with the hope of learning something about the food
habits of these people. The objective was to learn which local
food animals were depended upon and what animals were brought
to the island by the Spanish and people coming from the Caribbean and South America.
The island of Cubagua is located 15 km north of the coast of Venezuela
and 9 km south of the island of Margarita. Politically the islands of
Cubagua, Margarita, Coche, and Los Frailes belong to the Venezuelan
state of Nueva Esparta. Cubagua is a small island some 92/5 km in length,
4*/B km in width, and 261/2 km^ in area. It is low, flat, and composed
mostly of limestone. Being excessively well drained and in a region of so
called steppe climate, Cubagua has been rightly called a desert island
(HUMMELINCK, 1940). Vegetation is very scanty, consisting predominantly of cactuses and thorny shrubs. This may be in part due to deforestation by man, but the vegetation was probably xerophytic and sparse
when the first man found Cubagua. The fauna is also meager and what
there is does not differ taxonomically from that on the mainland. Although the land is very poorly endowed, the sea around the island has
rich oyster beds.
The pearl industry supported the town of Nueva Cadiz. This town, the
first Spanish settlement in South America, was founded about 1516 and
destroyed, probably by a hurricane, in 1545. Pearl divers were brought
from the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, west coast of Venezuela, Llanos,
and the Orinoco valley (CRUXENT & ROUSE, 1958).
The excavated material was very fragmentary and it was not
possible to identify much of it. There were, however, 290 eleMrs. ELISABETH S. WING, Dept. of Biology, University of Florida,
Gainesville.
ANIMAL REMAINS EXCAVATED AT NUEVA CADIZ 163
ments which were identified. One can determine the importance
of an animal to the people in two ways. The percentage of occurrence of minimum numbers of individuals of an animal in
the excavated trenches will give a measure of the frequency of
use of this animal. Or by estimating the average weight of usable
meat on the particular species and multiplying this by the minimum number of individuals, one can obtain a rough measure of
its importance (for example, one deer would be more important
than one rabbit). The percentage of usable meat varies with the
size and kind of animal. The percentages used here are those
given by WHITE (1953). The Table gives a list of the animals
which were identified and their relative importance calculated
in the two ways noted above. Food animals from the sea, including fish and turtle, were the most important, occurring in
all of the trenches and having an estimated cumulative weight
of usable meat of 1942 pounds. Next in importance were
wild mammals and birds occurring in 75 percent of the trenches.
The most important of these was the deer and secondly the rabbit
which combined produced 424 pounds of usable meat. Finally,
domesticated animals occurred in 58 percent of the trenches. The
most important domesticated animal was the pig and secondly
ANIMALS REPRESENTED IN THE MIDDENS AT NUEVA CADIZ AND THEIR
RELATIVE IMPORTANCE
Sea turtle
Sparidae (porgy)
Catfish, ray, and others
Syfot/agws (rabbit)
Orfocot7«MS (deer)
PAa/acrocora* (cormorant)
Pe/«ca«t<s (pelican)
5«/a (booby)
Catrina (muscovy duck)
Coragy^s (black vulture)
5«5 (pig)
Ga//us (chicken)
'
Bos (cow)
Sheep and/or goat
Fe/ts (domestic cat)
Cawis (domestic dog)
'
üfomo (man)
Total number
of individuals
Percent of
occurrence
Pounds of
usable meat
17
27
58
58
1700
242
3°
100
19
50
9
4
33
2
I
I
17
8
8
17
2
la
*5
.
,
' "' "
33
58
••
4
'•
.
8 .:•
17
17
6
5
z
33
393
••
336
17
164
ELIZABETH S. WING
the chicken which combined produced 353 pounds of usable
meat.
It is no surprise that the inhabitants of a desert island would
depend heavily on the sea for their source of food. Sea turtle
evidently made up a large part of their diet. This animal has
probably always been an important food source of the people
living in the Venezuelan islands. By 1737 the slaughter of sea
turtle in Willemstad on Curacao became so objectionable that
it was prohibited (HUMMELINCK, 1940). Fish were also an important part of the diet then as now. At present the inhabitants
of Cubagua are mostly fishermen.
The land animals natural to this area were deer, Orfocot7«ws
gymnolts, and rabbit, Sy/vi7ag«s //oriianMs 1. It was not possible
to determine the subspecies of these animals. Since Margarita
Island is so close, it was likely the source of rabbit as well as deer.
ROBINSON & LYON (1902) note that the rabbit, Sy/rtVagws //orü&jrtws margarttoc, was so plentiful on Margarita that it was
split and dried like codfish and brought to La Guaira on the mainland by the boatload. The birds represented in the middens were,
as one would expect, mainly water birds. Pelicans are known to
breed in the mangrove swamps on Margarita and there are sea
colonies of boobies, pelicans, and cormorants along the coast.
The muscovy duck occurs naturally over a large area of South
and Central America and is commonly domesticated. The black
vulture is characteristically a village scavenger. There is no
evidence that the pearl divers coming to Cubagua from more
distant areas brought any of their local animals with them.
This, however, is not true of the Spanish, who must have
brought the domesticated animals represented at the site. The
greater abundance of pigs is undoubtedly a result of their scavenging nature enabling them to prosper where there is no pasturage.
In addition to these animals one human individual was represented. This may be further evidence for the catastrophic
destruction of Nueva Cadiz.
To summarize it may be said that the people of Nueva Cadiz
depended most heavily on the sea for their food. Sea turtle and
fish, particularly Sparidae, were most important. Although the
inhabitants originated from many parts of South America, the
* This species designation is according to HERSHKOVITZ'S paper on the
rabbits of South America (1950).
ANIMAL REMAINS EXCAVATED AT NUEVA CADIZ
165
Caribbean, and Spain, only animals brought by the Spanish were
found. Of these animals only pig and chicken remains were abundant. More important than these domesticated animals were
the deer and rabbit, which were probably caught on neighboring
Margarita Island. Sea birds such as pelican, boobies, and cormorant and the muscovy duck were occasionally used.
I wish to thank Dr. J. M. GOGGIN for the opportunity to study this
collection of animal remains. I am also indebted to Drs. P. BRODKORB
and D. ROSEN for verifying my identification of birds and fish respectively.
LITERATURE CITED
M. & ROUSE, I., 1958. An archeological chronology of Venezuela. Socta/ Set. Mono. K7, Pan ^««r. I/nt'on.
HERSHKOVITZ, P., 1950. Mammals of Northern Columbia. Preliminary
report no. 6: Rabbits (Leporidae), with notes on the classification and
distribution of the South American forms. iVoc. 17. S. No/. Mws. 100
(3265), p. 327-375.
. J ,
HUMMELINCK, P. WAGENAAR, 1940. S/udtM on M« /anna o/ Cunifao,
^4rt<oa, Bonaire, and <A« K«nexu#/an /s/ands, vol. /, p. 1-130, and 2, p. 1-42
and 83-108.
ROBINSON, W. & LYON, M.W., 1902. An annotated list of mammals collected in the vicinity of La Guaira, Venezuela. Proc. (/. 6'. Na<. Mws. 24
(1246), p. 135-162.
WHITE, T., 1953. A method of calculating the dietary percentage of various food animals utilized by aboriginal peoples, ^twr. ^n/t^wt/y j# (4),
P- 396-398.
CRUXENTJ.