An article on phys.org provided by the University of Leicester - Cave discoveries shed new light on Native and European religious encounters in the Americas - reports on the project led by archaeologists from the British Museum and the University of Leicester  which has discovered evidence showing how the first generations of Europeans to arrive in the Americas engaged with indigenous peoples and their spiritual beliefs deep inside the caves of a remote Caribbean island; Isla de Mona to the west of Puerto Rico.

Recent fieldwork by a collaborative Anglo-Puerto Rican team - led by Dr Jago Cooper (British Museum) and Dr Alice Samson (University of Leicester) - has uncovered new evidence in the Caribbean of an early religious dialogue between Europeans and Native Americans. A large collection of early colonial inscriptions and commentaries written by named individuals within a cave system of pre-existing indigenous spiritual iconography provides new insights into the nature of the encounter.

Cave discoveries shed new light on Native and European religious encounters in the Americas https://t.co/diJTEv4BbX pic.twitter.com/SfkFu16IsR

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This research has been published in Antiquity; it highlights a new understanding about the formation of emergent cultural identities in the Caribbean that challenge historic accounts of indigenous extinction. The cavernous  island of Mona, on a major Atlantic route from Europe to the Americas, was integral to sixteenth-century Spanish colonial projects. It was recorded by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in AD 1494. Indigenous communities on the island were exposed to the earliest waves of European impact.

Since 2013, exploration and survey of around 70 cave systems - part of an interdisciplinary study of past human activity on Mona Island - has revealed that Mona's caves include the greatest diversity of preserved indigenous iconography in the Caribbean, with thousands of motifs recorded deep within the caves. In one cave more than 30 historic inscriptions include named individuals, phrases in Latin and Spanish, dates and Christian symbols that occur within a series of connecting chambers.

The team, which has just completed its 2016 season, aims to further its understanding of intercultural religious dynamics in the early Americas. According to the research team, it appears that this process was more nuanced than mere oppression, domination and, in the case of the Caribbean, indigenous extinction. Indeed, it sheds light on the beginnings of new religious engagements and transforming cultural identities in the Americas.

Images: University of Leicester

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