Jose Oliver

University College London | UCL · Institute of Archaeology

Trade before Civilization explores the role that long-distance exchange played in the establishment and/or maintenance of social complexity, and its role in the transformation of societies from egalitarian to non-egalitarian. Bringing together research by an international and methodologically diverse team of scholars, it analyses the relationship b...

The area encompassed by the Orinoco river basin is home to some of the largest and most diverse rock art sites in lowland South America. In this paper, we aim to formally describe the spatial distribution and stylistic attributes of rock engravings and paintings on both banks of the Orinoco, centred on the Átures Rapids. Drawing on an exhaustive li...

The Culebra site, located in close proximity to the Atures Rapids, is one of the very few open-air occupations in the entire Orinoco valley that is thought to date to the early Holocene. Following renewed excavations in this location, we characterize the stone technology in unprecedented detail and perform both quantitative and qualitative analyses...

This paper briefly reports on the initial results of a new Leverhulme-sponsored four-year archaeological project (RPG 234- 2014) centred on the Átures Rapids area of the Middle Orinoco River, Amazonas State, Venezuela (Fig. 1). The Cotúa Island Reflexive Archaeology Project seeks to establish the longue durée historical processes that by early colo...

Oyuela-Caycedo Augusto & Bonzani Renée M. San Jacinto 1: A Historical Ecological Approach to an Archaic Site in Colombia. xx+222 pages, 55 illustrations, 28 tables. 2005. Tuscaloosa (AL): The University of Alabama Press; 0-8173-5184-1 paperback $29.95. - Volume 80 Issue 309 - José R. Oliver

Myths and ceremonial centres in the ancient Caribbean - Reid Basil A. . Myths and realities of Caribbean history. xiv+154 pages, 74 illustrations. 2009. Tuscaloosa (AL): University of Alabama Press; 978-0-8173-5534-0 paperback $28.95. Curet L. Antonio & Stringer Lisa M. (ed.). Tibes: people, power, and ritual at the center of the cosmos. xviii+329...

Book reviews - Kepecs Susan , Curet L. Antonio & La Rosa Corzo Gabino (ed.). Beyond the blockade: new currents in Cuban archaeology. xii+206 pages, 39 illustrations, 9 tables. 2011. Tuscaloosa (AL): University of Alabama Press; 978-0-8173-5633-0 paperback $29.95. - Volume 87 Issue 335 - José R. Oliver

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v510/n7506/full/510473b.html

Final CRM report for the Nomination of Bateyes de Vivi to the National Park Service-National Register of Historical Places. State Preservation Historical Office of Puerto Rico.

En esta ponencia damos primicia de los resultados de nuevos estudios y análisis de los materiales del yacimiento de Saladero excavados en 1950 y 1955 por Cruxent y Rouse. Revisando las colecciones depositadas en el Museo Peabody de Historia Natural de la Universidad de Yale (YPM), seleccionamos para fechar un total de 14 tiestos y 5 muestras de car...

Oliver, JR (2012) Interaction in Caribbeanscapes Book Review ANTIQUITY 86: 1227-1230 (ant0861227)

OLIVER, JR (2010) Myths and Ceremonial Centres in the Ancient Caribbean_Antiquity Book Review 2010 p890-892. Reviews three new books on Caribbean archaeology.

Reviews the book Beyond the Blockade_New Currents in Cuban Archaeology, edited by Antonio Curet in ANTIQUITY 087_298-299

Taíno Indian Myth and Practice: the Arrival of the Stranger King, by KeeganWilliam F., 2007. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida; ISBN 978-0-8130-3038-8 hardback £36 & US$39.95; xxvi+230 pp., 25 figs., 11 tables - Volume 19 Issue 2 - José R. Oliver

Cemís are both portable artefacts and embodiments of persons and spirit which the Taínos and other natives of the Greater Antilles (ca. AD 1000-1550) regarded as numinous beings with supernatural or magic powers. This book takes a close look at the relationships with humans and other (non-human) beings that are imbued with cemi power, specifically...

Oliver reviews Paul Allsworth's book on Pre-Columbian Jamaica _Book Review Antiquity 83_1202-03

The productivity of ancient Amazonian food procurement and production economies has received considerable attention for many years by archaeologists interested in the degree of sociopolitical and cultural complexity that can be sustained in the diverse Amazonian habitats (Figure 12.1). Theories on agricultural development also underpin arguments ab...

Catalogo y articulos tematicos acerca de la exposición organizada por el Museu Barbier-Mueller d'Art Precolombí en Barcelona, con la colaboración del British Museum, el Museo de las Américas, Madrid y la Fundación Caixa Galicia, Sabtiago de Compostela.

On orders of Christopher Columbus, the Hieronymite hermit of Catalan birth, Fray Ramón Pane, investigated the religious beliefs of the aborigines of Hispaniola (and catechizing them), resulting in the first éthnographic report on New World Amerindian religion. This chapter focuses on elucidating the differing and complex indigenous and European (mi...

Catalogo de la obra (Catalogue of the exhibition). The images are analysed and discussed in Chapter 6 of this book (see Oliver, 2008).

This chapter (written in Spanish) provides an in-depth analysis of the images and icons of the aborigines participating in a broad Tainoan identity. They regarded the images as sentient beings with specific identities, ranks and powers. The images were imbued with potency (that is, with cemí) and they had complex social relations with human beings....

The starch residues of processed plant materials on lithic implements coming from a burial cave site and a habitation site on Puerto Rico are discussed, along with the implications in terms of ritual vs. quotidian plant-food preparation. This PDF version adds colour plates not available in the printed/published version.

A synthesis of the development of agriculture and food production systems in Amazonia and the lowlands of South America to 2007. This copy is the galley proof. For the printed or electronic versions go to Springer web site.

This chapter discusses the preliminary results derived from the analysis of 15 starch residue samples obtained from seven ground stone tools recovered from Los Muertos Cave (SR-1) and Vega de Nelo Vargas (Utu-27) sites' both located in the karst mountain region of northwestern Puerto Rico (Figure 11.1). This study provides new data that contribute...

West Indian land mammals have suffered the most severe extinctions of any Holocene mammal faunas. However, 'last-occurrence' dates based on radiometric or robust stratigraphic data remain unavailable for most West Indian species, making it impossible to identify factors responsible for these extinctions. Here, we present new radiometric dates from...

Oliver reviews the book on San Jacinto-1 (Colombia)by Oyuela & Bonzani in Antiquity 80(309) 09-2006

Research in the karst zone around Caguana has yielded new data regarding animal hunting/procurement activities by pottery-bearing groups of the Ostiones period (AD 1050-1300). We compare the zooarchaeological remains recovered from a domestic midden at the habitation site Finca de Doña Rosa (Utu-44) with those found at the ritual-ceremonial funerar...

A detailed review of the archaeological research and problems associated with the La Hueca site, Vieques Island (Puerto Rico).

Mortuary practices rank among the best sources of archaeological data from which to infer social organization, ideology, religious beliefs, and to a certain extent, the political structure of past societies. This essay (1) reviews mortuary practices among prehistoric groups of Puerto Rico, (2) proposes a possible sequence of changes through time, a...

This article provides an in-depth discussion of the intellectual contributions ot archaeology of one of the leading archaeologists of the Amercias: D. W. Lathrap. It also reminisces the authors experiences in studying and collaborating with Lathrap as a graduate PhD student at the University of Illinois. The article is publicly available from: htt...