Saladoid Culture Research Paper

Saladoid culture is a pre-columbian indigenous culture of Venezuela and the Caribbean that flourished from 500 BCE to 545 CE.[1] This culture is thought to have originated at the lower Orinoco River near the modern settlements of Saladero and Barrancas in Venezuela. Seafaring people from the lowland region of the Orinoco River of South America migrated into and established settlements in the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola.[1] They displaced the pre-ceramic Ortoiroid culture. As a horticultural people, they initially occupied wetter and more fertile islands that best accommodated their needs. These Indigenous peoples of the Americas were an Arawak-speaking culture.
Between 500-280 BCE, they immigrated into Puerto Rico and the
Saladoid ceramics include zoomorphic effigy vessels, incense burners, platters, trays, jars, bowls with strap handles, and bell-shaped containers. The red pottery was painted with white, orange, and black slips.[1]
Distinctive Saladoid artifacts are stone pendants, shaped like raptors from South America. These were made from a range of exotic materials, including such as carnelian, turquoise, lapis lazuli, amethyst, crystal quartz, jasper-chalcedony, and fossilized wood. These were traded through the Great and Lesser Antilles and the South American mainland, until 600 CE.[1]

The Taíno of the Greater Antilles represented the last stage of the Ostionoid cultural tradition. By about AD 1100-1200, the Ostionoid people of Hispaniola lived in a wider and more diverse geographic area than did their predecessors; their villages were larger and more formally arranged, farming was intensified, and a distinctive material culture developed. They developed rich and vibrant ritual and artistic traditions that are revealed in Taíno craftsmanship in using bone, shell, stone wood and other media. Social stratification is thought to have become more pronounced and rigid during this period as