Archaeology Magazine - January/February 2024 - 18

AMBROSIO CAVE, CUBA
OFF THE GRID BY ILANA HERZIG
Havana
Ambrosio Cave
CUBA
150
300 miles
Beneath tangles of tree roots and lush vegetation,
Cueva de Ambrosio, or Ambrosio
Cave, harbors more than 70 red-and-black
drawings of geometric shapes as well as
mythological and human figures scattered
throughout its five interconnected galleries.
The cave is located on a verdant strip
toward the end of Hicacos Peninsula, on
Cuba's northern coast. It lies within Varahicacos
Ecological Reserve, which ensures
the protection of approximately one square
mile of tropical landscape of Matanzas
Province, two hours' drive from Havana.
The reserve, which was established in 1974,
also contains Cueva de los Musulmanes, or
Muslim Cave, a purported historic smugglers'
hideout.
Illuminated by shafts of light filtering
through holes in the cave's ceiling, the
pictographs share space with several species
of bats, insects, and plants. The more
than 200-foot-long limestone cave likely
served as a ceremonial space at various
times in the past, says archaeologist Racso
Fernández Ortega of the Cuban Institute of
Anthropology. Scholars believe the cave's
artworks, some of which may date to as
long as 2,000 years ago,
were drawn by Indigenous
people before the arrival of
Europeans in the fifteenth
century, and later by people
of African descent who
had escaped enslavement.
" Determining how old paintings
are can be really difficult, "
says chemist Ruth Ann
Armitage of Eastern Michigan
University, who specializes in
radiocarbon dating of rock
18
art. " Dating methods tell you how old the
material is, not when a person did something
with it. Anything that's been restored,
retouched, or publicly accessible is nearly
impossible to date. "
The first people to land on the shores
of the Caribbean archipelago likely came
from places including the Yucatán Peninsula
between 5000 and 4000 b.c.
Cuba's first settlers probably
arrived between 4000 and
3000 b.c. It is unclear which
Indigenous populations were
living on the island when Christopher
Columbus arrived in
1492, but scholars speculate
that groups including the Guanahatabey,
Ciboney, and Taíno
coexisted there. Within a few
decades, the dwindling Indigenous
population had been
all but wiped out through a
combination of warfare with colonialists,
forced labor, and disease introduced by the
Spaniards. " Indigenous populations disappeared
so fast that we'll probably never
know how many tribal groups there were, "
says archaeologist Suzanne Baker of the firm
Archaeological/Historical Consultants. " Rock
art is an important material expression of the
oral history and cosmology that was lost. "
THE SITE
Ambrosio Cave's artworks were discovered
in 1961 by archaeologists Manuel
Rivero de la Calle and Mario Orlando
Pariente Pérez, and the paintings were
restored by archaeologist and revolutionary
Antonio Núñez Jiménez in 1968. Since
then, the identity of the artists who painted
the cave walls and the meaning of the
cave's imagery have been the subjects of
much scholarly speculation. Some archaeDrawings
in Ambrosio Cave, Cuba
ologists have suggested that Indigenous
populations produced the more abstract
shapes, while the more complex human
and zoomorphic depictions may be later
artworks created by people of African
descent. Fernández Ortega believes some
of the older renderings may represent the
Taíno creation myth of the sun and the
moon. Other interpretations suggest that
the images could represent solar calendars,
butterflies, or Indigenous peoples'
initial interactions with the Spanish.
Hicacos Peninsula, Cuba
WHILE YOU'RE THERE
From Havana, take a bus or hire a driver
to reach the resort town of Varadero and
the pristine beaches at the heart of a
cluster of luxury hotels on the tip of the
peninsula. There, you can ride the hop-on,
hop-off bus and eat at one of the local
restaurants. In the opposite direction,
toward the city of Matanzas, you will find
Cueva de Saturno, or Saturn Cave, which
boasts a subterranean swimming hole with
crystal waters and dramatic stalagmites
and stalactites.
ARCHAEOLOGY * January/February 2024
Archaeology Magazine - January/February 2024

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