Burial Site Discovered in Jamaica

KINGSTON, JAMAICA—The Gleaner reports that miners working at a quarry in Jamaica's Hellshire Hills discovered a rockshelter that served as a burial site to the Taino, the island's original inhabitants. Archaeologists led by Selvenious Walters of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust were alerted to the discovery, and found that the miners had recovered a clay object representing a deity known as a zemi, as well as fragments of a bowl that would have contained food to sustain the Taino dead in the afterlife. The artifacts, along with human remains from the rock shelter, should help archaeologists better understand the nature of the Taino occupation of the island's interior, where few sites have been located. To read more about the Taino, go to “Spiritual Meeting Ground.”