TUSCALOOSA Ala.
What might Cuba’s
native culture looked like before the Spanish conquest in the early 1500s?
It might have looked a lot like Moundville.
University of Alabama
students will have a chance to find out as part of a two-year, joint U.S.-Cuban
archaeological expedition.
The expedition, led by UA’s anthropology department and the
Central-Eastern Department of Archaeology in Cuba’s
science ministry, focuses on Chorro de Maita, a former native village in
eastern Cuba.
The village was populated by Arawakan Indians, contemporaries
of the Mississippian Indians, during the time Christopher Columbus visited Cuba
in 1492.
Jim Knight, a professor of anthropology at UA, is overseeing
the expedition, which came about through his work with Cuban archaeologists. He
and his Cuban counterparts came up with the joint expedition, which got under
way with the arrival of two UA graduate students in Cuba
on July 10.
