Hacienda Grande is a culture that flourished in

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

from 250 BC to 300 AD. The main site in which Hacienda Grande culture was studied was in Loíza. Similar to the

Saladoid The Saladoid culture is a pre-Columbian indigenous culture of territory in present-day Venezuela and the Caribbean that flourished from 500 BCE to 545 CE. The Saladoid were an Arawak people. Concentrated along the lowlands of the Orinoco River, the ...

culture, out of

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, the Hacienda Grande culture was known primarily for its

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

works. Ceramic techniques include vessel forms, such as

zoomorphic The word ''zoomorphism'' derives from the Greek ζωον (''zōon''), meaning "animal", and μορφη (''morphē''), meaning "shape" or "form". In the context of art, zoomorphism could describe art that imagines humans as non-human animals. It c ...

effigy An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certai ...

vessels, platters, jars and bowls with D-shaped strap handles, and many other types of vessels. These potters decorated their vessels with

polychrome Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors. Ancient Egypt Colossal statu ...

designs mainly utilizing white-on-red, black paint, and negative-painted designs. These pottery findings, which are considered some of the best in

, represent the "earliest immigration of pottery-making Indians into the island." Similar 'white-on-red' pottery has been found in the

Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands ( es, Islas Vírgenes) are an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. They are geologically and biogeographically the easternmost part of the Greater Antilles, the northern islands belonging to the Puerto Rico Trench and St. Croix ...

, the

Lesser Antilles The Lesser Antilles ( es, link=no, Antillas Menores; french: link=no, Petites Antilles; pap, Antias Menor; nl, Kleine Antillen) are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Most of them are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc betwe ...

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

, and the

Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...

region of

. Though much of what we know about this culture is based on their ceramics, we do know that a principal part of not only their diet, but their society, was crab. The fact that an abundance of crab remains were discovered along with the pottery, combined with the fact that shell and shell artifacts are so rare, points directly to this site corresponding with what

Froelich Rainey Froelich Gladstone Rainey (June 18, 1907 – October 11, 1992) was an American anthropologist and Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology from 1947 to 1977. Under his leadership, the Penn Museum announced ...

called "Crab culture." Though this distinct style of pottery was found elsewhere, it did not travel any farther north or west than

. Evidence suggests that the

Igneri The Igneri were an indigenous Arawak people of the southern Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. Historically, it was believed that the Igneri were conquered and displaced by the Island Caribs in an invasion some time before European contact. Howev ...

immigration into the

Greater Antilles The Greater Antilles ( es, Grandes Antillas or Antillas Mayores; french: Grandes Antilles; ht, Gwo Zantiy; jam, Grieta hAntiliiz) is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean Sea, including Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and ...

was stopped due to a new group of invaders from

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. This theory is further supported by the fact that, rather than a slow shift from one ceramic style to another, the Hacienda Grande style of pottery and a diet based almost entirely on crabmeat abruptly stops, and with it, the Hacienda Grande culture as a whole.

References

Archaeology of the Caribbean {{archaeology-stub