Caguana: Archaeology of an Aboriginal Ceremonial Center in Puerto Rico: A Large Archaeological Site at Capá, Utuado, with Notes on Other Porto Rico Sites Visited in 1914-1915

J. Alden Mason, noted archaeological anthropologist and linguist, was born in Orland, Indiana and attended school in Philadelphia attaining his A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1907. He pursued his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley completing his dissertation on the ethnography of the Salinan Indians of California. Mason was influenced by Alfred J. Kroeber while at Berkeley and Edward Sapir of the University of Pennsylvania. Following the completion of his Ph.D., Mason was chosen to represent the state of Pennsylvania for two seasons in Mexico at the International School of Archaeology and Ethnology, a joint enterprise between Mexico and the United States. He then spent more than a year in Puerto Rico recording folktales in original dialects. His association with the International School of Archaeology and Ethnology brought him into close contact with Franz Boas of Columbia University. In 1914, Mason traveled to Puerto Rico with a project entitled the Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands was undertaken in 1914-1915 by the New York Academy of Sciences, to study Puerto Rican prehistory and culture. Among the Survey's most important findings were at Barrio Caguana of Utuado, at that time known as Capa due the number of Capa trees (Cordia alliodra) covering the site. The Caguana Site was brought to the attention of anthropologists Franz Boas, Robert T. Aitken, and J. Alden Mason by local coffee planters in the region of Utuado. Aitken and Mason mapped and surveyed the site in 1915, recording thirteen plazas and related features.This work was first published by John Alden Mason under the title of: A large Archaeological Site at Capa, Utuado, with notes on other Porto Rico Sites Visited in 1914-1915 in 1941 by the New York Academy of Science. We have published the present facsimile edition under the title: Caguana:Archaeology of an Aboriginal Ceremonial Center in Puerto Rico, an included at the end an Appendix entitled: Caguana Appendix with updated photos of the site. Size 6.00 X 9.00, 132 pages. Dr. Angel Rodriguez, editor. Editorial Nuevo Mundo.Copy and paste the link below for our titles at Amazon: http://ediitorialnuevomundo.blogspot.com