Preface -- Houses for the living and the dead -- Scope of the research -- Dissertation structure and chapter outline -- Introduction -- 1.1 Positioning the El Cabo research within the Greater Antillean archaeological tradition -- 1.2 Overview of structure excavations in the Greater Antilles -- 1.2.1 Summary of Greater Antillean structure characteristics -- 1.3 Positioning the El Cabo research within the archaeological research history of the Dominican Republic -- 1.3.1 The early phase -- 1.3.2 A national Dominican archaeology -- 1.3.3 The Dominican Golden Age -- 1.3.4 The current state of affairs -- 1.4 Positioning the El Cabo research locally -- 1.4.1 Threats to the Dominican heritage -- 1.4.2 Large-scale destruction -- 1.4.3 The relevance of El Cabo to local history and vice versa -- 1.5 Discussion -- Trajectories of social life -- 2.1 Household archaeologies -- 2.1.1 Methodology in household archaeology -- 2.1.2 House theories in archaeology -- 2.1.3 Definitions and approach used in the dissertation -- 2.2 The house as a unit of analysis in the archaeology of the indigenous Greater Antilles -- 2.2.1 The material house -- 2.2.2 Houses and kinship -- 2.2.3 House temporalities -- 2.2.4 Houses, identity and personhood -- 2.2.5 Houses, hierarchy and social complexity -- 2.3 Two sources of analogy as reference points in the study of El Cabo -- 2.3.1 The house and Amazonian sociality: Aesthetics, morals and socialisation -- 2.3.2 Present day El Cabo -- 2.4 Review of data in early colonial sources -- 2.4.1 Physical descriptions of houses -- 2.4.2 House layout, furnishings and activities -- 2.4.3 Settlement layout -- 2.4.4 Household organization -- 2.4.5 Conceptualization and cultural status of house -- 2.4.6 Discussion -- 2.5 Review of house as research focus in Greater Antillean archaeology -- 2.5.1 Discussion of the different approaches.

2.6 Discussion -- Regional and local setting of El Cabo -- 3.1 Research history in the eastern region -- 3.1.1 Previous investigations -- 3.2 El Cabo: Site setting -- 3.3 Geological setting: Dissolving worlds -- 3.3.1 The eastern coastal plains -- 3.3.2 Summary -- 3.4 Ecology and palaeoecology -- 3.4.1 Current ecology of the eastern Dominican Republic -- 3.4.2 Palaeoecology of El Cabo -- 3.5 Land use history -- 3.5.1 Material history -- 3.5.2 Census data and reconstructed history -- 3.5.3 Oral history -- 3.5.4 Summary and discussion -- 3.6 Regional setting: Pre-Columbian and colonial Higüey -- 3.6.1 The archaeology of the eastern region, post-AD 600 -- 3.6.2 Settlement patterns -- 3.6.3 Discussion -- 3.6.4 Higüey: The last cacicazgo and the pacification of the east -- 3.7 El Cabo archaeological research history -- 3.7.1 El Cabo in 1978 -- 3.7.2 El Cabo in 2000 -- 3.7.3 El Cabo in recent fieldwork and historical reports -- 3.8 Discussion -- Current research in El Cabo -- 4.1 Introduction: the processes of discovery or rediscubrimiento in El Cabo -- 4.1.1 Summary of 2005 fieldwork -- 4.1.2 Summary of 2006 fieldwork -- 4.1.3 Summary of 2007 fieldwork -- 4.1.4 Summary of 2008 fieldwork -- 4.2 Fieldwork procedures -- 4.2.1 The site grid -- 4.2.2 The find layer -- 4.2.3 The feature layer -- 4.2.4 Soil descriptions -- 4.2.5 Drawings -- 4.3.6 Off-site processing of find material -- 4.2.7 Coring programme and mapping of site elevations -- 4.2.9 Small unit excavations -- 4.2.10 Main unit excavation methodology and features -- 4.2.11 Surface survey methodology -- 4.3 Discussion -- Reconstructions of the built environment in El Cabo -- 5.1 Methodology of reconstruction -- 5.1.1 Desk-based analysis -- 5.1.2 Confidence classes -- 5.1.3 Presentation of the structure interpretations -- 5.2 Structure interpretations -- 5.2 Remaining features -- 5.4 Structure typology.

5.4.1 Type 1 -- 5.4.2 Type 2 -- 5.4.3 Type 3 -- 5.4.4 Type 4 -- 5.4.5 Type 5 -- 5.4.6 Type 6 -- 5.4.7 Type 7 -- 5.4.8 Type 8 -- 5.4.9 Unassigned structures -- 5.5 Discussion -- The house that Higuanamá inherited: Trajectories of social life in El Cabo -- 6.1 Dating and chronology of built structures -- Phases -- 6.1.1 Phase a -- 6.1.2 Phase b -- 6.1.3 Phase c -- 6.1.4 Phase d -- 6.1.5 Phase e -- 6.1.6 Discussion of phases -- 6.2 Longevity of the estate: House Trajectories in a diachronic perspective -- 6.2.1 House Trajectory 1 -- 6.2.2 House Trajectory 2 -- 6.2.3 House Trajectory 3 -- 6.2.4 House Trajectory 4 -- 6.2.5 House Trajectory 5 -- 6.2.6 House Trajectory 6 -- 6.3 The development of estates and their interaction -- 6.3.1 Trajectories of renewal: The life cycle of the House Trajectory -- 6.3.2 Summary of renewal -- 6.4 House aesthetics and "the beauty of the everyday" -- 6.4.1 Entrances -- 6.4.2 Orientation -- 6.4.3 Regularity -- 6.4.4 Circular arguments and asymmetry -- 6.4.5 Depositions: Dressing the house in closing rituals -- 6.4.6 Discussion -- 6.5 Daily life and the temporalities of the domestic realm in El Cabo -- 6.5.1 Ceramic distribution -- 6.5.2 Griddle distribution -- 6.5.3 Marine shell distribution -- 6.5.4 Bodily adornments, community regalia and cemí items -- 6.5.5 Tools -- 6.5.6 Colonial material -- 6.5.7 Discussion -- 6.6 The yucayeque (survey results) -- 6.6.1 Ceramic distribution -- 6.6.2 Griddle distribution -- 6.6.3 Marine shell distribution -- 6.6.4 Paraphernalia distribution -- 6.6.5 Discussion of distributions -- 6.6.6 Features and artefact distributions across the site -- 6.7 The house within the yucayeque community setting -- 6.8 House and community demography and kinship -- 6.8.1 House and site population estimates -- 6.8.2 El Cabo house and community estimates -- 6.8.3 Social composition of houses.

6.8.4 The dimensions and manifestations of kinship in El Cabo -- 6.9 Discussion -- House Trajectories, the constitution of culture, and social complexity in Higüey -- 7.1 Summary of results -- 7.2 Implications of a house perspective for Late Ceramic Age culture and social complexity -- Glossary -- References -- Appendix 1: Field forms -- Appendix 2: Overview of attributes per structure -- Appendix 3: Features per structure -- Summary -- Resumen -- Samenvatting -- Acknowledgements -- Curriculum vitae.