In four drainages in the Santa María Biogeographic Province bordering Parita Bay (central Pacific Panama), archaeologists have recovered well-preserved fish faunas dating from the Late Preceramic period uncalibrated 14C years BP) to Spanish contact in 1515-20 AD. Another South American species, a gar characin (Ctenolucius beani), is present in Early Ceramic BP) deposits at the Aguadulce shelter and also Monagrillo BP) in the Parita drainage of the same province. Freshwater fish are abundant and diverse in the large river basins of South America east of the Andes.
Nor were middens in several villages occupied after ~2800 BP west of this site near Barú Volcano (Figure 1; Linares and Sheets, 1980). However, in the Santa María and Coclé del Sur basins, further east, marine fish bones have been recorded at locations between 20 and 60 km inland from the Pacific coast. Nineteen of the 46 freshwater species recorded in the SMBP for which we have biometric data have a total length of no more than 100 mm (Figure 3).
On the other hand, freshwater fish were an important food source at two locations in the narrow coastal plain along Parita Bay: Aguadulce Refuge and Sitio Sierra.
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Fish behavior and Fishing Techniques
Despite the large number of fish bones found at the studied pre-Columbian sites, very few artifacts that can be interpreted as fishing gear have been found in excavations. At Cooke's farm, located 25 km up the Chico River in the Coclé del Sur drainage, local fishermen catch large numbers of the king twig catfish (Sturisoma panamense) and spiny armor catfish (Hemiancistrus aspidolepis) in gill nets placed perpendicular to river banks (Cooke, personal observation). Therefore, it is surprising that this species was represented by only three bones (0.1%) at Sitio Sierra (Ag3), which is very close to the two freshwater fishing stations where Cooke and Tapia caught most of the spiny armored catfish.
The low archaeological representation of this catfish in Sitio Sierra compared to its present-day abundance in the Santa María River may be related to some unknown cultural or biological factor, such as food rejection or natural resistance to barbasco-like fish poisons. This species, whose remains represent 5% of freshwater fish bones in the Aguadulce Sanctuary and 4% in Sitio Sierra (Figure 2), is most active at night, a behavior it shares with the marbled marsh eel (Synbranchus marmoratus).
Marine fish in freshwater sections of Parita Bay rivers
Around Parita Bay, juvenile fat sleepers congregate in tidal channels and pools on high tide flats where they can be easily caught with nets and spoons (Cooke and Ranere, 1999). All bones were assessed against specimens in the comparative collection as belonging to individuals between 50–200 g in size and 100–200 mm total length (TL). This suggests that the inhabitants of this coastal settlement acquired coarse sleep in these coastal marine habitats rather than in the freshwater parts of the Santa María River where large specimens appear to congregate.
The largest specimen of a fat sleeper in the STRI skeletal collection (32x-1-1-2) was a pregnant female collected from an ancient endorrheic meander of the Santa María River just north of the Sitio Sierra site. The largest spotted sleeper in the STRI collection was collected from the main channel of the Santa María River: it weighed 1930 g (32x-2-1-07; it was not measured). Local fishermen say even larger spotted sleepers can be caught in the deepest parts of the rivers that flow into Parita Bay.
For example, in the eastern tropical Pacific, bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas), snook (Centropomus nigrescens and C. viridis), and sawfish (Pristis spp.), which reach very large sizes, travel considerable distances inland and may be found confiscated. in man-made lakes (Vásquez and Thorson, 1982). False sculptured catfish (N. cookei) and river catfish (C. tuyra) are often caught today in the freshwater parts of the Santa María River. An example of the former species taken with a freshwater gill net in the Santa María River was 405 mm (SL) and weighed 3855 g.
All of the above species were recorded in the archaeofaunal samples from Sitio Sierra (Cooke and Ranere, 1999). In the absence of biochemical studies, and referring to comments on the fat sleeper at Cerro Mangote, it is not possible to prove that bones of freshwater-tolerant marine fish found in the Parita Bay middens were actually caught in freshwater in pre-Columbian times. . The ubiquity, ease of capture, and large size of many of them increase the value of river fisheries in the lower reaches of SMBP rivers.
Zoogeography
The richness of cichlid and poeciliid species is greatest at the western edge of the land bridge (Lake Nicaragua) (Smith and Bermingham, 2005). On the other hand, only two native cichlid species have been recorded in the river Santa María drainage: "chogorro" (Aequidens coeruleopunctatus) and Siebold's mojarra (Tomocichla sieboldi). The final closure of the Central American land bridge between about 3.5 and 3.1 Ma also allowed the northward dispersal of other primary freshwater species that originated in the major river basins of South America.
Their diversity is greatest in the easternmost basins (ie the Tuira), a fact that reflects both proximity to South American drainages and regional diversification. These orders and families provide nine of the twelve species of freshwater fish used by pre-Columbian populations inhabiting the SMBP. Smith and Bermingham attributed this fact to "the gradual subsidence of the continental shelf in the Gulf of Panama, combined with periods of lowered sea level, which during glacial maxima would have greatly facilitated the dispersal of fish through the anatomizing lowland streams and marshes extending from the Tuira River to the streams of the Azuero Peninsula."
The driftwood catfish is the second most abundant freshwater fish species in the Santa María drainage archaeofaunal samples by NISP (Figure 2), and the most abundant by MNI (Cooke and Ranere, 1999). Loftin (1965) did not collect this species in the SMBP in 1961-62; at that time it was recorded only from Darién and the eastern Panama Province (i.e. in the Biological Province of Tuira). Believing that this species was not a natural component of the Santa Maria basin, Cooke could not identify the large specimen of bones attributed to T.
Loftin's collection of gar characin (Ctenolucius beani) in the Santa María stream led him to suggest that this species has a disjunctive distribution, present in the Tuira, Santa María and possibly Coclé del Sur and La Villa streams, but absent from the rivers between these basins. Three other important freshwater food fishes in the archaeofauna samples—tiger (Hoplias sp.), ghost knife (Sternopygus macrurus), and head carp (Cyphocharax magdalenae)—invaded the Pacific slopes of the land bridge all the way to Costa Rica (Bussing and López, 1987). Five gar characin (C. beani) bones found in the Aguadulce shelter during excavations in 1997 confirm the presence of this species in the Santa María drainage sometime between 7000 and 2500 BP (Fig. 2).
Conclusion
The preferred freshwater species were two that grow to fairly large sizes (>500 g) – the tigerfish (Hoplias sp.) and silver catfish (Rhamdia cf quelen) – and another, considerably smaller (<200 g) species, the driftwood catfish (Trachylopterus amblops). Most of the recorded freshwater species take baited hooks, and have probably been caught this way at times in the past. Nevertheless, the fact that about a quarter of the sample of driftwood catfish pectoral spines found at Sitio Sierra remained intact indicates that these fish were not necessarily caught with nets, because to exterminate them without removing the spines to break would cause injuries and damage equipment.
The rarity of large spiny armored catfish (Hemiancistrus semispinosus) in Sitio Sierra is inconsistent with its present-day abundance and ease of netting, suggesting that this inconsistency may be due to cultural factors (such as food refusal) or behavioral factors such as resistance to fish poison. similar to barbasco, obtained from the wild American yam (Dioscorea), which is still used today in the studied region. The taxonomy of the Isthmian freshwater fish fauna is currently under scrutiny in ongoing molecular studies leading to revisions of the taxonomic status and relationships between species and distinct populations of species. The species of the ten freshwater genera that are apparently monotypic in the archaeofaunal samples are assumed to be the same as those present in the four study drainages today.
Two species present in the samples have not expanded westward beyond the Santa María biogeographic province: the driftwood catfish (Trachyleopterus amblops) and the gar characin (Ctenolucius beani). Although it is likely that their presence in the SMBP dates back to the Pleistocene, there are no archaeofaunal samples of this antiquity. However, the driftwood template was present in the Santa María drainage in the period 7000–4500 BP, and in the Coclé del Sur and Parita drainages in 4500–2500 BP.
In addition to providing information on prehistoric diet, and food acquisition and preparation methods, archaeozoological records are relevant to the study of fish distributions in the past. Eds.), The Archeology of Lower Central America, University of New Mexico Press (School for American Research), Albuquerque, pp. The Origins of Wealth and Hierarchy in the Central Region of Panama BP), with observations on its relevance to the history and phylogeny of Chibchan-speaking polities in Panama and elsewhere.
Diet of Agonostomus monticola (Pisces: . Mugilidae) in the Río Ayuquila, Sierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve, Mexico. Number of bones of primary and secondary freshwater fish, and euryhaline sleepers (Eleotridae) found in pre-Columbian means at nine archaeological sites in the Santa Maria Biogeographic Province, Panama. Bermingham and colleagues and catch records for specimens in the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) skeletal reference collection.
Total length (TL), standard length (SL) and body mass estimates were taken from www.fishbase.org or (if different) from STRI collection records (square brackets indicate that the length or weight of specimens in the STRI skeletal collection exceed those in www.fishbase.org is given).
