La Habana: archaeological dimension of an inhabited space, a volume co-edited by Ediciones Polymita and Ediciones Boloña, is an expression of the intense work carried out by the Cabinet of Archeology since 1987, when it was founded by the archaeologist Leandro Romero, with the support of Eusebio Leal Spengler , Historian of the City of Havana, to whose Office the institution has been attached since then.
The book, designed with beauty and efficiency by Jorge Méndez Cala, with photos by Julio Larramendi, the authors of the texts and from the archive, as well as maps, plans, tables, tables ..., and printed by Egondi Artes Gráficas SA, brings together seven essays by 16 authors, preceded by fragments of an intervention by Eusebio Leal, the main animator and defender of the application of archaeological science in the Havana Historic Center, and by an Introduction by Dr. Alicia García Santana, a scholarly art historian for whom Cuban real estate does not keep secrets.
The first chapter, authored by Sonia Menéndez and Beatriz Rodríguez, in addition to taking us in a brief tour of the archaeological works in Havana, from the pioneers to the present, exposes the theoretical and methodological foundations that have been accompanying them throughout the years, and, like all the chapters of the book, it closes with a kind of “case studies”, which put the reader before a report of practical actions related to what is theoretically stated in each essay.
The second chapter, by Roger Arrazcaeta, Marcos Acosta, Isvaldo Jiménez and Rebeca Ortiz, the longest in the volume, will be exciting for those of us - Cubans or foreigners - who have wondered about that mysterious first settlement of the current Cuban capital, which authors describe as "an enigma of more than 500 years", and that they themselves, when summarizing innumerable theories and investigations in situ, locate in a still unknown point that covers the south of four provinces of the Island: Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Mayabeque and Matanzas. On the other hand, in chapter 3 Rosalía Oliva, Lisette Roura and Osvaldo Jiménez travel that Havana finally established in its current settlement, and its social and urban organization until reaching the splendor of the 18th century, while Lisette Roura, in the fourth chapter, explores a topic that has gained interest in recent years: the indigenous presence and its contributions to who we are, as part of "a greater system."
César Alonso, Carlos Hernández and Osvaldo Jiménez, in chapters 5 and 6, visit a Havana erected in the center of interoceanic traffic; the seafaring city, merchant and trafficker that we were and in part still are: ship racking, pirate and corsair stalking, shipwrecks, fleet meetings, merchandise exchanges, enormous wealth unloaded and guarded ... A vast wealth of useful information for historians, sociologists, economists, filmmakers or storytellers. Finally, in chapter 7 Karen Lugo brings us into the presence of the archaeological studies carried out in Cuba to date, with their respective contributions and challenges, and proposes the incorporation of their results to the study of a History, more inclusive, complex, multidisciplinary, and , as profit, entertaining.
This beautiful volume is a tribute to the 502 anniversary of the founding of Havana and to the memory of that faithful, passionate and constant lover of hers, Eusebio Leal.