Puerto Rico
Humans arrived in what is now Puerto Rico thousands of years ago. The Ortoiroid people from the Orinoco valley in South America arrived by migrating across the Lesser Antilles. The Ortoiroid were eventually succeeded by the Saladoid, who also came from the lowlands of the Orinoco River and the Arawak, a term which refers to a large group of indigenous peoples. The Taino “men of the good”, spread across present day Puerto Rico as well as much of Cuba and Jamaica. Leaders called caciques governed them and inherited their positions through a matrilineal system. Since the island had no large mammals, the Taino developed large scale agriculture to support the burgeoning population as well as a fishing technique that involved using a suckerfish to suction onto a larger fish or sea turtles.
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