The Guanahatabey (also spelled Guanajatabey) were an indigenous people of western Cuba at the time of European contact. Archaeological and historical studies suggest the Guanahatabey were archaic hunter-gatherers with a distinct language and culture from their neighbors, the Taíno. They might have been a relic of an earlier culture that spread widely through the Caribbean before the ascendance of the agriculturalist Taíno. Description Contemporary historical references, largely corroborated by archaeological findings, placed the Guanahatabey on the western end of Cuba, adjacent to the Taíno living in the rest of Cuba and the rest of the Greater Antilles. The term Guanahatabey is not necessarily the term with which the population identified itself before the arrival of the European colonisers, but likely an adaption based on the limited understanding of the latter, similar to the term Taíno. At the time of European colonisation, they lived in what is now Pinar del Río Province and parts of Habana and Matanzas Provinces. Archaeological surveys of the area reveal an archaic population of hunter-gatherers inhabiting the entire Cuban archipelago. Unlike the neighbouring Taíno, they practised no larger scale agriculture, but subsisted mostly on small scale horticulture, shellfish and foraging, and supplemented their diet with fish and game. They lacked ceramic pottery, and made stone, shell, and bone tools using grinding and lithic reduction techniques. The language of the Guanahatabey is lost, except for a handful of placenames. However, it appears to have been distinct from the Taíno language, as the Taíno interpreter for Christopher Columbus could not communicate with them. As similar archaic sites dating back centuries have been found around the Caribbean, archaeologists consider the Guanahatabey to be late survivors of a much earlier culture that existed throughout the islands before the rise of the agricultural Taíno. Similar cultures existed in southern Florida at roughly the same time, though this could simply have been an independent adaptation to a similar environment. Genetic studies of ancient Archaic Age related individuals across Cuba have shown affinities to both South- and North America. It is possible the Guanahatabey were related to the Taíno, however, there is evidence of a genetic mixture in Haiti. History Columbus visited the Guanahatabey region in April 1494, during his second voyage. The expedition encountered the locals, but their Taíno interpreters could not communicate with them, indicating that they spoke a different language. The first recorded use of the name "Guanahatabey" is in