a 1514 letter by the conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar; Bartolomé de las Casas also referred to them in 1516. Both writers described the Guanahatabey as primitive cave-dwellers who chiefly ate fish. The accounts are second-hand, evidently coming from Taíno informants. As such, scholars such as William F. Keegan cast doubt on these reports as they could reflect Taíno legends about the Guanahatabey rather than reality. The Spanish made sporadic references to the Guanahatabey and their distinctive language into the 16th century. They seem to have disappeared before any further information about them was recorded. Confusion with the Ciboney In the 20th century, misreadings of the historical record led scholars to confuse the Guanahatabey with another Cuban group, the Ciboney. Bartolomé de las Casas referred to the Ciboney, and 20th-century archaeologists began using the name for the culture that produced the archaic-level aceramic sites they found throughout the Caribbean. As many of these sites were found in the former Guanahatabey region of western Cuba, the term "Ciboney" came to be used for the group historically known as the Guanahatabey. However, this appears to be an error; las Casas distinguished between the Guanahatabey and the Ciboney, who were a western Taíno group of central Cuba subject to the eastern chiefs. Notes References Archaeology of Cuba Circum-Caribbean tribes Ethnic groups in Cuba Indigenous peoples in Cuba Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean