scholarly journals Correction: A Database of Lapidary Artifacts in the Caribbean for the Ceramic Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Queffelec ◽  
Pierrirck Fouéré ◽  
Jean-Baptiste Caverne
Keyword(s):  
Ceramic Age ◽  
The Caribbean

Island Rhythms: The Web of Social Relationships and Interaction Networks in the Lesser Antillean Archipelago between 400 B.C. and A.D. 1492

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinne L. Hofman ◽  
Alistair J. Bright ◽  
Arie Boomert ◽  
Sebastiaan Knippenberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Interaction Networks ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Exchange Relationships ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Ceramic Age ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The Web

The precolonial communities of the Caribbean archipelago were not insular. The discontinuous natural resource distribution, the maritime orientation of the Caribbean Amerindians, and the complexities of regional social interaction ensured that the precolonial Caribbean islandscape was dynamic and highly interconnected. This report explores the socicultural behavior and intercommunity exchange relationships of the inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles. It combines related archaeological case studies encompassing the procurement and exchange of: (1) raw materials and utilitarian goods with a wide spatial and social distribution, (2) goods with high stylistic visibility and presumed social function as markers of identity or status, and (3) prestige goods with profound ceremonial value. The study of these objects reveals overarching social and ideological dimensions to Caribbean life. Data suggest that social relationships manifest themselves at different levels and through distinct rhythms while taking on various material guises during the Ceramic age Amerindian occupation of the Caribbean islands (400 B.C. to A.D. 1492). While there is great potential in unraveling interaction networks through the careful study of distribution patterns, the incorporation of ethnohistoric and ethnographic information is imperative to elucidate the web of social relationships underlying these material manifestations.

Extinct insular oryzomyine rice rats (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae) from the Grenada Bank, southern Caribbean

Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4951 (3) ◽  
pp. 434-460
Author(s):  
BRITTANY A. MISTRETTA ◽  
CHRISTINA M. GIOVAS ◽  
MARCELO WEKSLER ◽  
SAMUEL T. TURVEY
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
Size Variation ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Widespread Species ◽  
Island Populations ◽  
Southern Caribbean ◽  
Ceramic Age ◽  
Endemic Genera ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Neighbouring Island

The Lesser Antillean island chain in the eastern Caribbean formerly supported a diverse rodent fauna including multiple endemic genera of oryzomyine rice rats. The Caribbean rice rats are now all extinct, with most island populations known only from Holocene palaeontological and zooarchaeological material and with many remaining taxonomically undescribed. Rice rat material is reported from several pre-Columbian Ceramic Age (late Holocene) archaeological sites on the Grenada Bank, including sites on Grenada and Carriacou, but the taxonomic identity and diversity of the Grenada Bank rice rats has remained uncertain. We provide a morphology-based description of rice rats from Grenada and Carriacou, and analyze their phylogenetic and biogeographical affinities to other Caribbean and mainland Neotropical oryzomyines. We recognize two taxa from the Grenada Bank: we describe the new species Megalomys camerhogne from Pearls (Grenada), representing the largest-bodied member of the extinct endemic Caribbean genus Megalomys, and we refer smaller-bodied oryzomyine material from Pearls and Sabazan (Carriacou) to the widespread extant Neotropical species Zygodontomys brevicauda. Body size variation within Megalomys correlates with island bank area and might thus reflect historical rather than modern biogeography. Zygodontomys specimens from the Grenada Bank fall within the upper end of size variation in extant populations and may constitute an example of ‘island gigantism’, but it is possible that occurrence of this widespread species on the Grenada Bank might reflect prehistoric human-mediated translocation. We predict further endemic Caribbean rice rat taxa remain to be discovered, including a possible species of Megalomys on the neighbouring island of St. Vincent. 

scholarly journals A genetic history of the pre-contact Caribbean

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Fernandes ◽  
Kendra A. Sirak ◽  
Harald Ringbauer ◽  
Jakob Sedig ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
The Bahamas ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Population Size Estimates ◽  
Ceramic Age ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

Humans settled the Caribbean ~6,000 years ago, with intensified agriculture and ceramic use marking a shift from the Archaic Age to the Ceramic Age ~2,500 years ago. To shed new light on the history of Caribbean people, we report genome-wide data from 184 individuals predating European contact from The Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, and northwestern Venezuela. A largely homogeneous ceramic-using population most likely originating in northeastern South America and related to present-day Arawak-speaking groups moved throughout the Caribbean at least 1,800 years ago, spreading ancestry that is still detected in parts of the region today. These people eventually almost entirely replaced Archaic-related lineages in Hispaniola but not in northwestern Cuba, where unadmixed Archaic-related ancestry persisted into the last millennium. We document high mobility and inter-island connectivity throughout the Ceramic Age as reflected in relatives buried ~75 kilometers apart in Hispaniola and low genetic differentiation across many Caribbean islands, albeit with subtle population structure distinguishing the Bahamian islands we studied from the rest of the Caribbean and from each other, and long-term population continuity in southeastern coastal Hispaniola differentiating this region from the rest of the island. Ceramic-associated people avoided close kin unions despite limited mate pools reflecting low effective population sizes (2Ne=1000-2000) even at sites on the large Caribbean islands. While census population sizes can be an order of magnitude larger than effective population sizes, pan-Caribbean population size estimates of hundreds of thousands are likely too large. Transitions in pottery styles show no evidence of being driven by waves of migration of new people from mainland South America; instead, they more likely reflect the spread of ideas and people within an interconnected Caribbean world.

scholarly journals A Database of Lapidary Artifacts in the Caribbean for the Ceramic Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Queffelec ◽  
Pierrick Fouéré ◽  
Jean-Baptiste Caverne
Keyword(s):  
Ceramic Age ◽  
The Caribbean

scholarly journals A database of lapidary artifacts in the Caribbean for the Ceramic Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Queffelec ◽  
Pierrick Fouéré ◽  
Jean-Baptiste Caverne
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Literature Survey ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Lesser Antilles ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Ceramic Age ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
Materials Used

Lapidary artifacts show an impressive abundance and diversity during the Ceramic period in the Caribbean islands, especially at the beginning of this period. Most of the raw materials used in this production do not exist naturally on the islands of the Lesser Antilles, nevertheless, many archaeological sites have yielded such artifacts on these islands. In the framework of a four-years-long project, we created a database by combining first hand observations and analysis, as well as a thorough literature survey. The result is a database including more than 100 sites and almost 5000 beads, pendants, blanks and raw material fragments.

scholarly journals Verification of an Archaic Age Occupation on Barbados, Southern Lesser Antilles

Radiocarbon ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott M Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
South America ◽  
Lesser Antilles ◽  
Carbonate Cement ◽  
Queen Conch ◽  
Active Volcanism ◽  
Ceramic Age ◽  
Juvenile Specimen ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Conch Shell

The Caribbean Archaic Age (about 3000–500 BC) is thought to represent the earliest migration of humans from South America into the Lesser Antilles. However, there is a conspicuous absence of these early sites on islands south of the Guadeloupe Passage. To date, only a single radiocarbon date derived from a Queen conch (Strombus [Eustrombus] gigas) shell at the Heywoods site on Barbados was indicative of an Archaic occupation in the southern Antilles apart from a scattering of poorly reported (and mostly undated) sites. Given a number of issues associated with reliance on a single date to establish a cultural horizon, along with other problems derived from possible carbonate cement contamination and dating marine shells of a longer-lived species such as Queen conch, 2 additional samples were taken from the same unit and context at Heywoods to confirm whether the site is truly representative of an occupation during the Archaic Age. Results from a Queen conch shell adze in Context 7 dated to 2530–2200 BC (2 σ) and overlaps with the only other Archaic date from the site dating to 2320–1750 cal BC, while a juvenile specimen of the same species from Context 8 at 3280–2940 BC (2 σ) indicates that Barbados may have been settled even earlier. This suggests that Heywoods may be the oldest site between Trinidad and Puerto Rico. While further confirmation is required, these new dates have implications for understanding the nature of migratory ventures in the Caribbean, such as whether the “Southward Route” hypothesis—which postulates that earlier migration events from South America during the Ceramic Age (beginning ∼500 BC) initially bypassed the southern Lesser Antilles—also applies to the Archaic, and if other phenomena such as active volcanism may have played a role in structuring settlement patterns. Questions also remain as to why Heywoods does not exhibit the typical lithic Archaic tool kit.

scholarly journals New Radiocarbon Dates for the Grenadine Islands (West Indies)

Radiocarbon ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott M Fitzpatrick ◽  
Christina M Giovas
Keyword(s):  
West Indies ◽  
Lesser Antilles ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Island Size ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Information ◽  
Rigorous Testing ◽  
Ceramic Age ◽  
The Caribbean

Intensified archaeological research in the Caribbean over the past 2 decades has provided a wealth of new information on how and when these islands were settled prehistorically. However, there has been a paucity of research on islands in the southern Lesser Antilles, which would allow for more rigorous testing of migration models and various settlement pattern hypotheses. To address some of these chronological and geographical gaps, we present a corpus of 41 radiocarbon dates from several sites in the Grenadine Island chain. Results to date support a relatively late Ceramic Age settlement of these smaller islands (about AD 400) compared to other nearby, larger islands in the southern Lesser Antilles (about AD 200) as well as the Caribbean as a whole (about 400/500 BC). Intriguing questions also remain as to an apparent, but as yet inadequately tested, pattern where earlier colonization dates are correlated with larger island size.

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