Early Settlers of the Insular Caribbean: Dearchaizing the Archaic offers a comprehensive coverage of the most recent advances in interdisciplinary research on the early human settling of the Caribbean islands. It covers the time span of the so-called Archaic Age and focuses on the Middle to Late Holocene period which – depending on specific case studies discussed in this volume – could range between 6000 BC and AD 1000. A similar approach to the early settlers of the Caribbean islands has never been published in one volume, impeding the realization of a holistic view on indigenous peoples’ settling, subsistence, movements, and interactions in this vast and naturally diversified macroregion.Delivered by a panel of international experts, this book provides recent and new data in the fields of archaeology, collection studies, palaeobotany, geomorphology, paleoclimate and bioarchaeology that challenge currently existing perspectives on early human settlement patterns, subsistence strategies, migration routes and mobility and exchange. This publication compiles new approaches to ‘old’ data and museum collections, presents the results of starch grain analysis, paleocoring, seascape modelling, and network analysis. Moreover, it features newer published data from the islands such as Margarita and Aruba. All the above-mentioned data compiled in one volume fills the gap in scholarly literature, transforms some of the interpretations in vogue and enables the integration of the first settlers of the insular Caribbean into the larger Pan-American perspective.This book not only provides scholars and students with compelling new and interdisciplinary perspectives on the Early Settlers of the Insular Caribbean. It is also of interest to unspecialized readers as it discusses subjects related to archaeology, anthropology, and – broadly speaking – to the intersections between humanities and social and environmental sciences, which are of great interest to the present-day general public.
Table of ContentsList of ContributorsList of FiguresList of TablesIntroductionCorinne L. Hofman and Andrzej T. AntczakDearchaizing the Caribbean ArchaicAndrzej T. Antczak and Corinne L. HofmanI. ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES AND SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIESGone with the Waves: Sea level rise, ancient territories, and the socioenvironmental context of the mid-Holocene maritime mobility in the Pan-Caribbean regionIsabel C. Rivera-CollazoArchaeological evidence and the potential effects of Paleo-Tsunami Events during the Archaic Age in the Southern CaribbeanJay B. HaviserNatural and anthropogenic landscape change and the submergence and emergence of the Archaic Age settlement on the eastern edge of the Anegada PassageJohn G. CrockEcosystem engineering during the human occupations of the Lesser AntillesPeter E. Siegel, John G. Jones, Deborah M. Pearsall, Nicholas P. Dunning, Pat Farrell, Neil A. Duncan, and Jason H. CurtisOn the way to the islands: The role of domestic plants in the initial peopling of the AntillesJaime R. Pagán-Jiménez, Reniel Rodríguez Ramos, and Corinne L. HofmanSubsistence strategies and food consumption patterns of Archaic Age populations from Cuba: From traditional perspectives to current analytical resultsYadira Chinique de Armas, Roberto Rodríguez Suárez, William M. Buhay, and Mirjana RoksandicII. LOCAL DEVELOPMENTS AND REGIONAL ENTANGLEMENTSThe first settlers: Lithic through Archaic times in the coastal zone and on the offshore islands of northeast South AmericaArie BoomertEarly indigenous occupations of Margarita Island and the Venezuelan CaribbeanAndrzej T. Antczak, Luis A. Lemoine Buffet, Ma. Magdalena Antczak, and Valentí RullThe Archaic Age of Aruba: New evidence on the first migrations into the islandHarold J. Kelly and Corinne L. HofmanConstruction and deconstruction of the “Archaic” in Cuba and HispaniolaJorge Ulloa Hung and Roberto Valcárcel RojasLevisa 1. Studying the earliest indigenous peoples in Cuba in multicomponent archaeological sitesRoberto Valcárcel Rojas, Jorge Ulloa Hung, and Osmani Feria GarcíaSituating JamaicaWilliam F. KeeganGuácaras in early Precolonial Puerto Rico: The case of Cueva VentanaReniel Rodríguez Ramos, Jaime Pagán-Jiménez, Yvonne Narganes Storde, and Michael J. LaceThe Krum Bay sites revisited. The excavations in the Krum Bay area on St. Thomas, US Virgin IslandsCasper ToftgaardIII. MOBILITY AND EXCHANGEAn Archaic site at Upper Blakes on Montserrat: Discovery, context, and wider significanceJohn F. Cherry and Krysta RyzewskiArchaic Age voyaging, networks, and resource mobility around the Caribbean SeaCorinne L. Hofman, Lewis Borck, Emma Slayton, and Menno L. P. HooglandReferencesAppendix
Dr. Andrzej T. Antczak is Associate Professor of Caribbean Archaeology at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, the Netherlands. Since 1982, he has been co-directing—together with Dr. Marlena Antczak—pioneering archaeological investigations on more than 60 off-shore islands of the Venezuelan Caribbean and, since 2006, on the small islands off the eastern coast of Martinique.His scholarly interests include the pre-colonial and early colonial archaeology of the Southeastern Caribbean, theory and method in the study of the social past, materiality, non-western ontologies, community archaeology, collection studies, archaeometry, shell middens, and historical ecology.His books include: Los Idolos de las Islas Prometidas: Arqueología Prehispánica del Archipiélago de Los Roques (with Ma.M. Antczak), Editorial Equinoccio 2006, Los Mensajes Confiados a la Roca (also with Ma.M. Antczak), Editorial Equinoccio 2007 and Early Human Impact on Megamolluscs (co-edited with R. Cipriani), Archaeopress 2008.
