Changing Interpretations of the Archaeology of Caribbean western Panama.

Summary

Recent field and laboratory archaeological findings in Bocas del Toro, Panama offer data that changes and amplifies our understanding of the prehistory of the region. Detailed paleoethnobotanical study, further zooarchaeological examination, preliminary ceramic thin-section analysis, and continuing ceramic analysis have all produced results that call in to question entrenched assumptions concerning the timing of settlement, the nature of the subsistence economy, trade, exchange and cultural complexity in the region. Bocas del Toro was settled by at least 2 kya. It’s inhabitants consumed maize, a variety of tree crops, a diverse array of animals and were fully incorporated in the greater Lower Central American Interaction Network as evidenced by the presence of diagnostic ceramics derived from Central Panama all the way to SW Nicaragua and many places in between.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15255