Caribbean (Geographic Keyword)
1-25 (597 Records)
La Puntilla-Marina is a small peninsula located south of the walled city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and west of the docks. Through the 19th century a series of projects to develop the area, consisting on the construction of colonial government buildings such as the custom’s house, armory and a military battery, as well as warehouses and dwellings, were completed. Unfortunately, part of this ward was demolished in in the mid-20th century to give way to the construction of residential units, a...
2016 Eighth World Archaeological Congress (WAC-8) in Kyoto, Japan (WGF - Conference Grant) (2016)
This resource is an application for the Conference Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. The World Archaeological Congress (WAC) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization whose members seek to promote interest in the past in all countries, to encourage the development of regionally-based histories and to foster international academic interaction. Its aims are based on the need to recognize the historical and social roles as well as the political context of archaeology, and the need...
The 2019–2020 NSF REU Exploring Globalization through Archaeology Investigations on St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean (2021)
This is an abstract from the "NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The second year of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Exploring Globalization through Archaeology project included archaeological investigations of the sugar works site (SE095), bioarchaeological investigations of an...
Acercamiento a las Opciones Técnicas en la Elaboración de Cerámicas Tempranas del Caribe Colombiano: Estudio Tecnológico de los Sitios Puerto Hormiga y Monsú (2016)
Las cerámicas tempranas del Caribe Colombiano (5000 a 1000 a.C.), las más antiguas del continente, son importantes en la formulación de hipótesis sobre origen y producción de alimentos en América. Esta investigación plantea un estudio tecnológico de cerámicas de Puerto Hormiga y Monsú desarrollando tres actividades. Primero, se determinaron las propiedades físicas y mineralógicas mediante técnicas de laboratorio (RX, petrografía, SEM, y DRX). Segundo, se comprobaron hipótesis sobre su función....
Acknowledging Behavior and Process in Early Caribbean Stone Tools: The Case of the Ortiz Site, Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Coloring Outside the Lines: Re-situating Understandings of the Lifeways of Earliest Peoples of the Circum-Caribbean" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the 1930s, scholars have examined variation in early lithic assemblages across the Caribbean archipelago. Long-held explanations for the genesis of these assemblages (and the differences among them) include cultural/stylistic factors, aspects of raw material...
Admixture in the pre-Columbian Caribbean (2015)
The biological origin of the Tainos is one of the most controversial issues regarding the population history of the Caribbean. The archaeological evidence suggests an early arrival from Mesoamerica and later arrivals of Arawak speaking groups from the Amazon to the Greater Antilles. We sequenced the control region of 171 Hondurans mtDNAs, 140 of which were of Native American origin, including 119 belonging to haplogroup A2, 20 to B2 and one to C1. We then chose Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic...
African and Afro-Caribbean Cultural Identity, Vessel Function, and Inter-island Connectedness in Eighteenth- to Nineteenth-Century St. Croix, US Virgin Islands (2021)
This is an abstract from the "To Move Forward We Must Look Back: The Slave Wrecks Project at 10 Years" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As part of the Slave Wrecks Project, excavations at Christiansted National Historic Site on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, have resulted in the collection of thousands of artifacts associated with the Danish West India and Guinea Warehouse Complex. Within this assemblage, hundreds of sherds of Afro-Caribbean...
The African-Caribbean Landscape of Wallblake Estate, Anguilla (2018)
Historical archaeologists have explored the plantation landscapes of the Caribbean for more than 50 years, and there have been archaeological excavations at historical sites on every major island. However, there are still islands where there have not been any previous excavations at historic sites, including plantations. Anguilla was one such island until June 2017 when archaeological survey and excavations began at the Wallblake Estate to understand the plantation landscape and the major...
Afro-Caribbean Ceramics of St. Croix: The Intersection of Clay Sourcing Analyses and Afro-Crucian Heritage (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From 2016 to 2019, excavations at Christiansted National Historic Site on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands associated with the Slave Wrecks Project, have resulted in the collection of thousands of artifacts associated with the Danish West India and Guinea Warehouse Complex (AD 1749 to circa AD 1854). This assemblage contains hundreds of Afro-Caribbean...
Agouti commensalism? An open question in the prehistoric Lesser Antilles, West Indies (2017)
Light isotope data for bone collagen, bone apatite, and tooth enamel apatite have been collected for prehistoric agouti (Dasyprocta sp.) recovered from secure archaeological contexts on Carriacou (Sabazan and Grand Bay) and Nevis (Coconut Walk) in the Lesser Antilles, West Indies. Stable carbon isotope ratios of individual specimens exhibit a wide range of values for both bone collagen (-20.0‰ to -11.5‰; avg = -17.8‰) and bone apatite (-13.6 to -6.5‰), with apatite-collagen spacing also quite...
Altering the Walls of Domesticity: Late 19th Century Modifications to Households in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2018)
Urban archaeology can help us understand the evolution of specific habitational spaces and shed light to investigations related to domestic life and issues related to daily life necessities. This paper will trace the modifications completed to buildings within the walled city of San Juan in the late 19th century. A selection of structures was made based primarily on the permit requests and blueprints submitted to the local government which can be consulted at the Archivo General de Puerto Rico....
Ambiguous Archaeology: Eating and Ceramic Styles in the Early Modern Caribbean (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper underscores “ambiguity” and duality as pervasive factors in archaeological research through a case study of coarse earthenware from La Soye, Dominica. Within this framework, I concentrate my approach on syncretic foodways and ceramic productions, which blend, confound, and subvert straight-forward interpretations. Using the material culture as a...
American archaeological expeditions to Cuba related with Museo Antropológico Montané (2016)
At the beginning of the twentieth century several American archaeological expeditions were made to Cuba. The Museo Antropológico Montané from the University of Havana was the mediating institution for academic exchange. They were conducted to explore, excavate and treasuring pieces. The description of these expeditions is the goal of this work. In 1900, Stewart Culin, from the University of Pennsylvania, sought descendants of Aboriginal communities in the region of Baracoa and its observations...
Amerindian archaeological site DEM construction and analysis from UAV flights (2015)
The archaeological footprint of Caribbean pre-Columbian settlements is often subtle; limited to surface scatter of shell, lithic and ceramic material. In the northern Dominican Republic, slight differences in topography have been identified as additional evidence for Amerindian habitation sites. Circular platforms from 7 to 10 meters in diameter, were dug into the hill slope and levelled to form the base of round houses, as shown in recent excavations by the Nexus1492 project. The terraced...
Analysis of Cultural Retention in an Eighteenth-Century Enslaved African Community in the Dutch Caribbean (2021)
This is an abstract from the "NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The island of Sint Eustatius, once the world's wealthiest free-trade port, played an important role during exploitation and globalization of the New World. This research project addresses the retention and/or loss of traditional cultural practices of enslaved Africans in the wake...
Analysis of Fatty Acids in Precontact Ceramics from Barbados, West Indies (2015)
Analyses of organic residues on ceramics complement other types of archaeological evidence used to characterize diets of populations colonizing and adapting to Caribbean Islands. Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) is used to identify compounds sampled from 20 sherds excavated from two households (the Goddard Site 200 B.C. - A.D. 300 and Chancery Lane Site A.D. 800-1500). Measurable peaks of fatty acid residues are present on six samples from the Goddard Site. Smaller traces of fatty...
An Analysis of Historic Glass Containers from St. George’s Caye, Belize (2017)
From 2009 to the present, an abundance of whole and partial glass bottle remains of various types have been recovered throughout excavations on St. George’s Caye, Belize. Much of the glass collection has been found within the island’s cemetery among an assemblage of various other historic artifacts. The majority of the bottles and bottle fragments have been identified as eighteenth and nineteenth century English cylindrical bottles. In 2016, analysis of this assemblage commenced in order to...
Analysis of Households in Calle de Isabel II, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1910 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Primary Sources and the Design of Research Projects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Analysis of Households in Calle de Isabel II, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1910 Calle de Isabel II was the main street of La Puntilla, a neighborhood located in a small peninsula outside the San Juan city walls. Throughout the 19th century a series of construction projects were undertaken in this area, including dwellings, schools and...
Analysis of Marine Sediment to Explain Sea-level Rise in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize (2017)
Archaeological research in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize provides insight into environmental changes over time. Sea-level rise has affected coastal Maya settlements during both the Classic and Postclassic Periods. Marine sediment samples from five submerged Classic Period Maya sites were exported under permit to the Archaeology lab at Louisiana State University where the samples were analyzed using loss-on ignition and microscopic sorting. The results from loss-on ignition as well as...
Analyzing Afro-Caribbean Ware from Fort Amsterdam (SE094) and Battery Rotterdam (SE129) on St. Eustatius, Caribbean Netherlands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Globalization and Colonialism through Archaeology and Bioarchaeology: An NSF REU Sponsored Site on the Caribbean’s Golden Rock (Sint Eustatius)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In June 2018, excavations were conducted at Fort Amsterdam, a military fortification, on the leeward side of St. Eustatius, along the Caribbean coast. Many different types of ceramics were found during the investigations, including...
Anarchy, Archaeology, and the Decolonization of Collaborative Heritage (2015)
This paper explores the relationship between anarchism, collaborative archaeology, and the decolonization of African diaspora heritage in the US and Caribbean. The heart of anarchism as a political theory articulates a robust criticism of hierarchy, and neatly intersects growing interests in collaborative archaeology and heritage. This represents a crucial intersection as the majority of archaeological projects remains rigidly hierarchical, often resulting in the silencing of local stakeholder...
Ancient Caribbean-Mainland Plant and Animal Translocations: Cultural, Biogeographic and Biodiversity Legacy (2015)
The Caribbean’s pre-peopling flora and fauna were the culminations of both vicariant and long-distance dispersal processes, coupled with evolution in relative isolation spanning more than 20 Mya. Human colonization beginning around 7,000 years ago coincided with extinctions of megalonychid sloths and giant flightless owls-- the archipelago’s only large terrestrial vertebrates-- probably precipitating the first human-induced trophic cascades and initiating the first of a series of...
Ancient DNA prospecting in the Caribbean: preliminary findings and future perspectives (2015)
Recent advancements in DNA sequencing has initiated a revolution in the field of Archaeogenetics. The results of these new studies have fundamentally affected our understanding of early human migration and peoples. Limitations, however, still exist, notably in tropical environments. These environments are believed to affect the preservation of DNA in human fossils, to the extent where DNA extraction and analysis is at the limit of even the newest technologies. A specialized facility has been...
Ancient DNA Studies in Tropical Environments: A Study into the Genetics of the Pre-Columbian Indigenous Population of Puerto Rico (2017)
Studies into ancient DNA have advanced significantly in the last few years, but these have largely been absent in tropical environments. In the Caribbean, a number of questions still pertain as to the bioarchaeology of the indigenous pre-Columbian populations and the exact origin of these early inhabitants. Focusing on the skeletal remains of a late Saladoid population from Punta Candelero site (AD 640-1200), three correlated and simultaneous studies have been coordinated with the aim to...
Ancient mtDNA: both Amazonian and Andean migrants in western Puerto Rico by late Saladoid times (2016)
The Machuca archaeological site in western Puerto Rico is found in the Añasco river flood-plain, next to one of the presumed ancient mouths of the river, less than half a kilometer east of the shoreline. The first burial was found in a fetal position together with ceramic remains of the Late Saladoid or Cuevas period. Radiocarbon dating on bone collagen placed the burial at AD 550 to 660 (2-sigma calibration) whereas that on charred material found inside one of the pots placed it at AD 650 to...