Caribbean (Geographic Keyword)
401-425 (537 Records)
Little is known from the present-day archaeological perspective of early colonial realities of Margarita and Coche islands located in north-eastern Venezuela, in the state of Nueva Esparta. Moreover, the island of Coche has never been surveyed archaeologically. This paper discusses the preliminary results of systematic archaeological surveys of Coche and the southern coast of Margarita Island, carried out within the frame of the Nexus 1492 ERC research project coordinated by Leiden University....
Reassessing the 1898 U.S. assault on Asomante through battlefield archeology (2016)
Military confrontations during the first half of August of 1898, between Coamo and Aibonito, Puerto Rico, were the last known developments of the Spanish-American War. Historically, this area has been listed as the last battlefield of Spain in America. There are several factors about these military events, such as scarcity of historical resources, political conflicts of interest, and the unseemly lack of archeological research, that have kept them from being defined in the academic literature....
Reassessing the Ballajá Archaeological Collection (2018)
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, archaeological research was undertaken in urban blocks of the Santo Domingo and Ballajá wards producing one of the largest collections from within the city walls of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Part of the collection was transferred to the Museum of History, Anthropology and Art of the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus. This presentation explores the contents of the collection in terms of artifacts, documents, drawings, and photographs. The objective...
Recent archaeological excavations at the Aklis Site, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (2015)
The Aklis site (12VAm1-42) is a multicomponent prehistoric conch shell midden containing cemetery and habitation components. Large portions of the site are currently subject to damage from rising sea levels and modern disturbances, including looting. Salvage excavations of two sets of human remains in 2012 led to the development of an archaeological field school in 2014, offered by Mississippi State University and in conjunction with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Survey and excavation...
Recent Investigations at the 18th Century Fort Frederik Archaeological Site and Cemetery, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands (2018)
In 2010, a tropical storm disturbed human remains and archaeological deposits at the Fort Frederik Archaeological Site, a multicomponent site consisting of dense 18th-19th century midden deposits associated with Fort Frederik, a two-story fortification (est. 1760) dating to the colonial development of St. Croix, then a part of the Danish West Indies. Subsequent investigations, including a geophysical survey, subsurface testing, and osteological analysis, have identified a cemetery within the...
Recent Investigations in Rock Art Dating in Several Cuban Caves (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cuba has many karst caves with pictographs, but there has been uncertainty about who created the rock art. The prehistoric population, historic indigenous groups pushed to the margins by the Spanish, and maroons or escaped African slaves are all possibilities. Cuban archaeologists have debated for decades which groups were...
Reconstructing Caribbean Paleotopography during the Holocene: Implications for Archaeology and Biogeography (2015)
Our understanding of the Holocene sea level history of the Caribbean Sea is improving through the development and analysis of mangrove and coral-based relative sea level data. In this poster we present a time-series of maps showing how the paleotopography of the region changed throughout the Holocene. The maps were generated using a recently developed model of Caribbean sea level change that incorporates the effects of both eustasy and isostasy to model past sea level positions. The results show...
Reconstructing Household Units Using Census Data and Plans (2017)
This paper will present the benefits and limitations of incorporating census data in the analysis of household units in San Juan, Puerto Rico to archaeological investigations. The objective of this research is to study part of the population that resided in four streets, located west of the Cathedral in the capital of San Juan during 1910. The Cathedral Ward was selected with the understanding that the area was associated to elite residents since the 16th century. Specifically, this research is...
Reconstruction of Early Historical Island Carib Pottery (1984)
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Recreating the Late 19th Century Urban Landscape of Puerta de Tierra, San Juan, Puerto Rico. (2018)
Throughout the 19th century, the Spanish colonial capital of Puerto Rico, San Juan underwent an urban expansion outside its city walls. Puerta de Tierra, a neighborhood located east of the walls, registered a steady growth between the 1870s and 1890s. Through the use of primary documents such as maps, construction permit requests, blue prints, and historical photographs it is possible to reconstruct part of this urban landscape. This information in combination with census records can also help...
Reevaluating the Pre-Columbian Colonization of the Caribbean using Chronometric Hygiene and Bayesian Modeling (2017)
The timing and pattern of initial human arrival to the Caribbean islands is discontinuous and anomalous, especially considering their proximity to both mainland areas and adjacent islands. With the exception of Trinidad, which was probably colonized ca. 8000 BP—but was connected to mainland South America during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene (and remains close to Venezuela)—some of the Antilles appear to have been colonized quite early ca. 7000-6000 BP, while others were settled centuries...
A Reflection Of Society: 19th Century Mark-Making, Engravings And Inscriptions In The Caves Of Isla De La Mona. (2016)
This paper presents archaeological evidence on Isla de la Mona relating to periods of intense activity during the 19th century. Material remains inside many caves include evidence of guano extraction and mining-related. However, this is not the only evidence that can be obtained about the history of the 19th century in Mona; engravings, inscriptions and intentional marks abound in the caves. Various historic documents indicate that the island was visited by different individuals and communities,...
Reimagining Creole. The Deep History of Mixed Identities in the Windward Islands, Lesser Antilles (2018)
The Lesser Antilles are known as an arena of to- and froing of peoples from different areas of the insular Caribbean and coastal mainland areas of south America during its entire pre-colonial history. Migration, and intensive networks of human mobility and exchange of goods and ideas have created diverse ethnic/cultural communities across these small islands. These, coupled with constantly shifting alliances among the various peoples have resulted in what can only be described as Creole...
Residue Analysis of Clay Tobacco Pipes from an Eighteenth-Century St. Eustatius Plantation (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. This study examines clay smoking pipes recovered from an eighteenth-century plantation sugar works (SE095) on the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius. The pipes are used to date the assemblage and gain a better understanding of acquisition, smoking, and discard practices of...
Results from a Bone Surface Modification Analysis of Sloth Bones from Padre Nuestro Cavern, Dominican Republic (2017)
Between 2005 and 2010, scuba diving teams from the Indiana University Bloomington Center for Underwater Science performed surface collections of the entrance chamber to Padre Nuestro Cavern, a submerged freshwater limestone cavern located in the East National Park in the southeastern peninsula of the Dominican Republic. They extracted Chican ostionoid ceramics indicating use of the cave by the Taino culture (ca. AD 1000-1492), Casimiroid lithics indicative of the Archaic culture (ca. 6000-500...
Results From The First Excavation On The Saintes Bay’s Shipwreck, Guadeloupe, FWI (2016)
This paper presents results from the first excavations on the Saintes Bay’s wreck. The site was discovered in the 1990’s but no archaeological survey or excavation took place apart from a DRASSM expertise in 2002. Known by several divers the site was partially looted but has not been totally destroyed. The wreck may be Anemone a French schooner built in 1823 in Bayonne and used as a custom ship in Guadeloupe. Anemone patrolled the coast in order to prevent illegal trade, in particular the slave...
Results of the analysis of the coral from Tibes Ceremonial Center, Puerto Rico (2016)
This work presents and discusses the finals results of an investigation focused in the strategies for the acquisition and transportation of coral by indigenous societies, analyzing the material obtained from the Tibes Ceremonial Center, Puerto Rico. This study was focused on the “chaîne operatoire”, to demonstrate the utility of this type of material in archaeological studies in the Caribbean. With this approach we were able to identify the collection areas and methods, the manufacture and use...
Retire to the Country: Recent Research at the Highland House Site, Antigua and Barbuda (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "In Small Islands Forgotten: Insular Historical Archaeologies of a Globalizing World", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Caribbean island of Barbuda, under the exclusive control of the Codrington family and their managers for over 200 hundred years, served primarily as a source of provisions for plantations on Antigua. The island is also home to a unique archaeological site: a purpose-built colonial...
Revisiting the Ideal-Free settlement of the Caribbean islands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Fifty Years of Fretwell and Lucas: Archaeological Applications of Ideal Distribution Models" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The settlement of the Caribbean Islands represents one of the most expansive and significant overwater population dispersal events in the history of the New World. While it is generally accepted that the Caribbean was settled from northern South America beginning in the mid-Holocene and involved...
Revisiting the Laguna Tortuguero Paleoenvironmental Record in Puerto Rico: New Data for an Old Record (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. I present an interpretation of a 5 m sedimentary sequence from Laguna Tortuguero, Puerto Rico, based on new radiocarbon dates, X-ray diffraction, magnetic susceptibility, and carbon isotope data. I also highlight the merits of revisiting old but significant paleoenvironmental records to understand past...
The Rock Art of Haitian Vodou (2017)
This research is part of a larger ethno-archaeological investigation of the use of caves in modern Haitian Vodou rituals in Northern Haiti. This paper explores the modern rock art left in the caves as a result of Vodou ceremonies, in particular paint and veve (veve are symbols drawn out with cornstarch used to call various spirits to ceremonies, and are an intrinsic part of Vodou). The art in question included both permanent and ephemeral works, ranging from simple graffiti to caves painted...
Rock Art of the Ceremonial Center of Tibes, Ponce, Puerto Rico (2016)
Located near the south-central coast of Puerto Rico, the site of Tibes is the earliest known civic-ceremonial center in the Greater Antilles. Systematic mapping, nighttime photography and 2-dimensional drawing, during the 2010 field season, revealed a total of seventeen petroglyph panels, displaying anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, geometric and abstract imagery. All of the rock art panels that remain in situ are integrated with several of the ceremonial plazas, which characterize the site. They are...
The Role of Intangible Heritage Values in the Management of Places and Things (2015)
One of the stated goals of decolonizing archaeological theory and practice it to redistribute power and authority in the creation and communication of cultural heritage, a laudable goal. However, achieving such a goal is only possible if archaeologists and historican relinquish their role as historiographical experts—as the ultimate authority on historical truths and significance. While in recent years there has been a trend towards increasing public outreach and engagement, in some cases such...
Ronquin Re-Visited Yet Again: New Radiocarbon Dates and Their Implication for Orinocan Ceramic Chronology (2018)
A series of radiocarbon dates obtained recently from carbonized encrustations on ceramics sheds new light on the Barrancas to Ronquin ceramic sequence, a chronology that has been long contested in the Orinoco River Valley by many investigators. These new radiocarbon dates clearly argue that the so-called "long chronology" suggested by Rouse and Roosevelt for the La Gruta to Ronquin sequence developed for the Middle Orinoco River, a chronology that was argued to extend close to 4000 years, is...
The Saint-Martin island's (French Lesser Antilles) Amerindian archaeomalacological record : insight into a six millennia history of interacting pre-Columbian societies and environments (2016)
Substantial archaeomalacological assemblages have been studied from 7 pre-Columbian sites on the French part of the island of Saint-Martin (Lesser Antilles). Most of these sites were excavated through salvage archaeology procedures on large surfaces, allowing relative comprehension of their structural and functional organization, as well as the recovery of solid molluscs samples. These 7 ensembles line the complete known chronological sequence of the island's Amerindian occupation, from the 4th...