Caribbean (Geographic Keyword)
501-525 (537 Records)
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. Research at Hacienda La Esperanza, a nineteenth century sugar plantation in the municipality of Manatí, Puerto Rico, was conducted to study the material culture of its enslaved population and document their unwritten experiences. The use of primary sources proved indispensable during the early research design stages of the project....
Use-wear Analysis of Flaked Stone Tools from the Cueva Ventana Site, Arecibo, Puerto Rico (2016)
Functionality of lithic assemblages from Puerto Rico has been traditionally based on tools morphology. These suggestions, which are rarely proven, are put to test in the present study in using use-wear analysis of 87 chert flakes from the early site of Cueva Ventana (2400 – 1010 b.C.). Experiments were conducted on 28 flakes of the same raw material, in which microscopic traces present on stone tool surfaces were compared with those present on the tools from the site. These experiments included...
Using Geophysical Survey to Search for Burials at the St. Croix Leper Hospital (2022)
This is a poster submission presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) at the St. Croix Leper Hospital in the U.S. Virgin Islands has revealed new data for comparison to other locations in the Caribbean. At leper asylums/hospitals on St. Kitts, St. Eustatius, and Hassel Island, St. Thomas individuals with leprosy were buried in cemeteries on the grounds of these leper facilities. Based on public records in local newspapers,...
Using Multi-Proxy Evidence to Evaluate Captive Animal Management in the Prehistoric Caribbean (2017)
For some time archaeologists have speculated that non-native mammals introduced to the prehistoric Caribbean may have been managed in captivity, but direct evidence for this practice has been wanting. The question of management is complicated by ambiguous and conflicting data from ethnohistory, animal behaviour, and archaeology, as well as potentially unwarranted assumptions about human interaction with synanthropic animals. I examine this issue for introduced agouti (Dasyprocta sp.) and opossum...
Using Quantitative Analysis of Historical Records to Understand Landscapes and Predict Possible Locations of Shipwreck Remains in the Virgin Islands (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Landscapes Above and Below in Southern Contexts (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The United States and British Virgin Islands are popular tourist destinations with their picturesque beaches and turquoise waters but as Caribbean colonies of various Euro-American nations, these islands were primarily comprised of sugar and cotton plantations. Transportation of products to markets in Europe,...
Using surface chemical markers to identify patterns of human activity: the case of Tierras Nuevas, Puerto Rico (2017)
Human activities leave chemical traces in the sediments, which can give us clues about the content of the subsoil and the activities that might have occurred in the past. In this study we evaluate the potential of the geochemical evaluation of sediment samples collected from surface survey for the identification of buried patterns of human activity at the site of Tierras Nuevas, is an archaeological site in a tropical environment. Based on topographical characteristics, we had identified...
The Value of Colonialism as a Model for Anglo-Caribbean Material Practices at Emancipation (2016)
Archaeologies of colonialism have presented models that draw out the complex political interactions of meaning making via material practices that take place at the intersection of daily lives between populations of colonized and the colonizer. Traditional approaches to the archaeology of slavery within the Anglo-Caribbean have tended to transpose these categories onto enslaved Africans and white settlers. The result is a tendency to emphasis meaning making through material in terms of...
Variability in Molluscan Assemblages: Indicators of Changing Cultural and Environmental Factors in Lucayan Life (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We compared molluscan faunal assemblages from two neighboring Lucayan sites, the Pigeon Creek dune 1 (Late Lucayan) and the Pigeon Creek dune 2 (Early Lucayan) sites located on San Salvador, Bahamas. Two species, Lombatus gigas (Queen Conch) and Codakia orbicularis (Tiger Lucine), demonstrated the most significant temporal change in...
A View from Somewhere: Mapping 19th-Century Cholera Narratives (2017)
Several scholars have explored the role of the empirical sciences in colonial contexts; far from a neutral study of the world, they were actively making and remaking material, social, and geographic boundaries. Cartography was part of these boundary-making practices, as the varying positions and views of actors engaging with the world are dissolved into the singular, authoritative view offered by the map. Studying a cholera epidemic that moved through the Caribbean in the 1850s, I consider how...
Visions of Colonial Landscapes: Through the Eyes of African Caribbean Communities (2016)
The National Museum of The Bahamas/Antiquities, Monuments and Museum Corporation (AMMC) is the agency designated to identify, manage and conserve tangible and intangible cultural resources throughout The Bahamas. The AMMC is in the process of developing a protocol model that will further enhance the identification and conservation of identified and yet to be identified archaeological sites. An essential component of the development of this process is the inclusion of members of each island...
Water, Hospitality and Difference in Everyday Life (2015)
Water and the making of authority has generally been viewed as a basic metabolic need whose capture and distribution provides a nexus through which power flows. The household becomes place of water consumption where subjectification was achieved in other domains and subsequently inscribed into the container. In this paper I take a slightly different approach. Specifically I ask the question, at what point does water become a convenience and how does its status as a convenience inflect both...
The Weeping Eye Motif (1959)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Were Hutia Domesticated in the Caribbean? (2017)
The Caribbean islands had limited endemic terrestrial fauna and they lacked any of the New World domesticated animals until fairly late in prehistory. Given the depauperate terrestrial fauna of these islands the early Native American inhabitants relied on marine resources and endemic rodents for a significant proportion of the animals in their diet. It has been argued that rodents from the family Capromyidae, various species of hutia, were managed and perhaps domesticated in the Caribbean. In...
Were the Lucayans a Creole Society? (2018)
"Were the Lucayans a creole society?" Can creolization be inferred from Lucayan material culture during the Early and Late Lucayan Periods? Through the examination of ceramics and other remains, such as duhos and shell and stone artifacts, we will attempt to determine whether this was the case. Can Lucayan cultural expressions, unique to the Bahama archipelago, be viewed as byproducts of the processes of creolization, and if so, why?
Were There Pre-Columbian Cultural Contacts Between Florida and the West Indies: the Archaeological Evidence (1974)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
What Is Good to Eat Is Good to Translocate: The Intangible Dimension of Non-Native Animal Introduction and Consumption in the Pre-Columbian Caribbean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Intangible Dimensions of Food in the Caribbean Ancient and Recent Past" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite occupying the Caribbean since ca. 6500-6000 BP, Amerindians did not introduce continental animals to the islands until approximately 2000 years ago. In most cases, non-native taxa, while consumed, did not rival local marine resources in dietary importance; yet there is limited evidence to support an...
What plants existed in the Lesser Antilles just prior to 1492 and could they have been exploited by the island inhabitants? - new data from archaeological excavations at Anse Trabaud, Martinique (2016)
The exploitation of plants in the tropical belt by Europeans had a major influence on the distributions of many species. The Lesser Antillean islands received their fair share of new arrivals. But what plant species inhabited the Lesser Antillean islands just prior to 1492? Establishing which plant species occurred immediately before colonial times would increase our understanding of the impact of alien introductions, provide information about biogeographical range changes, and, in addition,...
When Is Creolization? (2018)
Multiple episodes of identity transformation can be seen in the archaeology of Mona island. From the emergence of "Taino-ness" (cf. R. Rodríguez) in the 12th century, to the catastrophic (after S. Mintz) eruption of colonial identities in the 16th century. We contrast the dynamics and character of creolizations from a diachronic and material perspective by looking at the archaeology of 500 years of subterranean ritual landscapes of Mona. We ask whether an expanded use of the term creolization is...
Where Are You Staying? Lodging Facilities in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2018)
In the 19th century there was a large influx of people traveling to Puerto Rico, many stayed in lodgings throughout the capital city of San Juan. This study focuses on the hotels, guest houses and hostels within the walled city, currently known as Old San Juan, during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Using primary sources that include photographs, maps, blueprints and newspaper advertisements, the goal of my research is to establish the location of this type of businesses. Also, to...
Where Is the Chief? A Reevaluation of the Concepts of Chiefdoms and Cacicazgos in Caribbean Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Traditionally, the terms chiefdoms and cacicazgos have been used throughout the Caribbean as synonyms of stratified sociopolitical systems encountered by Europeans at the time of contact. However, recent data unearthed by the Archaeological Project of the Ceremonial Center of Tibes put into question the applicability of these categories based on generic...
Why are Archaeological Collections Relevant in the 21st Century? The Caribbean Experience (2016)
The late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century provides us with numerous examples of the acquisition of collections carried out by museums. When archaeologists talk about those collections, housed at museums worldwide, the discussions are often directed towards how the lack of context limits or nullifies their research potential. I argue that we need to go back and carefully re-examine the research prospects of these collections. This presentation considers several avenues for research...
Women’s Occupations in Early 20th Century San Juan, Puerto Rico, and its Relevance to Archaeological Research (2018)
Women are one of the many groups which had been traditionally excluded from social science studies. Because of this, when retelling historical events many of them have become invisible and/or silenced even though they played an important role in society. My investigation concentrates on women living in San Juan, Puerto Rico as reported in the 1910 census, in two distinct areas: urban blocks from within, and outside the walled city. Through primary documents, this research will present...
"A Wondrously Fertile Country": Agricultural Diversity and Landscape Change in French Guiana (2018)
As a circum-Caribbean, non-island space on the coast of northeastern South America, French Guiana presents a distinct context in which to explore plantation slavery and Caribbean commodity production. The "sugar revolution" that overtook areas of the Caribbean at various historical moments reached French Guiana during the nineteenth century, yet monocultural production of the crop never took hold. Instead, plantations producing a variety of agricultural commodities including cotton, coffee,...
Work and Models of Efficiency in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Sugar Factories: A Caribbean Case Study. (2015)
Industrial design can increase labor management and mobility, increase efficiency, and structure worker behavior. As the industrial period evolved during the eighteenth century experiments in factory layouts produced efficient modes of production. But when the labor is enslaved, efficiency may not always be defined in terms of time or cost. This paper presents the industrial foot-print and spatial design of factories at several sugar plantations spanning over two centuries of operation on a...
Working With Under-Represented Archaeological Heritages of St Croix, USVI (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "“Folkeliv” and Black Folks’ Lives: Archaeology, History, and Contemporary Black Atlantic Communities", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper will present initial findings from fieldwork on St Croix as part of a Danish-funded, multi-year, heritage project that began in early 2020. When funded, this project was intended to work with the NPS, who have established projects on the island, to examine the...