Natural vs. Human-caused Extinctions of Terrestrial Vertebrates in the Bahamas

Summary

We report 83 taxa of vertebrates (11 reptiles, 63 birds, 9 mammals) from late Pleistocene bone deposits in Sawmill Sink, Abaco, The Bahamas. These bones were recovered by scuba divers in non-cultural contexts at water depths of 27-35 m. Among the 83 species, 40 (48%) no longer occur on Abaco (4 reptiles, 31 birds, 5 mammals). We estimate that 17 of the 40 losses (all of them birds) are linked to changes during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition (~15 to 9 ka) in climate (becoming more warm and moist), habitat (expansion of broadleaf forest at the expense of pine woodland), sea level (rising from -80 m to nearly modern levels), and island area (going from ~10,000 km2 to 1214 km2). The remaining 23 losses took place in the late Holocene, and are related to the human presence on Abaco for the past 1000 years. Based on the evidence in hand, the arrival of people on a Bahamian island leads to more faunal depletion than the dramatic physical and biological changes associated with the last glacial-interglacial transition.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Caribbean Environmental Archaeology: New Perspectives on Human Ecodynamics and Social Relations

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