Subsistence strategies and food consumption patterns of "fisher-gatherer" populations from Western Cuba: From traditional perspectives to current analytical results
Author(s): Yadira Chinique De Armas; William Mark Buhay; Roberto Rodríguez Suárez; David Smith; Mirjana Roksandic
Year: 2016
Summary
Starch and isotopic analyses have changed our understanding of subsistence strategies and food consumption patterns of Cuban “fisher-gatherers”, traditionally considered as populations who depended on natural resources, without management of cultigens. Isotopes (13C and 15N) from Guayabo Blanco, Cueva del Perico, Cueva Calero and Canímar Abajo (CA) sites, indicated two different food consumption patterns among coexistent “fisher-gathers”, suggesting that populations with different dietary traditions co-existed in Cuba. At the site of CA we identified beans and maize and/or sweet potato starches. While CA individuals depended on marine resources and C3/C4 plants, the others relied mostly on terrestrial sources and C3 plants. Our findings do not support the traditional evolutionary model that stated a unilinear transition from “fisher-gatherer” towards agriculturalist, as older CA individuals managed plants 1000 years earlier than people from the other sites. This also confirmed that cultigens were used before Agriculturalist expansion into the island.
Cite this Record
Subsistence strategies and food consumption patterns of "fisher-gatherer" populations from Western Cuba: From traditional perspectives to current analytical results. Yadira Chinique De Armas, William Mark Buhay, Roberto Rodríguez Suárez, David Smith, Mirjana Roksandic. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Orlando, Florida. 2016 ( tDAR id: 403648)
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Keywords
Geographic Keywords
Caribbean
Spatial Coverage
min long: -90.747; min lat: 3.25 ; max long: -48.999; max lat: 27.683 ;