The Late Archaic and Initial Ceramic Age in Coastal French Guiana

Summary

Recent excavations at two archaeological sites in French Guiana (Eva 2 and Saint-Louis) presented evidence of a Late Archaic an Early Ceramic Age occupation which is comparable to other coastal sites in South America, such as the Alaka Phase in Guyana and the Mina Tradition in Pará, Brazil. These early ceramic sites represent the suite of a larger Archaic Age Littoral Tradition in which ceramics represented an innovative aspect to the Archaic way of life. Starch grain analysis showed that maize, sweet potatoes, arrowroot, and jack beans, were consumed among the Early Ceramic Age population of French Guiana who made use of polished tools, earth ovens, and large and spherical cooking pots in order to prepare food during the second half of the third millennium BC. The results of these large scale excavations add new data to this almost unknown but innovative episode in northern Amazonia, i.e. the shift from the Preceramic to the Ceramic Age or Formative Period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• New Insights into the Archaic of the circum-Caribbean

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