Preliminary Investigations on a Coastal Caribbean Island: A Multi-proxy Environmental Study at the Sabazan Amerindian Site, Carriacou, Grenada

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Amerindian, enslaved African, and European peoples who successively settled the Caribbean island of Carriacou beginning AD 400 encountered a distinctive environment marked by recurrent drought, few terrestrial fauna, and the largest reef system in the region. Evidence suggests Carriacou’s ecology was altered dramatically by humans, reflecting efforts to adapt to and transform the island’s environment. While not fully understood, deforestation, erosion, species introductions, and extinction are among the known legacy effects. To better understand human-environment interaction and landscape history through time, the Carriacou Ecodynamics Archaeology Project (CEAP) is pursuing long-term, high-resolution records for habitat modification and biotic change at the Sabazan archaeological site using zooarchaeology, geoarchaeology, and geophysical survey. Sabazan is the location of an Amerindian village (AD 400 – 1400) and historic sugar plantation (1772 – late 19th century) that retains well-preserved, artifact-rich pre-Columbian deposits, the remnants of stone plantation buildings, a 19th century cemetery, and historic well. Here we report on the results of the 2018 pilot field season, including mapping, ground penetrating radar, and magnetometry applications. These show numerous anomalies indicative of past human occupation, including pits and hearths, and depth of the shell midden deposits which assist in understanding Sabazan’s site formation history.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25161