Climate and Culture in the Caribbean and Western Atlantic Regions

Summary

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.

The islands of the Lesser and Greater Antilles were permanently settled as early as 8000 ybp, but the earliest human presence in the Bahama archipelago is dated ~1200 ybp, some 6700 years later. It has been noted that a connection between climate variations in the Caribbean/West Atlantic region may be the key to understanding the timing of the expansion into the Bahamas and shifts between Lucayan archaeological periods. Periodic climatic fluctuation in the Caribbean/Western Atlantic region follows similar trends when observed at a millennial resolution, however at multi-decadal and centennial scales, the timing and location of precipitation and temperature regimes vary. Climate proxies such as Fe, Sr:Ca, Ca and δ18O from the pan-Caribbean show whether specific regions in the Caribbean and Western Atlantic experienced similar or different climate patterns, and if those patterns correlate. We have assembled a synthesis of high resolution paleoclimate records from Mesoamerica, South America, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas to create a framework that can be used to view human decision making processes regarding migration, colonization, resource procurement, trade, settlement and sociopolitical relationships in the Caribbean\Western Atlantic around the time of the Medieval Climate Optimum.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24721