Modeling Demographic Change in the Precolumbian Caribbean

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A recent synthesis of radiocarbon dates in the Caribbean indicated two major population dispersals that correspond to the longstanding cultural divisions of the region's Archaic and Ceramic Ages. Using the most reliable dates from this dataset, we constructed both region-wide and local summed probability distributions (SPD) for use as proxies of population fluctuations over time. We then juxtaposed these with the largest compilation of radiocarbon dates available from South America, along with several climate datasets and a volcanic record for the Caribbean. Comparison of these data provide support for the traditional divisions, but offer new insights into separate migration events both within the Caribbean archipelago and between the South American mainland. Results suggest that there was a potential influx of peoples during the middle Early Ceramic period ca. AD 100–300, human-climate interactions at the start of the Late Ceramic period ca. AD 700, demographic shifts with the supposed arrival of "Island Caribs" ca. AD 1200, and a potential "depopulation" of some islands before European arrival several centuries later.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33032