The Lucayans and Their Rodents: Pre-Columbian Hutia Management in the Bahama Archipelago

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Lucayan Taino of the Bahama archipelago actively bred and managed the hutia rodent (genus Geocapromys) for centuries before the arrival of Europeans. Seven field seasons of excavations at the pre-Columbian Lucayan site of Palmetto Junction on Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands have produced exponentially more hutia skeletal material than has been collectively recovered from all other archeological contexts in the Bahama Archipelago combined. Analysis of a representative sample of these remains via Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) has established that many individuals in the Palmetto Junction hutia population were of non-local species endemic to the Greater Antilles, thus demonstrating that a culture of hutia translocation and management was well established in the Lucayan world. The presentation will discuss the results of ZooMS analysis on 75 individual hutia samples, temporally contextualized via a robust sample (n=20) of correlated AMS dates. This multivariate analysis is funded by an NSF DDIG, and is developing the most comprehensive timeline of human translocation, management, and exploitation of Geocapromys sp. ever attempted in the West Indies

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39629.0