& Antczak Hofman Early Settlers of the Early Settlers of the INSULAR CARIBBEAN Early Settlers of the Insular Caribbean: Dearchaizing the Archaic offers a INSULAR comprehensive coverage of the most recent advances in interdiscipli- nary research on the early human settling of the Caribbean islands. It covers the time span of the so-called Archaic Age and focuses on the CARIBBEAN Middle to Late Holocene period which – depending on specific case studies discussed in this volume – could range between 6000 BC and AD INSULAR CARIBBEAN Dearchaizing the Archaic 1000. A similar approach to the early settlers of the Caribbean islands E has never been published in one volume, impeding the realization of a arly holistic view on indigenous peoples’ settling, subsistence, movements, and interactions in this vast and naturally diversified macroregion. S Delivered by a panel of international experts, this book provides re- ettlers the of cent and new data in the fields of archaeology, collection studies, palaeo botany, geomorphology, paleoclimate and bioarchaeology that challenge currently existing perspectives on early human settlement patterns, subsistence strategies, migration routes and mobility and exchange. This publication compiles new approaches to ‘old’ data and museum collections, presents the results of starch grain analysis, paleo- coring, seascape modelling, and network analysis. Moreover, it features newer published data from the islands such as Margarita and Aruba. All the above-mentioned data compiled in one volume fills the gap in scholarly literature, transforms some of the interpretations in vogue and enables the integration of the first settlers of the insular Caribbean into the larger Pan-American perspective. This book not only provides scholars and students with compelling new and interdisciplinary perspectives on the Early Settlers of the Insular edited by Caribbean. It is also of interest to unspecialized readers as it discusses subjects related to archaeology, anthropology, and – broadly speaking – Corinne L. Hofman to the intersections between humanities and social and environmental Andrzej T. Antczak sciences, which are of great interest to the present-day general public. Sidestone ISBNSidestone 978-90-8890-780-7 Press ISBN: 978-90-8890-780-7 9 789088 907807 Source Reference Hofman, C.L. and Antczak, A.T. (eds) 2019: Early Settlers of the Insular Caribbean. Dearchaizing the Archaic, Leiden: Sidestone Press. SIDESTONE PRESS This is a free offprint – as with all our publications the entire book is freely accessible on our website, where you can also buy a printed copy or pdf E-book. WWW.SIDESTONE.COM © 2019 Individual authors Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden www.sidestone.com Imprint: Sidestone Press Academics Lay-out & cover design: Sidestone Press Photograph cover: Cover design by Oliver Antczak. Cover photo is a composite of photo’s by Tiago Fioreze (sea and cloud, Wikimedia Commons), Patrick Nouhailler (island, Flickr.com), and David Bottome (canoe). ISBN 978-90-8890-780-7 (softcover) ISBN 978-90-8890-781-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-90-8890-782-1 (PDF e-book) Contents List of Contributors 9 List of Figures 17 List of Tables 20 1. Introduction 21 Corinne L. Hofman and Andrzej T. Antczak 2. Dearchaizing the Caribbean Archaic 29 Andrzej T. Antczak and Corinne L. Hofman Part One: Environmental Challenges and 45 Subsistence Strategies 3. Gone with the waves: Sea-level rise, ancient territories and 47 the socioenvironmental context of Mid-Holocene maritime mobility in the pan-Caribbean region Isabel C. Rivera-Collazo 4. Archaeological evidence and the potential effects of 57 paleotsunami events during the Archaic Age in the Southern Caribbean Jay B. Haviser 5. Natural and anthropogenic landscape change and the 65 submergence and emergence of Archaic Age settlement on the eastern edge of the Anegada Passage John G. Crock 6. Ecosystem engineering during the human occupations 77 of the Lesser Antilles Peter E. Siegel, John G. Jones, Deborah M. Pearsall, Nicholas P. Dunning, Pat Farrell, Neil A. Duncan, and Jason H. Curtis 7. On the way to the islands: The role of domestic plants in 89 the initial peopling of the Antilles Jaime R. Pagán-Jiménez, Reniel Rodríguez Ramos, and Corinne L. Hofman 8. Subsistence strategies and food consumption patterns 107 of Archaic Age populations from Cuba: From traditional perspectives to current analytical results Yadira Chinique de Armas, Roberto Rodríguez Suárez, William M. Buhay, and Mirjana Roksandic Part Two: Local Developments and Regional 121 Entanglements 9. The first settlers: Lithic through Archaic times in the coastal 123 zone and on the offshore islands of northeast South America Arie Boomert 10. Early indigenous occupations of Margarita Island and the 131 Venezuelan Caribbean Andrzej T. Antczak, Luis A. Lemoine Buffet, Ma. Magdalena Antczak, and Valentí Rull 11. The Archaic Age of Aruba: New evidence on the first 147 migrations to the island Harold Kelly and Corinne L. Hofman 12. Construction and deconstruction of the “Archaic” in 163 Cuba and Hispaniola Jorge Ulloa Hung and Roberto Valcárcel Rojas 13. Levisa 1. Studying the earliest indigenous peoples of 177 Cuba in multicomponent archaeological sites Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, Jorge Ulloa Hung, and Osmani Feria García 14. Situating Jamaica 191 William F. Keegan 15. Guácaras in early precolonial Puerto Rico: The case of 201 Cueva Ventana Reniel Rodríguez Ramos, Jaime R. Pagán-Jiménez, Yvonne Narganes Storde, and Michael J. Lace 16. The Krum Bay sites revisited. The excavations in the 215 Krum Bay area on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands Casper Jacobsen Toftgaard Part Three: Mobility and Exchange 229 17. An Archaic site at Upper Blakes on Montserrat: 231 Discovery, context and wider significance John F. Cherry and Krysta Ryzewski 18. Archaic Age voyaging, networks and resource 245 mobility around the Caribbean Sea Corinne L. Hofman, Lewis Borck, Emma Slayton, and Menno L.P. Hoogland References 263 Appendix: list of radiocarbon dates 319 10 Early indigenous occupations of Margarita Island and the Venezuelan Caribbean Andrzej T. Antczak, Luis A. Lemoine Buffet, Ma. Magdalena Antczak, and Valentí Rull Introduction Post-Pleistocene environmental commonalities have been amply documented on the coasts and islands of the Southeastern Caribbean (Álvarez Espejo 1987; Landau et al. 2008; Macsotay and Cacéres Hernández 2005; Peter 1972; Rull et al. 1999). This region also shows remarkable uniformity as part of the Colombian – Venezuelan – Trinidadian biogeographic subprovince (Woodring 1974). However, the perception of the area as a historically contingent socionatural unit within a larger Caribbean macroregion is much more recent (Antczak and Antczak 2006; Antczak et al. 2017; Newsom and Wing 2004). Historically and culturally, these coasts and islands have been portrayed as a crossroads of people, goods and ideas moving to and from among Amazonia, the Andes, and the insular Caribbean (Kidder 1944, 1948; Osgood and Howard 1943; Rouse and Cruxent 1963; Spinden 1916; Steward 1948; Willey 1960). Changes observed in the archaeologically recovered material culture have mainly been attributed to sequential waves of migration, not long-term local continuity. This ap- proach categorizes archaeological assemblages by means of time and space. It does not inquire how indigenous peoples might have enacted change and transition in the course of their own daily lives. This chapter first discusses the archaeologically recovered early human signatures on four northeastern islands in the Venezuelan Caribbean: La Blanquilla, Margarita, Cubagua, and Coche. Next, we consider the whole of the coast and islands of pres- ent-day Venezuela. Finally, we identify some commonalities while also pointing out certain gaps persisting in our knowledge of the Archaic Age in the Southeastern Caribbean region (Figure 10.1). The region in question includes Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire (formerly parts of the Netherlands Antilles) in the west, and Trinidad in in: Hofman, C.L. and Antczak, A.T. (eds) 2019: Early Settlers of the Insular Caribbean. Dearchaizing the Archaic, Sidestone Press (Leiden), pp. 131-146. 131 Figure 10.1. Map of the Southeastern Caribbean region with the indication of main archaeolog- ical sites discussed in this chapter (Drawing by Oliver Antczak). the east. The Las Aves, Los Roques, and Los Hermanos island groups, as well as La Orchila, La Tortuga, and La Blanquilla Islands, are all Venezuelan calcareous forma- tions separated from the South American mainland by channels several hundred me- ters deep. The most important non-calcareous groups are Los Monjes, Los Testigos, Los Frailes, and Margarita, although the latter island is partly calcareous (Alexander 1958; Jam and Méndez Arocha 1962; Schubert and Moticska 1972, 1973). During the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 21,000 BP), the sea level of the Cariaco Basin, off the northeastern coast of Venezuela, was estimated to be ca. 120 m below the present datum. The Cariaco Trench was likely a deep lake isolated from the sea (Linet al. 1997). Margarita (Coche and Cubagua), Aruba, and Trinidad, all of which lie on the South American shelf, became continental islands only due to sea-level rise after the Pleistocene (Álvarez Espejo 1987). Estimates suggest that at 8000 cal BP, eustatic sea level in coastal Venezuela was 15 m below the present datum. The sea then rose rapidly (0.5 cm/yr) until 6000 BP, when the tempo slowed; by 4000 cal BP, it had stabilized to only 0.025 cm/yr, where it remained until nearly the end of the twen- tieth century (Rull 1999, 2000; Rull et al. 2010). Similar figures were found for the Caribbean as a whole and the Atlantic coast of South America (see Rivera-Collazo, this volume). Milne et al. (2005) documented a rapid rise of 0.7–0.8 cm/yr during the Early Holocene, a rate that slowed significantly after 7000 cal BP (Peltier and Fairbanks 2006; Siegel et al. 2015). Ongoing tectonic activity originating from the colliding Caribbean and South American plates influenced not only the paleogeog- raphy of the region, but also determined the distribution and accessibility of lithic resources (Escalona and Mann 2011).