The Pre-Columbian Caribbean: Colonization, Population Dispersal, and Island Adaptations

Abstract

Once considered a backwater of New World prehistory, the Caribbean has now emerged from the archaeological shadows as a critical region for answering a host of questions related to human population dispersal, Neotropical island adaptations, maritime subsistence, seafaring, island interaction networks, and the rise of social complexity, among many others. In this paper, I provide a review of: (1) what is currently known about the antiquity of Pre-Columbian colonization of the Caribbean using archaeological, biological, and oceanographic data; (2) how these data inform on the dispersal of what appear to be many different population movements through time; and (3) the subsequent adaptations (e.g., technological, subsistence, and economic) that took place across the islands after initial contact. Results of more than a century of research demonstrate that the Antilles were settled much earlier than once thought (ca. 7000 cal yr BP), in multiple waves that show strong linkages to South America, but possibly originated from more than one source location. Dispersal was patchy, with several intriguing chronological and spatial disparities that scholars are now investigating in more detail. Beginning ca. 2500 cal yr BP, and accelerating around 1500 cal yr BP, the frequent transport and exchange of goods, services, animals, plants, knowledge, and spiritual ideologies between the islands as well as mainland areas — particularly South America — testify to the interconnected nature of Pre-Columbian societies in the region. The use of more advanced analytical techniques, including ancient DNA, archaeobotany, stable isotopes, and various approaches to geochemical and mineralogical sourcing of artifacts, which until recently have been largely underused in the Caribbean, is opening new avenues of research that are creating exciting opportunities for examining ancient Amerindian lifeways.

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