ABSTRACT

Comprising 20 scientific contributions to the archaeology of Guadeloupe, French West Indies, this volume places the latter Caribbean Island in the spotlight by presenting the results of four contemporaneous archaeological sites.

By means of these four sites, this book explores a variety of issues contemplating the transition from the Early to the Late Ceramic Age in the Lesser Antilles. Studies of pre-Columbian material culture (ceramics, lithics, faunal, shell and human bone remains) are combined with additional microanalyses (starch and phytolith analyses, micromorphology and thin sections) to sort out the processes that triggered the cultural transition just before the end of the first millennium CE.

The multidisciplinary approach to address these sites Saladoid shows the current state of affairs on project-led archaeology in the French West Indies and should be of great value to both researchers and students of Caribbean archaeology, material cultures, zooarchaeology, environmental studies, historical ecology, and other related fields.

chapter 1|19 pages

General presentation

chapter 2|23 pages

Context

chapter 3|31 pages

Site level

chapter 4|123 pages

Material culture

chapter 5|51 pages

Microanalysis

chapter 6|16 pages

Synthesis

The Troumassoid Turning Point: local development or introduction of new houses, subsistence patterns, and ceramics?

chapter 7|5 pages

Epilogue

From Saladoid to Troumassoid: a ceramic analysis