ABSTRACT
Comprising 17 chapters and with a wide geographic reach stretching from the Florida Keys in the north to the Guianas in the south, this volume places a well-needed academic spotlight on what is generally considered an integral topic in Caribbean and circum-Caribbean archaeology.
The book explores a variety of issues, including the introduction and dispersal of early cultivars, plant manipulation, animal domestication, dietary profiles, and landscape modifications. Tried-and-true and novel analytical techniques are used to tease out aspects of the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean database that inform the complex and often-subtle processes of domestication under varying socio-environmental conditions. Contributors discuss their findings within multiple constructs such as neolithisation, social interaction, trade, mobility, social complexity, migration, colonisation, and historical ecology. Multiple data sources are used which include but are not restricted to rock art, cooking pits and pots, stable isotopes, dental calculus and pathologies, starch grains, and proxies for past environmental conditions.
Given its multi-disciplinary approaches, this volume should be of immense value to both researchers and students of Caribbean archaeology, biogeography, ethnobotany, zooarchaeology, historical ecology, agriculture, environmental studies, history, and other related fields.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|114 pages
Caribbean farmers from a regional perspective
chapter 4|15 pages
Straddling the subsistence divide
part II|24 pages
Animal domestication
part III|33 pages
Caribbean farmers and rock art
part IV|30 pages
Caribbean versus Pacific farmers
part V|72 pages
Caribbean farmers (methods and techniques)
chapter 10|21 pages
Domesticating the island
chapter 11|15 pages
Isotopic challenges and categorical stumbling blocks in Caribbean archaeology
chapter 12|19 pages
Assessing dietary and subsistence transitions on prehistoric Aruba
part VI|112 pages
Circum-Caribbean farmers
section |18 pages
Florida Keys
chapter 13|16 pages
When foragers are managers
section |43 pages
Central America
section |48 pages
South America