ABSTRACT
Recent excavations at two archaeological sites in French Guiana (Eva 2 and Saint-Louis) yielded evidence of Late Archaic and Early Ceramic Age occupations which are comparable to other coastal sites in South America, such as the Alaka Phase in Guyana and the Mina Tradition in Pará, Brazil. These Early Ceramic sites represent the suite of a larger Archaic Age Littoral Tradition in which ceramics represented an innovative aspect of the Meso-Indian way of life. Starch grain analysis showed that maize, sweet potatoes, arrowroot, and jack beans, were consumed among the Early Ceramic Age populations of French Guiana who made use of polished tools, oven or cooking pits, and large and spherical cooking pots in order to prepare food during the second half of the third millennium bc. The results of these large-scale excavations add new data to this almost unknown but innovative episode in northern Amazonia, i.e. the shift from the Preceramic to the Ceramic Age or Formative Period.
