Zooarchaeological analysis and isotopic niche space modelling of faunal remains excavated from the settlement of El Carril (ca. AD 1100–1500) in the northern Dominican Republic provides evidence that ...the site was situated along an important transportation corridor for the passage of animal commodities. This study qualitatively investigates faunal remains recovered from sample excavation units within the site and relates these findings to a previously conducted palaeobotanical study of the site. The zooarchaeological findings are compared to that of nearby El Flaco, a smaller settlement located 2.5 km to the east and for which zooarchaeological and palaeobotanical data is available. Isotopic niche space modelling was conducted on animal remains from both sites to relatively indicate different ecological zones that were targeted by Indigenous peoples, and to speculate whether native
Isolobodon portoricensis
hutias (Capromyinae) were arriving to El Carril from different regions. Our evidence of animal resources arriving from far-flung environments, and the isotopic niche space modelling all suggest that El Carril may been situated near an important transportation corridor for animal goods passing between the coastline, the Cordillera Septentrional, and the riverine environments of the Cibao Valley.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
People from different areas of the insular Caribbean and the coastal zone of mainland South America moved in and out of the Lesser Antilles throughout the archipelago's history before the European ...invasion. Successive migrations, the development of networks of human mobility, and the exchange of goods and ideas, as well as constantly shifting inter-insular alliances, created diverse ethnic and cultural communities in these small islands. We argue that these processes of alliance-building and ethnicity can be best understood through the concept of creolization. We examine this idea first in terms of the cultural interactions reflected in the pottery traditions that emerged among the Windward Islands before colonization, and second by analyzing the historiographical and emerging archaeological information available on the formation of the Indigenous Kalinago/Kalipuna and Garifuna identities from the late fifteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. Finally, we discuss the colonial and contemporary Afro-Caribbean pottery traditions on these islands, in particular Grenada and Saint Lucia. The embedding of this study in a deep historical framework serves to underscore the divergent origins and developmental trajectories of the region. including the disruption of the Indigenous cultures and the impact of European colonization, the African diaspora, and the emergence of today's cosmopolitan Caribbean cultural tradition.
The Caribbean Sea was a conduit for human mobility and the exchange of goods and ideas during the whole of its pre-colonial history. The period cal. AD 1000-1800, covering the Late Ceramic Age and ...early colonial era, represents an archaeologically understudied time during which the Lesser Antilles came under increasing influence from the Greater Antilles and coastal South America and participated in the last phase of indigenous resistance to colonial powers. This article summarizes the results of the Island Network project, supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in which a multi-disciplinary set of archaeological, archaeometric, geochemical, GIS, and network science methods and techniques have been employed to disentangle this turbulent era in regional and global history. These diverse approaches reveal and then explore multi-layered networks of objects and people and uncover how Lesser Antillean communities were created and transformed through teaching, trade, migration, movement, and exchange of goods and knowledge.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
European enslavement of Indigenous peoples in the Americas began in the Caribbean, quickly spreading to the rest of the continent and impacting the lives of millions. Despite its centrality to the ...creation of the colonial Caribbean, is still an understudied subject. This article summarizes the archaeological evidence on the topic and discusses the utility of the archaeological approach based on research conducted at the Cuban site of El Chorro de Maíta. The analyses of diet and paleodemography indicate substantial changes when compared to precolonial Indigenous populations. Indicators of ethnic diversity and geographic origin, as well as the mortuary patterns and distribution of material culture help to identify the presence of slaves.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Caribbean islands, like other Small Island Developing States (SIDS), are at the center of the vulnerability debate as current climatic trends predict elevated sea levels and increased frequency of ...storms, leading to significant challenges for local communities. Caribbean islanders have been exposed to climatic challenges since the initial occupation of the archipelago between five to eight thousand years ago. They have been continually confronted with severe droughts, tropical cyclones, extreme wave events, sea-level changes, and the accompanying impacts. The various phenomena have stimulated island residents both to anticipate and respond to such events, adapting their lifestyles and socio-cultural and political structures and ties across the region over time. In this article, we innovatively combine archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data with longitudinal coastal-erosion data and ethnographic data to further develop and promote sustainable local strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and increasingly frequent and violent weather events on small-island settings. To find proxies, we first look into the region’s pre-colonial archaeological record. Second, we delve into predictive modeling and the current and future climatic challenges for heritage sites and local coastal communities, as well as related collaborative heritage mitigation efforts. Third, we discuss the contribution of traditional knowledge practices to climate change adaptation. The results show how the long-term perspective and multidisciplinary approach adopted here may lead to realistic solutions to seemingly intractable problems. They also reveal how collaborative projects involving all stakeholders on an equal basis in all phases of research have become a top priority in climate change mitigation and heritage safeguarding.
The main aim of this study is to present a novel method of nonadult (ca. 1–19 years) age‐at‐death estimation using the dental wear of deciduous, mixed deciduous‐permanent, and permanent dentitions, ...including the incisors, canines, premolars, and first and second molars. The stage‐based method is derived from degrees of dental wear in known‐age (n = 39) and estimated‐age (n = 11) nonadults containing 951 teeth from the predominately 19th century cemetery of Middenbeemster, The Netherlands. The need for such a method is warranted in cases where dental development and/or eruption cannot be assessed for age‐at‐death estimation. As well, by establishing a baseline for normal age‐related nonadult tooth wear, users may better document wear that could be due to extramasticatory behaviours. The regression analysis reveals a strong quadratic correlation—F(2, 47) = 555.1, p < .001, R2 = .95, standard error of the estimate = 1.14, residual sum of squares (RSS) = 68.89, predicted residual error sum of squares (PRESS) = 77.67—between age and wear and multivariate adaptive regression splines (R2 = .95, generalised cross validation = 1.67, RSS = 67.68, PRESS = 89.34), which are used to develop an R‐package that users may employ to estimate age‐at‐death from dental wear. The accuracy of this method (78–98%) is evaluated using leave‐one‐out cross‐validation. Analyses of males versus females, deciduous versus permanent, upper versus lower, and anterior versus posterior teeth revealed no apparent reason to warrant separate methods for these groups of separated dentitions. This method fills a disciplinary gap in the understudied area of deciduous and nonadult dental wear and hopes to stimulate much future research. With the R‐package, we also provide the foundation and framework for the development of additional reference populations across different spatiotemporal contexts, to make the method more widely applicable.
Full text
Available for:
FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Dental calculus preserves oral microbes, enabling comparative studies of the oral microbiome and health through time. However, small sample sizes and limited dental health metadata have hindered ...health-focused investigations to date. Here, we investigate the relationship between tobacco pipe smoking and dental calculus microbiomes. Dental calculus from 75 individuals from the 19th century Middenbeemster skeletal collection (Netherlands) were analyzed by metagenomics. Demographic and dental health parameters were systematically recorded, including the presence/number of pipe notches. Comparative data sets from European populations before and after the introduction of tobacco were also analyzed. Calculus species profiles were compared with oral pathology to examine associations between microbiome community, smoking behavior, and oral health status. The Middenbeemster individuals exhibited relatively poor oral health, with a high prevalence of periodontal disease, caries, heavy calculus deposits, and antemortem tooth loss. No associations between pipe notches and dental pathologies, or microbial species composition, were found. Calculus samples before and after the introduction of tobacco showed highly similar species profiles. Observed interindividual microbiome differences were consistent with previously described variation in human populations from the Upper Paleolithic to the present. Dental calculus may not preserve microbial indicators of health and disease status as distinctly as dental plaque.
The European conquest and colonization of the Caribbean precipitated massive changes in indigenous cultures and societies of the region. One of the earliest changes was the introduction of new plant ...and animal foods and culinary traditions. This study presents the first archaeological reconstruction of indigenous diets and foodways in the Caribbean spanning the historical divide of 1492. We use multiple isotope datasets to reconstruct these diets and investigate the potential relationships between dietary and mobility patterns at multiple scales. Dietary patterns are assessed by isotope analyses of different skeletal elements from the archaeological skeletal population of El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba. This approach integrates carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of bone and dentine collagen with carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of bone and enamel apatite. The isotope results document extreme intrapopulation dietary heterogeneity but few systematic differences in diet between demographic/social groups. Comparisons with published isotope data from other precolonial and colonial period populations in the Caribbean indicate distinct dietary and subsistence practices at El Chorro de Maíta. The majority of the local population consumed more animal protein resources than other indigenous populations in the Caribbean, and their overall dietary patterns are more similar to colonial period enslaved populations than to indigenous ones.
La conquista y colonización europea del Caribe precipitó cambios masivos en las culturas y sociedades indígenas de la región. Uno de estos fue la introducción de nuevos alimentos vegetales y animales y de tradiciones culinarias. En este trabajo se presenta la primera reconstrucción arqueológica de dietas indígenas y prácticas alimenticias en el Caribe, en el contexto de la ruptura histórica iniciada con el arribo europeo en 1492. Se utilizan múltiples conjuntos de datos isotópicos para reconstruir la dieta y analizar las posibles relaciones entre ésta y los patrones de movilidad a diversas escalas. Los patrones dietarios se evalúan mediante análisis de isótopos de diferentes elementos óseos humanos del sitio El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba. El enfoque integra el análisis de isótopos de carbono y nitrógeno de colágeno de hueso y dentina y el análisis de isótopos de carbono y oxígeno de apatita de hueso y esmalte. Los resultados documentan una heterogeneidad alimentaria intrapoblacional extrema, pero pocas diferencias sistemáticas en la dieta entre los grupos demográficos / sociales. Las comparaciones con los datos isotópicos de otras poblaciones precoloniales y coloniales del Caribe, indican prácticas alimentarias y de subsistencia distintas en El Chorro. La mayor parte de la población local consumió más recursos de proteínas animales que otras poblaciones indígenas en el Caribe y sus patrones dietarios generales son más similares a los de las poblaciones esclavizadas del período colonial.
The most common cause of vitamin D deficiency is inadequate dermal exposure to sunlight. Residual rickets is nonadult vitamin D deficiency still evident in an adult individual, whereas osteomalacia ...occurs in adulthood. Previous research on the Beemster population, a 19th century rural community in the Netherlands, identified rickets in 30.4% of the nonadults between the ages of two and four years (n=7/23). Because the sex of these nonadults was not known it was not possible to determine if there were differences between boys and girls. To overcome this gap in our knowledge, the aim of this paper is to determine if there are gender related differences in vitamin D deficiency in the Beemster skeletal collection, based on adults with residual rickets and osteomalacia. Out of 200 adults (100 females; 100 males) no cases of osteomalacia were detected. However, there were 29 cases of residual rickets (14.5%), with 21 of those cases in females (21.0%; 21/100). A complex interplay of multiple factors is proposed to have affected vitamin D levels in nonadults, including sociocultural variables such as gender-based labour norms. This research highlights the importance of continuing to explore gender-based health differences in past populations.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
PDF
