Archaic Age Voyaging, Networks, and Resource Mobility around the Caribbean Sea

摘要: Geographically, although they have always been regarded as having had separate cultural trajectories, the Leeward and Windward Islands and the Leeward Antilles–consisting of the present-day Venezuelan and Dutch Caribbean ABC islands of La Tortuga, La Sola, Los Testigos, Los Frailes, Patos, Los Roques Archipelago, Blanquilla, Los Hermanos Archipelago, Orchila, Las Aves Archipelagos, Bonaire, Curaçao, Aruba and Los Monjes Archipelago–are all included in the Lesser Antilles (Hofman and Hoogland 2018). Based on what is visible in the archaeological record (Antczak et al. 2017), people settled some of these small islands off the Venezuelan coast from various parts of the mainland starting about 2900 cal BC. The earliest sites on these islands are around 2500 to 3000 years later than the initial human occupation on Trinidad and Margarita Islands, where the sites of St. John, Banwari Trace and Quebrada de Guacuco have produced radiocarbon dates of 5800–4000 BP (Antczak et al., this volume; Boomert 2000, this volume; Pagán-Jiménez et al. 2015). Although the cultural developments in coastal South America may have influenced those on the offshore islands, based on current archaeological reconstructions, the earliest expeditions to Curaçao do not predate 2900 cal BC. While there is little evidence of Archaic Age settlement in the Windward Islands, the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico host many Archaic Age sites dating between 2000 cal BC and cal AD 250 (Hofman et al. 2011, 2014b). The available data suggests that at both ends of the Lesser Antillean archipelago (Figure 18.1), Archaic Age communities have managed …