Download or read book Caribbean Paleodemography written by L. Antonio Curet and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2005-06-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A high significant discussion of Caribbean archaeology and a fascinating introduction to paleodemography According to the European chronicles, at the time of contact, the Greater Antilles were inhabited by the Taino or Arawak Indians, who were organized in hierarchical societies. Since its inception Caribbean archaeology has used population as an important variable in explaining many social, political, and economic processes such as migration, changes in subsistence systems, and the development of institutionalized social stratification. In Caribbean Paleodemography, L. Antonio Curet argues that population has been used casually by Caribbean archaeologists and proposes more rigorous and promising ways in which demographic factors can be incorporated in our modeling of past human behavior. He analyzes a number of demographic issues in island archaeology at various levels of analysis, including inter- and intra-island migration, carrying capacity, population structures, variables in prehistory, cultural changes, and the relationship with material culture and social development. With this work, Curet brings together the diverse theories on Greater Antilles island populations and the social and political forces governing their growth and migration.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Caribbean Archaeology written by Basil A. Reid and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encyclopedia of Caribbean Archaeology offers a comprehensive overview of the available archaeological research conducted in the region. Beginning with the earliest native migrations and moving through contemporary issues of heritage management, the contributors tackle the usual questions of colonization, adaptation, and evolution while embracing newer research techniques, such as geoinformatics, archaeometry, paleodemography, DNA analysis, and seafaring simulations. Entries are cross-referenced so that readers can efficiently access data on a variety of related topics. The introduction includes a survey of the various archaeological periods in the Caribbean, as well as a discussion of the region’s geography, climate, topography, and oceanography. It also offers an easy-to-read review of the historical archaeology, providing a better understanding of the cultural contexts of the Caribbean that resulted from the convergence of European, Native American, African, and then Asian settlers.
Download or read book Paleodemography written by Robert D. Hoppa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-30 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paleodemography is the field of enquiry that attempts to identify demographic parameters from past populations (usually skeletal samples) derived from archaeological contexts, and then to make interpretations regarding the health and well-being of those populations. However, paleodemographic theory relies on several assumptions that cannot easily be validated by the researcher, and if incorrect, can lead to large errors or biases. In this book, physical anthropologists, mathematical demographers and statisticians tackle these methodological issues for reconstructing demographic structure for skeletal samples. Topics discussed include how skeletal morphology is linked to chronological age, assessment of age from the skeleton, demographic models of mortality and their interpretation, and biostatistical approaches to age structure estimation from archaeological samples. This work will be of immense importance to anyone interested in paleodemography, including biological and physical anthropologists, demographers, geographers, evolutionary biologists and statisticians.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology written by William F. Keegan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology provides an overview of archaeological investigations in the insular Caribbean, understood here as the islands whose shores surround the Caribbean Sea and the islands of the Bahama Archipelago. Though these islands were never isolated from the surrounding mainland, their histories are sufficiently diverse to warrant their identification as distinct areas of culture. Over the past 20 years, Caribbean archaeology has been transformed from a focus on reconstructing culture histories to one on the mobility and exchange expressed in cultural and social dynamics. This Handbook brings together, for the first time, examples of the best research conducted by scholars from across the globe to address the complexity of the Caribbean past. The Handbook is divided into five sections. Part I, Islands of History and the Precolonial History of the Caribbean Islands, provides an introduction to Caribbean Archaeology and its history. The papers in the following Ethnohistory section address the diversity of cultural practices expressed in the insular Caribbean and develop historical descriptions in concert with archaeological evidence in order to place language, social organization, and the native Ta?nos and Island Caribs in perspective. The following section, Culture History, provides the latest research on specific geographical locations and cross-cultural engagements, from Jamaica and the Bahama archigelago to the Saladoid and the Isthmo-Antillean Engagements. Creating History, the fourth section, includes papers on specific issues related to the field, such as Zooarchaeology, Rock Art, and DNA analysis, among others. The final section, World History, centers on the consequences of European colonization.
Download or read book The Caribbean written by Stephan Palmié and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-01-29 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “illuminating” survey of Caribbean history from pre-Columbian times to the twenty-first century (Los Angeles Times). Combining fertile soils, vital trade routes, and a coveted strategic location, the islands and surrounding continental lowlands of the Caribbean were one of Europe’s earliest and most desirable colonial frontiers. The region was colonized over the course of five centuries by a revolving cast of Spanish, Dutch, French, and English forces, who imported first African slaves and later Asian indentured laborers to help realize the economic promise of sugar, coffee, and tobacco. The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples offers an authoritative one-volume survey of this complex and fascinating region. This groundbreaking work traces the Caribbean from its pre-Columbian state through European contact and colonialism to the rise of U.S. hegemony and the economic turbulence of the twenty-first century. The volume begins with a discussion of the region’s diverse geography and challenging ecology and features an in-depth look at the transatlantic slave trade, including slave culture, resistance, and ultimately emancipation. Later sections treat Caribbean nationalist movements for independence and struggles with dictatorship and socialism, along with intractable problems of poverty, economic stagnation, and migrancy. Written by a distinguished group of contributors, The Caribbean is an accessible yet thorough introduction to the region’s tumultuous heritage which offers enough nuance to interest scholars across disciplines. In its breadth of coverage and depth of detail, it will be the definitive guide to the region for years to come. Praise for The Caribbean “The editors of this volume have successfully assembled a survey of historical and contemporary issues which serves as an excellent introductory text for newcomers to the region, as well as a resource for more experienced researchers searching for a concise reference to any historical period.” —Journal of Caribbean History “This collection provides an engaging introduction to the history of a region defined by centuries of colonial domination and popular struggle. In these essays readers will recognize the Caribbean as a garden of social catastrophe and a grim incubator of modern global capitalism, as well as of people’s continuous attempts to resist, endure, or adapt to it. Scholars and students will find it to be a very useful handbook for current thinking on a vital topic.” —Vincent Brown, professor of history and of African and African American studies, Duke University
Download or read book The Caribbean Before Columbus written by William F. Keegan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The islands of the Caribbean are remarkably diverse, environmentally and culturally. Ranging from low limestone islands to volcanic islands with mountainous peaks, from rainforests to desert habitats, they are home to a mosaic of indigenous communities and to the descendants of Europeans, Africans, and Asians. Yet this diversity has become homogenized, for both the tourist and the historian. For instance, it was assumed that every new prehistoric culture had developed out of the culture that preceded it. Furthermore, the overly simplistic distinction between the "peaceful Arawak" and the "cannibal Carib," which forms the structure for James Michener's Caribbean, still dominates popular notions of precolonial Caribbean societies. This book documents the diversity and complexity that existed in the Caribbean prior to the arrival of Europeans, and immediately thereafter. The diversity results from different origins, different histories, different contacts between the islands and the mainland, different environmental conditions, and shifting social alliances. Organized chronologically, from the arrival of the first humans - the paleo-Indians - in the sixth millennium BC to early contact with Europeans, The Caribbean before Columbus presents a new history of the region based on the latest archaeological evidence. The authors also consider cultural developments on the surrounding mainland, since the islands' history is a story of mobility and exchange across the Caribbean Sea, and possibly the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Straits. The result is the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey of the richly complex cultures who once inhabited the six archipelagoes of the Caribbean. -- from back cover.
Download or read book A Concise History of the Caribbean written by B. W. Higman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling account of Caribbean history from colonization to slavery and revolution, through the tumult of hurricanes and climate change.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Caribbean and Circum Caribbean Farmers 6000 BC AD 1500 written by Basil A Reid and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-16 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Myths and Realities of Caribbean History written by Basil A. Reid and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2009-04-12 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to debunk eleven popular and prevalent myths about Caribbean history. Using archaeological evidence, it corrects many previous misconceptions promulgated by history books and oral tradition as they specifically relate to the pre-Colonial and European-contact periods. It informs popular audiences, as well as scholars, about the current state of archaeological/historical research in the Caribbean Basin and asserts the value of that research in fostering a better understanding of the region’s past. Contrary to popular belief, the history of the Caribbean did not begin with the arrival of Europeans in 1492. It actually started 7,000 years ago with the infusion of Archaic groups from South America and the successive migrations of other peoples from Central America for about 2,000 years thereafter. In addition to discussing this rich cultural diversity of the Antillean past, Myths and Realities of Caribbean History debates the misuse of terms such as “Arawak” and “Ciboneys,” and the validity of Carib cannibalism allegations.
Download or read book Paleodemography written by Robert D. Hoppa and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many methodological and theoretical problems exist in reconstructing demographic structure from archaeological populations. Paleodemography is an innovative volume which tackles these issues to reach a consensus on the way forward. It will be the benchmark for all those interested in skeletal samples and their implications for analysing past populations.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion written by Timothy Insoll and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-28 with total page 1135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion provides a comprehensive overview by period and region of the relevant archaeological material in relation to theory, methodology, definition, and practice. Although, as the title indicates, the focus is upon archaeological investigations of ritual and religion, by necessity ideas and evidence from other disciplines are also included, among them anthropology, ethnography, religious studies, and history. The Handbook covers a global span - Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, and the Americas - and reaches from the earliest prehistory (the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic) to modern times. In addition, chapters focus upon relevant themes, ranging from landscape to death, from taboo to water, from gender to rites of passage, from ritual to fasting and feasting. Written by over sixty specialists, renowned in their respective fields, the Handbook presents the very best in current scholarship, and will serve both as a comprehensive introduction to its subject and as a stimulus to further research.
Download or read book Crossing the Borders written by Corinne L. Hofman and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2008-03-19 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of archaeological materials from the Caribbean.
Download or read book Islands at the Crossroads written by L. Antonio Curet and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2011-10 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to Islands at the Crossroads include scholars from the Caribbean, the United States, and Europe who look beyond cultural boundaries and colonial frontiers to explore the complex and layered ways in which both distant and more intimate sociocultural, political, and economic interactions have shaped Caribbean societies from seven thousand years ago to recent times.
Download or read book Island Historical Ecology written by Peter E. Siegel and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-01-29 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first book-length treatise on historical ecology of the West Indies, Island Historical Ecology addresses Caribbean island ecologies from the perspective of social and cultural interventions over approximately eight millennia of human occupations. Environmental coring carried out in carefully selected wetlands allowed for the reconstruction of pre-colonial and colonial landscapes on islands between Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Comparisons with well-documented patterns in the Mediterranean and Pacific islands place this case study into a larger context of island historical ecology.
Download or read book Linguistics and Archaeology in the Americas written by Eithne B. Carlin and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-05-03 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this volume, an international group of leading specialists, guide us through different aspects of the study of Amerindian languages and societies that lie at the heart of the extensive and multi-facetted work of Willem Adelaar, the forerunning specialist in Native American studies of Meso and South America, and Professor of Amerindian Studies at Leiden University. The contributors focus on three larger regions, the Andes, Amazonia, Meso-America and the Circum-Caribbean region, giving us a state of the art overview of current linguistic and archaeological research trends that illuminate the dynamicity and historicity of the Americas, in migratory movements, contact situations, grouping and re-grouping of identities and the linguistic results thereof. This book is a must-have for all scholars of the American continent.
Download or read book Real Recent Or Replica written by Joanna Ostapkowicz and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Examines the largely unexplored topics in Caribbean archaeology of looting of heritage sites, artifact fraud, and illicit trade of archaeological materials"--
Download or read book Island Shores Distant Pasts written by Scott M. Fitzpatrick and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An excellent compilation of new methods and theories in Caribbean archaeology. . . . Not only materialize[s] the methodological advance in Caribbean archaeology, but also signif[ies] the strong theoretical progression that this discipline is experiencing."--Journal of Caribbean Archaeology "Look[s] beyond the field of archaeology to include new techniques from genetics, computer simulation, and physical anthropology. . . . Unquestionably moves our understanding of the settling of the Caribbean forward and provides several new provocative avenues for further exploration."--New West Indian Guide "Demonstrate[s] various methods that introduce new insights into the investigation of Caribbean prehistory, revealing the complexity of pre-Columbian cultures, peoples, and their movements. . . . [and] contributes to a totalizing view of the colonization process in the Caribbean."--Caribbean Quarterly "Can be considered as a real starting point for a biological approach of the pre-Columbian settlement of the Caribbean."-- Benoit Berard, Universite des Antilles For more than a century, archaeologists and anthropologists have searched for evidence of when and how peoples first settled the Caribbean islands. Research on this area is pivotal for understanding the migration of peoples in the New World and how small and large populations develop biologically and culturally through time. This unique collection synthesizes our archaeological and biological knowledge about the pre-Columbian settlement of the Caribbean and highlights the various techniques we can use to analyze human migration and settlement patterns throughout history. Newer and well-established techniques, like computer simulations of seafaring, radiocarbon dating, three-dimensional and traditional craniometrics, stable isotopes, and ancient and modern DNA analysis, show great promise for helping us better understand pre-Columbian Caribbean population expansions, while demonstrating the utility of integrating and comparing biological markers with the archaeological record. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to migrations, population movements, and island colonization in the Caribbean islands. This volume fills that void. Scott M. Fitzpatrick is professor of archaeology at the University of Oregon and founding coeditor of the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. Ann H. Ross is professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University. She is a contributor to Digging Deeper: Current Trends and Future Directions in Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology. A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen
