Cuban Archaeology in the Caribbean

by Ivan Roksandic (Editor)

Overview

Choice Outstanding Academic Title
“Changes the conversation about Cuban archaeology as a whole, presenting groundbreaking data and interpretations that will be useful for prehistoric and historical archaeologists working the region.”—Samuel M. Wilson, author of The Archaeology of the Caribbean
 
In this volume, Ivan Roksandic and an international team of researchers trace population movement throughout the Caribbean, specifically to Cuba. Through analysis of early agriculture, burial customs, dental modification, pottery production, dietary patterns, and more, they present a new theory of mainland migration to Cuba and the Greater Antilles. The researchers tackle the complex early history of the region, deciphering patterns of migration, the interactions between island inhabitants, and the fate of indigenous groups after European contact. The multidisciplinary approach includes contributions from archaeology, physical anthropology, environmental archaeology, paleobotany, linguistics, and ethnohistory.

Adding to ongoing debates concerning migration and colonization, this volume examines the importance of landscape and seascape in shaping human experience; the role that contact and interaction between different groups play in building identity; and the contribution of native groups to the biological and cultural identity of post contact and modern societies.

 
Contributors: Guiermo Acosta Ochoa | Kaitlynn Alarie | Sagrario Balladares Navarro | William M. Buhay | Yadira Chinique de Armas | Jorge Ezra Cruz Palma | Ulises M. González Herrera | Jason E. Laffoon | Leonardo Lechado Ríos | Reniel Rodríguez Ramos | Roberto Rodríguez Suárez | Ivan Roksandic | Mirjana Roksandic | David G. Smith | Roberto Valcárcel Rojas | Darlene A. Weston | Jason M. Yaremko
A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683400028
Publisher:	University Press of Florida
Publication date:	09/20/2016
Series:	Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Ivan Roksandic, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Linguistics Program at the University of Winnipeg, is the author of The Ouroboros Seizes Its Tale: Strategies of Mythopoeia in Narrative Fiction.
 

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables

Introduction: Cuba and the Greater Antilles
Ivan Roksandic

1.         The Role of the Nicaraguan Rise in the Early Peopling of the Greater Antilles
Ivan Roksandic

2.         Archaeological Overview of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua
Sagrario Balladares Navarro and Leonardo Lechado Ríos

3.         People and Plants in the Pre-Contact Caribbean: The View from Canímar Abajo, Cuba
David Gray Smith

4.         Diagnosis of the Processing Methods of Starch-Rich Foods in Archaeological Artifacts: An Experimental Model
Roberto Rodríguez Suárez, Jorge Ezra Cruz Palma, and Guillermo Acosta Ochoa

5.         Sedentism and Mobility Patterns at Canímar Abajo Cemetery, Matanzas, Cuba: Paleodemographic Evidence
Mirjana Roksandic

6.         Communities in Contact: Health and Paleodemography at El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba
Darlene A. Weston and Roberto Valcárcel Rojas

7.         Pre-Columbian Dental-Modification Complex at the Site of Canímar Abajo, Matanzas, Cuba
Kaitlynn Alarie and Mirjana Roksandic

8.         Isotopic Evidence of Variations in Subsistence Strategies and Food Consumption Patterns among “Fisher-Gatherer” Populations of Western Cuba
Yadira Chinique de Armas, Mirjana Roksandic, Roberto Rodríguez Suárez, David G. Smith, and William M. Buhay

9.         Human Mobility and Dietary Patterns in Precolonial Puerto Rico: Integrating Multiple Isotope Data
Jason E. Laffoon

10.       Food Preparation and Dietary Preferences among the Arawak Aboriginal Communities of Cuba
Ulises M. González Herrera

11.       Indians in Cuba: From Pre-Columbian Villages to Colonial World
Roberto Valcárcel Rojas

12. “Los Indios de Campeche”: The Maya Diaspora and the Mesoamerican Presence in Colonial Cuba
Jason M. Yaremko

13.       Recent Advances in the Archaeology of the Greater Antilles: Some Final Remarks
Reniel Rodríguez Ramos

References
List of Contributors
Notes
Index
 
 

Editorial Reviews

This important and timely collection of essays greatly expands our knowledge of the human settlement of Cuba and the activities of its indigenous peoples. . . . A must read.”—Society for Historical Archaeology

From the Publisher