Networks Set in Stone: Archaic-Ceramic interaction in the early pre-Colonial northeastern Caribbean

Abstract

This paper aims to reinforce and further refine the theory that certain key aspects of later Ceramic Age Culture were locally developed in the Antilles by so-called “Archaic Age” communities. Here we focus on the interaction between Archaic and Early Ceramic Age communities that laid the foundations for later social and cultural developments in the region. Inter-community relationships and social strategies of the earliest inhabitants of the northeastern Caribbean area are explored by studying the nature, provenance and distribution patterns of their material culture remains. We suggest that specifically the lithic resources of the Antillean archipelago were possibly the greatest attraction for the first and later immigrants. After the initial settlement, the areas of lithic procurement would have served as hubs in the incipient social networks of these mobile people. These hubs would have served to cement regional unity and in addition would have provided the first arenas for group interactions of various sorts. The merging of Archaic Age social networks with the social life-lines of immigrants from the mainland may have led to an emergent exchange network, in this way knitting together communities from dispersed island and mainland territories into a series of overlapping interaction spheres. Archaeological indicators for simultaneous competition over local lithic sources and costly displays of lithic materials during large intercommunity feasts signal the beginning of an enduring process of creative emulation that underlay the expanding networks of the various peoples of the Ceramic Age. This reaffirms 120 archéologie caraïbe that, rather than being driven out of ancestral territories or assimilated by Ceramic Age immigrants, Archaic Age communities played an integral part in the shaping of later pre-Columbian society.