At the beginning of the Holocene the northern part of South America was occupied by groups of small-game hunters, fishers and foragers. These groups occasionally resided in semi-permanent camp sites, while mostly being mobile in order to make use of a wide range of plant and animal resources in a variety of habitats.[1]
Archaeological evidence suggests that Trinidad was the first Caribbean island to have been settled as early as 9000/8000 BCE. However, the first settlers most likely arrived in Trinidad when it was still attached to South America by land bridges.[2] It was not until about 7000/6000 BCE, during the early Holocene that Trinidad became an island due to a significant jump in sea level by about 60 m. Climate change may have been a cause for this sea level rise. Hence Trinidad was the only Caribbean Island that could have been colonised by indigenous people from the South American mainland by not traversing hundreds or thousands kilometres of open sea.[3] The earliest major habitation sites discovered in Trinidad are the shell midden deposits of Banwari Trace and St. John, which have been dated between 6000 and 5100 BCE. Both shell middens represent extended deposits of discarded shells that originally yielded a food source and stone and bone tools.[4] They are considered to belong to the Ortoiroid archaeological tradition, named after the similar but much more recent Ortoire site in Mayaro, Trinidad.
Classifying Caribbean prehistory into different "ages" has proven a difficult and controversial task.[5] In the 1970s archaeologist Irving Rouse defined three "ages" to classify Caribbean prehistory: the Lithic, Archaic and Ceramic Age, based on archaeological evidence.[6] Current literature on Caribbean prehistory still uses the three aforementioned terms, however, there is much dispute regarding their usefulness and definition. In general, the Lithic Age is considered the first era of human development in the Americas and the period where stone chipping is first practised.[7] The ensuing Archaic age is often defined by specialised subsistence adaptions, combining hunting, fishing, collecting and the managing of wild food plants.[8] Ceramic Age communities manufactured ceramic and made use of small-scale agriculture.[9]
With the exception of Trinidad the first Caribbean islands were settled between 3500 and 3000 BCE, during the Archaic Age. Archaeological sites of this period have been located in Barbados, Cuba, Curaçao and St. Martin, followed closely by Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.[10] This settlement phase is often attributed to the Ortoiroid culture.
Between 800 and 200 BCE a new migratory group expanded through the Caribbean island: the Saladoid.[11] This group is named after the Saladero site in Venezuela, where their distinctive pottery (typically distinguished by white-on-red painted designs) was first identified.[12] The introduction of pottery and plant domestication to the Caribbean is often attributed to Saladoid groups and represents the beginning of the Ceramic Age. However, recent studies have revealed that crops and pottery were already present in some Archaic Caribbean populations before the arrival of the Saladoid.[13] Although a large amount of Caribbean Islands were settled during the Archaic and Ceramic Age, some islands were presumably visited much later. For example, Jamaica has no known settlements until around 600 AD while the Cayman Islands show no settlement evidence before European arrival.[14]
Following the colonisation of Trinidad it was originally proposed that Saladoid groups island-hopped their way to Puerto Rico. However, current research tends to move away from this stepping-stone model[15] in favour of the southward route hypothesis. The southward route hypothesis proposes that the northern Antilles were settled directly from South America followed by progressively southward movements into the Lesser Antilles. This hypothesis has been supported by both radiocarbon dates and seafaring simulations.[16] One initial impetus of movement from the mainland to the northern Antilles may have been the search for high quality materials such as flint. Flinty Bay on Antigua, is one of the best known sources of high quality flint in the Lesser Antilles. The presence of flint from Antigua on many other Caribbean Islands highlights the importance of this material during the Pre-Columbian period.[17]
The period from 650 to 800 AD saw major cultural, socio-political and ritual reformulations, which took place both on the mainland and in many Caribbean islands.[18] The Saladoid interaction sphere disintegrated rapidly. Furthermore, this period is characterised with a change in climate. Centuries of abundant rainfall were replaced by prolonged droughts and increased hurricane frequency. In general the Caribbean population increased and communities changed from residence in a single village to the creation of settlement cluster. mapa del caribe , #caribbean , #caribe
