Human Paleodiet at Grand Bay, Carriacou, Lesser Antilles

ABSTRACT

The island of Carriacou in the southern Grenadines, Lesser Antilles, has been the focus of interdisciplinary archaeological research since 2003, focused on ceramic-associated assemblages dating between c. AD 400 and 1300. Amerindians here exploited marine foods, but patterned subsistence has not been inferred directly from recovered human remains. Here, we present the first stable isotope data from bone collagen and bone apatite of individuals (n = 14) from the Grand Bay site that date to post–AD 1000. Average δ¹³C_co (−12.8‰), δ¹⁵N (11.1‰), δ¹³C_ap (−8.6‰), and Δ¹³C_ap-co (4.1‰) values substantiate a marine-based diet. No significant differences are observed between males and females; however, one subadult is an isotopic outlier based on its δ¹³C_co and Δ¹³C_ap-co values. Bone collagen values suggest high marine protein at Carriacou, different from data reported for contemporaneous groups in the Greater Antilles, broadly similar to the northern Lesser Antilles, and most similar to the Bahamas, where reef-based systems are ubiquitous. Bone apatite and bone collagen isotope results underscore the importance of shellfish on Carriacou as previously observed in the zooarchaeological record. At present, these data do not provide the interpretative power to confirm or refute the presence/absence of maize in the diet during the mid-Ceramic Saladoid in the southern Lesser Antilles.

Keywords:

• carbon isotopes
• nitrogen isotopes
• subsistence
• Ceramic Age
• Caribbean

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Quetta Kaye and Michiel Kappers, Co-Directors of the Carriacou Archaeological Field Project (CAFP), Scott Burnett (Eckerd College), the Carriacou Historical Society Museum, and the Ministry of Tourism on Carriacou. Kara Casto (University of South Florida) helped in the preparation of the samples. Graduate students in the Bone Chemistry Lab, (Anthropology, University of Florida) are gratefully acknowledged for their assistance, and Jason Curtis (Geological Sciences, University of Florida) conducted the mass spectrometry. We are grateful to Will Pestle and Anne Stokes for their permission to use unpublished data from their dissertations, and Stanley Ambrose, Susan deFrance, Jason Laffoon, and Michelle LeFebvre for helpful discussion. Lee Newsom and the anonymous reviewers made excellent suggestions. Funding was provided by an undergraduate research award at NC State University to Fitzpatrick and Bankaitis.