Like the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean Sea contains an array of islands settled in prehistoric times by long‐distance, ocean voyaging. Precisely how and when these island migrations occurred is the central theme of the recent volume, The Caribbean before Columbus by William F. Keegan and Corinne L. Hofman presenting the latest archaeological research on settlement of the Caribbean islands and the immediate Spanish impact after 1492. Keegan is a long‐established archaeologist at The University of Florida and Hofman is a Professor of Archaeology at Leiden University, The Netherlands. The volume examines the sequence of cultures from the Paleo‐Indian evidence beginning at 5000 BC, through the ceramic series of the Taíno culture to the Colonial impact of the sixteenth century with useful maps and illustrations.
Settlement of the Caribbean islands rests on two alternate theories. The traditional approach assumes a “stepping stone” migration from the Orinoco River delta in Venezuela, north through Trinidad and the Lesser Antilles (Leeward and Windward Islands) to the large islands of the Greater Antilles as Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba. A more recent theory posits migration directly from the Yucatan Peninsula and Belize eastward across the Yucatan Channel directly to Cuba and the islands of the Greater Antilles. In both cases archaeologists assume seaward voyages by dugout canoes based on Spanish observations in the sixteenth century. In both cases, site evidence shows early settlement in Trinidad at 6000 BC and Cuba and Puerto Rico at 5000 BC firmly in the Paleo‐Indian period. Curiously, no evidence for early settlement of Jamaica exists before 500 BC and no evidence for any prehistoric settlement has been found on the Cayman Islands before Spanish contact, thus discouraging theories of voyaging directly from mainland South America to the Greater Antilles. Conversely, no archaeological similarities have been found in Florida with Cuban or Puerto Rican sites, omitting theories of prehistoric voyaging from North America or the Bahamas, although evidence may still be found. Thus, the two basic migration theories remain in contention: northward from the Orinoco and Trinidad, and eastward from the Yucatan and Belize. Keegan and Hofman present both arguments so that the reader is left to parse the evidence for themselves.
The earliest evidence of settlement on the Caribbean islands is found in western Cuba where Archaic‐style, ground‐stone blades are dated ca. 5000 BC, similar to microlith stone technology in Belize, although such ground‐stone technology has been compared to finds in Venezuela and Colombia. Other Archaic sites have been located on Hispaniola and Puerto Rico dated about 4000 BC. In the Lesser Antilles, Archaic sites in Trinidad have likewise been dated at ca. 5000 BC from similar sites in the Orinoco delta of Venezuela. Later Archaic sites show innovation of flaked‐tool technology, again parallel to examples in Central and South America after 2000 BC. The basic research for all Caribbean sites is found on the work of Irving Rouse (1913–2006), who did his initial research at Yale University in the Greater Antilles before the Second World War, and whose typology of Caribbean cultures is used by Keegan and Hofman.
The question of early ceramic pottery in the Caribbean islands has been hotly debated since the pioneering work of Rouse in the 1930s. It had been assumed from prewar sites that the first ceramic cultures dated after 500 BC. However, recent finds of Archaic age pottery in eastern Cuba are presumed to date before 2000 BC, and other sites in the Dominican Republic have been firmly dated to 1450 BC. The matter of transferred ceramic technology from Central and Latin America to the Greater Antilles is still open to discussion, but most likely indicates a seaward migration of innovative cultures from the mainland. The accepted dating of fully realized pottery appears in the Greater Antilles after 800 BC associated with the Arawak culture from the Orinoco basin to the Lesser Antilles, defined as decorated Saladoid ceramics as examples on Montserrat and Grenada indicate. Later sites on Puerto Rico dated to 150 BC seem to confirm a “stepping stone” migration of Arawak cultures northward through the Lesser Antilles, reaching the Greater Antilles only later after 100 AD. It is this migration that has been traditionally termed the Taíno culture of the Caribbean Islands, although Keegan and Hofman would rather use the strict ceramic term of Saladoid.
The central chapters of the book are devoted to post‐Saladoid sites on Puerto Rico and Hispaniola dated primarily after 900 AD. The most remarkable are the rubber‐ball game courts (batey) found in the highlands resembling the classic ball courts of Meso‐America with rectangular, stone‐lined areas that served as the central plazas of presumed tribal chiefdoms. The best preserved are the ball courts at Tibes, near Ponce, and Caguana near Utuado, both in Puerto Rico and dated after 1000 AD. Other period ball courts are also found in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas, but in circular plan, showing transfer association between eastern Hispaniola and the Taíno culture of Puerto Rico. The question of cultural linkages to Mayan ball courts of Central America is never fully resolved, though the similarities of site plan and chronology certainly raises the matter of cross‐cultural migrations between Meso‐America and the Greater Antilles.
Following the Saladoid ceramics, a series of subsequent potteries is discussed in the later chapters. Among the most distinctive are the Meillacoid and Chicoid styles that spread through the islands beginning after 600 AD and reaching its climax by 1200 AD. This includes the newly settled island of Jamaica and the islands of the Bahamas, which appear to have been contacted from Hispaniola and possibly Cuba and Puerto Rico. The pottery styles were quite elaborate with zoomorphic figures and elaborate decorative patterns. A cartographic diagram (Fig. 5.11) shows the hypothesized oceanic voyages from Central and South America to the Greater Antilles and the assumed migrations northward from Trinidad through the Lesser Antilles, though questions of isolation of the Cayman Islands and Jamaica remain unresolved.
The final chapters of the book discuss the Spanish invasion from first contact in 1492 to the sixteenth century. Keegan and Hofman raise the crucial matter of direct‐witness accounts by the Spanish and the problems of translating from the native Arawak, and the colonial bias of subjugated native populations. The primary source turns to the writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas (ca. 1484–1566) who had settled on Hispaniola in 1502 with the early Spanish voyages. He transcribed the diario of Columbus in 1521 that has provided the original source of observation for the tribal cultures of the Greater Antilles. One significant description includes the primitive Guanahatabey culture of western Cuba with their crude stone tools. Isolated from the advanced Taíno tribes of eastern Oriente province, their sites match with Archaic period finds by modern archaeologists.
With an extensive bibliography and numerous maps, The Caribbean before Columbus provides geographers and historians with a current review of archaeological analysis on the settlement sequence of the Greater and Lesser Antilles and the prehistoric development of native cultures on the Caribbean islands. To their credit, the authors openly acknowledge difficult questions of debate, and expose cultural biases in their argument. While some of the narrative is circular in its logic and the writing focused upon specific pottery types, Keegan and Hofman offer an inexpensive source for the general reader in the recent archaeology of the Caribbean, especially in the paper and ebook editions. It is a volume worthy of a current addition to a geographical library of the Caribbean nations.