Lithic raw materials provenance in the Caribbean islands: flint, jasper, obsidian and so on.

Abstract

Lithic materials in archaeological records have always been the object of special attention by archaeologists, especially from prehistoric contexts. They draw such attention thanks to their often excellent preservation, and the information that the intrinsic characteristics of the rocks can yield about past behaviors including mobility of goods and people through chemical analysis and provenance studies. Although they do not represent the majority of the artifacts recovered from precolonial archaeological sites in the Lesser Antilles, their diversity necessitates varied knowledge, methods, and skills to be studied. Here, we present preliminary results from lithic specialists in characterization of volcanic rocks, diorite, turquoise used for bead production, and silicites.Several volcanic glass artifacts have been identified for the first time from Saladoid sites from Guadeloupe and Dominica. However, many questions remain about the geological origin and the petrogenesis of these artifacts given their very specific chemical composition. On the other hand, detailed microtextural and micropaleontological studies of the different siliceous raw materials provide first results identifying and mapping their origin and distribution among the Caribbean islands. As a first glance of what will become a long-term project, results presented in this paper demonstrate the capacity of petrological studies carried out with appropriate technical methods to help us improve our knowledge of the Ceramic Age populations’ movement and rock distribution networks.

Obsidian in the Caribbean Islands? Mysterious Ceramic Age glass artefacts in the Lesser Antilles.

“…These rocks display elemental compositions quite similar to the andesites we are studying and are notably located in the Caribbean region. Several lithic materials found in the Caribbean islands already pointed to Central America, such as part of the jadeite jade celts (Garcia-Casco et al 2013;Knaf et al 2021) but also, as a working hypothesis, the green lapidary material sudoite, which could come hypothetically from Costa Rica (Queffelec et al 2021;Queffelec et al 2023).…”

“…The low knapping quality of this obsidian underscores the Early Ceramic Age inhabitants' ability to work with relatively poor-quality raw materials. Most of the lithic tools produced in the Lesser Antilles are based on good quality flint from Antigua, jasper from several islands and radiolarite from La Désirade (van Gijn 1993; Knippenberg 2007; de Waal and Knippenberg 2020; Queffelec et al 2023). Interestingly, they decided to produce some flaking products with a poor quality material, while they could have used this shiny and unique material to produce other kind of artefacts such as the diverse beads or pendants made using other hard and difficult to work stones such as rock crystal, amethyst or nephrite (Queffelec, 2022, Raymond et al 2021, including some rare black ones (Brock et al, 2020;Queffelec et al, 2020).…”

“…The production of flaked stone tools, of particular interest for this work, is mainly driven by production of small unretouched flakes by bipolar percussion (Walker 1979;Bérard 2011) to be used for different activities including the production of teeth for manioc graters (Walker 1979). The principal raw materials for flaked industry are flint and jaspers, respectively coming mainly from Antigua and from local sources near the archaeological sites (Knippenberg 2007;Queffelec et al 2023). The provenance of the lithic raw materials used to produce tools, ornaments such as beads and pendants, or other symbolic artefacts like trigonoliths, have been one of the main proxies employed by archaeologists to study the regional mobility and networks in the Caribbean islands (e.g.…”