Long-distance exchange in the precolonial Circum-Caribbean: A multi-isotope study of animal tooth pendants from Puerto Rico

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Examination of Fossilized, Semi-fossilized, and Modern Resins from the Caribbean Basin and Surrounding Regions

“…The observation is consonant with the documented existence of macro-regional webs of interaction in pre-Columbian times through which a myriad of plants, animals, materials, information, and technologies circulated in a multi-vectorial fashion between the islands and the surrounding continents in pre-Columbian times (e.g. García Casco et al 2013;Laffoon et al 2014;Rodríguez Ramos 2010;Rodríguez Ramos and Pagán Jiménez 2006 …”

A Multi-Isotope Investigation of Human and Dog Mobility and Diet in the Pre-Colonial Antilles

“…The Early Ceramic Age of the Caribbean is characterised by high rates of human mobility (Booden et al 2008;Laffoon 2012;, the long-distance exchange of materials and goods, and dynamic networks of social interaction operating at multiples scales from intra-island, inter-island, interarchipelagic, and island-mainland (e.g. Fitzpatrick 2015;Hofman and Hoogland 2011;Hofman et al 2007Hofman et al , 20102011Keegan and Hofman 2017;Laffoon et al 2014;. The widespread presence of canid faunal remains in Ceramic Age archaeological assemblages (Wing 2001(Wing , 2012 indicates that dogs were eventually dispersed to most, if not all, of the insular Caribbean over the subsequent centuries.…”

“…More recently, a broader range of biomolecular methods and approaches have been applied to the Caribbean faunal record to investigate various topics pertaining to patterns of animal paleomobility. These latter include genetic (Kimura et al 2016) and isotopic studies of the anthropogenic introduction of wild or commensal species ; see also Giovas, 2017) and domesticated species (Laffoon et al 2015), and the transport/exchange of animal skeletal resources and artefacts (Laffoon et al 2014, Laffoon, Sonnemann et al 2016. However, to our knowledge, no studies to date have explicitly explored correspondences and contrasts between humans and animals in this region by combining strontium and carbon isotopes analyses.…”

“…For example, recent research (Mickleburgh and Laffoon 2017) has demonstrated that 'Archaic' individuals from Aruba, where multiple lines of archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence have previously suggested distinct hunter-gatherer subsistence practices and highly marine-reliant diets, also possessed extremely enriched enamel δ 13 C values (−5.3 to −3.9‰). In recent years, strontium isotope ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) approaches have also been widely applied to studies of human and animal paleomobility, and artefact provenance studies in the Caribbean (Booden et al 2008;Giovas et al 2016;Hofman et al 2012;Hoogland, Hofman, and Panhuysen 2010;Laffoon 2012Laffoon , 2013Laffoon , 2016Laffoon et al , 2014Laffoon et al , 2015Laffoon et al , 2017Laffoon, Sonnemann et al 2016;Valcárcel Rojas et al 2011). The Caribbean region is particularly well suited to the application of the strontium isotope method owing to the geological diversity (Donovan and Jackson 1994) and hence high degree of variability and spatial pattering of bedrock and bioavailable 87 Sr/ 86 Sr. For this region, both large-scale empirical datasets and spatially explicit predictive models of regional isotope landscapes (isoscapes), of bioavailable 87 Sr/ 86 Sr have been developed (Bataille, Laffoon, and Bowen 2012;.…”

“…The Caribbean region is particularly well suited to the application of the strontium isotope method owing to the geological diversity (Donovan and Jackson 1994) and hence high degree of variability and spatial pattering of bedrock and bioavailable 87 Sr/ 86 Sr. For this region, both large-scale empirical datasets and spatially explicit predictive models of regional isotope landscapes (isoscapes), of bioavailable 87 Sr/ 86 Sr have been developed (Bataille, Laffoon, and Bowen 2012;. Previous strontium isotope analyses of human and mammalian teeth from archaeological assemblages in the Caribbean have revealed valuable insights into paleomobility patterns including high rates of immigration, chronological changes in the migration rates, linkages between nonlocal origins and exotic grave goods and burial practices, and correlations between nonlocal origins (based on Sr data) and nonlocal dietary preferences (based on δ 13 C and δ 15 N data) for some individuals (Laffoon 2012;Laffoon et al , 2014Mickleburgh and Laffoon 2017). Furthermore, applications of isotope analyses in archaeological research are increasingly utilising multiple isotope proxies which increase the interpretive power of these analytical tools and provide for more nuanced reconstructions of past human behaviours.…”