Choice Outstanding Academic Title “Changes the conversation about Cuban archaeology as a whole, presenting groundbreaking data and interpretations that will be useful for prehistoric and historical archaeologists working the region.”—Samuel M. Wilson, author of The Archaeology of the Caribbean
In this volume, Ivan Roksandic and an international team of researchers trace population movement throughout the Caribbean, specifically to Cuba. Through analysis of early agriculture, burial customs, dental modification, pottery production, dietary patterns, and more, they present a new theory of mainland migration to Cuba and the Greater Antilles. The researchers tackle the complex early history of the region, deciphering patterns of migration, the interactions between island inhabitants, and the fate of indigenous groups after European contact. The multidisciplinary approach includes contributions from archaeology, physical anthropology, environmental archaeology, paleobotany, linguistics, and ethnohistory.
Adding to ongoing debates concerning migration and colonization, this volume examines the importance of landscape and seascape in shaping human experience; the role that contact and interaction between different groups play in building identity; and the contribution of native groups to the biological and cultural identity of post contact and modern societies.
Contributors: Guiermo Acosta Ochoa | Kaitlynn Alarie | Sagrario Balladares Navarro | William M. Buhay | Yadira Chinique de Armas | Jorge Ezra Cruz Palma | Ulises M. González Herrera | Jason E. Laffoon | Leonardo Lechado Ríos | Reniel Rodríguez Ramos | Roberto Rodríguez Suárez | Ivan Roksandic | Mirjana Roksandic | David G. Smith | Roberto Valcárcel Rojas | Darlene A. Weston | Jason M. Yaremko
A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
This important and timely collection of essays greatly expands our knowledge of the human settlement of Cuba and the activities of its indigenous peoples. . . . A must read.’—Society for Historical Archaeology
Ivan Roksandic, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Linguistics Program at the University of Winnipeg, is the author of The Ouroboros Seizes Its Tale: Strategies of Mythopoeia in Narrative Fiction.