While the uniformity of settlement dynamics at Martinique's Early Ceramic sites is beyond dispute, it must be acknowledged that today's North Atlantic coastlines of the island, characterized by subvertical cliffs and pebble beaches, are poorly suited for canoe landing and other coastal activities. Yet, from both cultural and economic perspectives, these inherently maritime populations remain intrinsically connected to the coast and the sea. Thus, on an island offering many other types of environments, the choice of these early agro-ceramicist groups raises questions. This article aims to challenge this perception, based on the current morphology of the coastline, by reconstructing the evolution of the coastline over the last two millennia, particularly in regard to reassessing the impact of Holocene marine transgression. This is also an opportunity to examine the archaeological potential of the intertidal zone of Martinique.

Why do people go to sea? The relationship people have with land and sea, maritime space, boats and ships are entwined and complex, shaped and molded by the marine environment, identity and heritage. This paper explores the complexity of people’s relationship with the sea to question how we can understand and model seafaring in the past, and how this can be used to better understand maritime heritage today. To be meaningful, computational analysis of seafaring must be tied into relevant known seafaring and navigation practice. Without this firm basis our statistical and hypothetical models lose the ability to measure past actions. However, there are many ways to ‘go to sea’ and seafaring practices do not start and end on the water itself. This paper reflects upon the process of seafaring, as it relates to our understanding of navigational knowledge, mobility in practice, seafaring as social action and the influences behind people’s desire to set sail. There is much we can learn from applied practices of seafaring, conducted both by practitioners and through efforts of experimental or experiential archaeology; understanding the complexity and nuance of the social aspects of seafaring guides the research questions that shape our models and shapes how we use and understand the outcomes derived from quantitative computational approaches.

Historical maps and archaeological surveys are combined to study colonial slavery, Cartography informs on slave quarter architecture and spatial segregation, Aerial imagery demonstrates the legacy of these quarters in the present-day landscape, Slave quarters’ detailed location on the map facilitates its archaeological survey.

The Lesser Antilles are a volcanic subduction arc that includes numerous volcanoes that erupt explosively. The Kalinago vocabulary of Dominica that has come down to us shows that, at the time of contact, these Amerindians had a global and sophisticated view of natural hazards, but it does not contain any term concerning volcanoes and their eruptive manifestations. However, in the volcanic complex of Morne Plat Pays in Dominica, in the cave of a soufriere, the Kalinago saw a kind of snake or dragon with a shiny red stone on its forehead, called “Alloüebéra”, which is translated to French as “Escarboucle” (ruby) and mentioned in at least six ethnohistorical accounts by 17th century French chroniclers. The descriptions of this belief could suggest regional eruptive phenomena, expressed in a Kalinago symbolic and mythological register; the last eruption of this volcanic complex is dated by geologists to around 1500±90. Could the legend of Alloüebéra then correspond to the definition of a volcanic eruption hidden behind a mythical formulation?

The site of Anse Trabaud on Martinique in the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles has yielded valuable information about human occupation from deep beneath its surface. The site is located in the southeastern part of the island, an area vulnerable to extreme wave events. The archaeological deposits are dated to 1290-780 cal BP (2 sigma). The earliest horizon is buried under thick layers of mangrove sediments. The deeply buried deposits have allowed excellent preservation of inorganic and organic remains providing an unexpected opportunity to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental conditions of past human settlement, and to study human-environment interactions and social adaptation to climate challenges in this part of the Caribbean archipelago. The cultural remains provide invaluable information into the exploitation of the surroundings of the site as well as into the subsistence patterns, material culture repertoires, procurement strategies and use and exchange of raw materials and tools. Additionally, the excellent preservation of organic materials offers new insights into food plants grown and harvested on-site, and then processed and consumed. The environmental challenges incited the Anse Trabaud community to adapt their settlement organisation and procurement strategies over time and underscore the importance of their participation in a regional and social network of mobility and exchange.

Very diverse lapidary artwork, both in style and raw materials, is one of the recognized specialty of Amerindian crafting during the Saladoid period in the Antilles area, and is supposed to be less numerous and diverse in the following periods. These gemstones are very often referred to as exotic since they are not coming from the island where they have been discovered by archaeological excavations. Our recent work updates the previous data by studying newly excavated sites as well as refining outdated mineral characterizations. Exhaustive results for the French islands, combined to a literature-based database, allowed for the creation of an improved and renewed vision of the distribution of these numerous artifacts. Such an important database finally allow us to study the patterns in the lapidary production of the Ceramic Age in the Caribbean, both in terms of chronology and typology. This study lays the foundation for further work in the region, and present online tools developed with the aim of creating new collaborations on this subject.

Evidence for chronological change in intra-site subsistence strategies is very rare in the Amerindian record of the Lesser Antilles. The study of the vertebrate assemblage from the archeological site of Roseau in the Guadeloupe Islands underlines the complexity and variability of Ceramic Age Amerindian subsistence behavior. This study establishes a more precise chronology of the previously identified strata of the site, and demonstrates that the Contact period was only represented by rare archeological artifacts dispersed in the stratigraphy. The results from this assemblage indicate that the earlier occupations of the site exhibit a more intensive exploitation of aquatic vertebrate resources compared to later occupations, which have a larger focus on terrestrial fauna, especially rodents and iguanas. This unusual pattern highlights how subsistence behaviors in the Lesser Antilles during the Late and Final Ceramic periods were highly variable. This new evidence of strong inter-site variability shows that the behaviors of Amerindians are not only dependent of large-scale environmental conditions but also influenced by more complex socio-cultural and local environmental parameters.

The early human occupation of the Antilles was based on the manufacture and use of expanded and extended dugout canoes named kanawa. The same boat type is also associated with the Carib linguistic family groups precolonial expansion along the coasts from Brazil to Venezuela. This paper describes this type of boat and its construction process in a comparative approach to archaeological and ethnohistorical data related to the Antillean archipelago and an ethnoarchaeological study of the contemporary construction process of the kanawa by the Kali'na Amerindians of Guiana (French Guiana/Suriname). Lastly, an experimental maritime archaeology programme carried out in the Antilles over several years allows us to discuss the nature of navigation permitted by this type of boat.

Early Ceramic sites in the Antilles are characterized by a significant presence of stone ornaments, while the later cultural periods are considered less rich in these kinds of artifacts. However, few comprehensive studies have been published on these remarkable pieces of craftsmanship, thus preventing a regional comparison on both geographical and temporal planes. This study offers a complete and detailed description of 124 stone beads and pendants, from three archaeological sites excavated in Guadeloupe and Martinique, two from the Early Ceramic period (Vive, Morel), and one from the Late Ceramic period (Anse a la Gourde). The comprehensive mineralogical determination through Raman spectroscopy leads to the documentation of twenty-five different raw materials used as gemstones by the Amerindians. This includes quartz, amethyst, calcite, carnelian, turquoise, nephrite, serpentine and many other minerals that can be used to reconstruct past networks and interactions. This dataset, to which previously published data from the Gare Maritime site is added, is then used for inter-site and inter-period comparison. We propose qualitative and quantitative interpretations on the diversity and richness of the raw materials and typology of these assemblages. The Early Ceramic samples show higher richness and diversity than the Late Ceramic collection, both on stylistic and raw materials aspects, which can be interpreted as a loss of connection with the continent, both in the trade of materials and/or in the will to continue the technological investment of their forefathers

The Cayo archaeological deposits documenting the contact period between European and Amerindian populations before the colonization of the Lesser Antilles are rare. Among the few sites dated to this period, the site of Roseau, excavated by Gerard Richard in the early 2000s, remains poorly investigated, especially from a stratigraphic and zooarchaeological point of view. In this study, we performed 20 new radiocarbon datings on the collagen content of rodent dentin along with new studies of the ceramic and faunal assemblages of the site. The results indicate that the archaeological assemblage is mainly associated to the Late Troumassoid, with some admixture of Early Troumassoid and Cayo elements represented in various proportions in the whole stratigraphy. Despite these elements, a chronological trend appears preserved in the stratigraphy allowing for a research of behavioral change in subsistence pattern through time. Vertebrate faunal data indicate that the two Troumassoid layers we recognized document different subsistence strategies. Indeed, the earliest inhabitants of the site were more focused on the exploitation of aquatic resources than the latest ones who more significantly exploited terrestrial fauna, especially rodents and iguanas. Carbon and oxygen stable isotope analyses performed on fossil tooth enamel of rodents (Antillomys rayi) suggest that Amerindians hunted them in both dry and wet environments. Paleontological approaches also led to the discovery of several now-extinct taxa that were part of the Amerindian diet. Our investigations point to a strong chronological variability of subsistence behaviors and improve our understanding of the accumulation history of the site.

In the Caribbean archipelago, the rare pre-Columbian underwater remains identified to date are generally located at shallow depths on coastal margins such as the Los Buchillones site in Cuba, the Ilet Colas or the Ilet Chasse site in Guadeloupe. The new discoveries in the Grand Cul-de-Sac Marin are of a completely different nature. Following reports in 2012, surveys were organized: a sample of 160 lithic pieces scattered on the seabed between 2.50 m and 4 m deep was taken more than 1 km offshore. It is macrolithic tools in andesite. The most spectacular are axes blades and abrasive tools such as grinding stones, grinders, mortars and circular polishers. There are also elongated pebbles bearing percussion marks attesting to their use as hammers. The status of this vast deposit is still undetermined. It could result from the repetition over the centuries of marine accidents leading to cargo losses. Another hypothesis supposes that these artefacts come from camps or pre-Columbian villages installed on a paleo-littoral and whose vestiges were submerged by the sea following the post-glacial rise of the sea level, or because of great storms causing the erosion of the substrate. The hypothesis of submergence of pre-ceramic sites by rising sea level is reinforced by the discovery of a layer of peat around 5 m deep dated around 4000-5000 BC and containing remains of freshwater trees reflecting a terrestrial environment.