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INTRODUCTION The Lesser Antilles is an arc of more than 20 small islands forming stepping stones between northeastern South America and the Greater Antilles and Virgin Islands (Figure 6.1). The islands of the Lesser Antilles are relatively close together. Most are close enough for the cloud cover over neighboring islands to be visible. The distances between islands, approximately 50 km, made exploration of the island chain relatively easy. The ¤rst step from T obago on the South American continental shelf to Grenada, the southernmost of the Antillean island chain, is the longest distance, 105 km. Barbados is the most isolated island in the archipelago, lying 161 km east of the main axis of the island chain. Favorable ocean currents also facilitated exploration of the Antilles with paddled canoes. The South Equatorial Current that ®ows across the Atlantic is de®ected northward from the Guyanas and meets the water ®owing from the mouth of the Orinoco River. When the river is in full ®ood stage during the summer, it diverts part of the Equatorial Current northward to the Windward Islands. The relatively short distances between the individual islands, along with the favorable ocean current, promoted colonization of the Antilles by people from northeastern South America. After colonization began it seems to have proceeded rapidly (Rouse 1992). Islands provided different conditions for life and resources than did the mainland. Characteristics of human adaptation (Kirch 1980) to these differences are one of the issues explored in this chapter. We discuss the extent to which people brought resources with them to duplicate or at least partially simulate mainland life, and the new resources that were used. How was traditional knowledge gained in a mainland setting applied to island life? As T errell (1997) has pointed out, a small colonizing group may simply or will almost certainly be unable to reproduce in full the culture from which it derived; 6 Lesser Antilles therefore founder effects, transformations of traditional knowledge and practices among migrating societies are almost ensured from the beginning. We seek to clarify something of the nature and development of these cultural changes in the Caribbean Islands from a socioeconomic perspective. What changes in the economies of the island people were made as a result of their move to a new environment or overexploitation of the more limited island Figure 6.1. Lesser Antilles. (By Florence E. Sergile) 76 / Chapter 6 plant and animal populations? Or is it incorrect or inappropriate to assume that occupants of the islands followed negative economic ecology trends (i.e., an overall trajectory of overexploitation under the assumption of endless supply [Costanza et al. 1997])? Data from the plant and animal remains excavated from a series of Lesser Antillean islands are presented and discussed in the light of these issues. ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS The islands can be grouped in two different ways: they may be divided into the Windward Islands south of Dominica and the Leeward Islands north of Guadeloupe, or as the inner arc of volcanic islands and the discontinuous outer arc of limestone islands. The division of Windward and Leeward has a historical origin referring to the course set by Columbus during his second voyage and followed by many subsequent voyages. Sailors took advantage of the northeastern trade winds to sail from the Canary Islands across the Atlantic and through the Dominica Passage between the islands of Guadeloupe and Dominica and then northward along the leeward coast of the more northern Lesser Antilles (Sauer 1966:192). These two groups of islands took their names from the course set by early navigators. Many of the individual islands observed or visited during Columbus’s second voyage were also named. The division between volcanic and limestone islands relates to their geology and environmental history, which determines their physiography, elevations, and climate. The volcanic islands include Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, the western portion of Guadeloupe, Montserrat , Redonda, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Eustatius, and Saba. Many of the volcanoes that formed the islands are still active or have been in the recent past (an eruption on Montserrat occurred as recently as the past two years). The limestone islands include Barbados, Marie Galante, the eastern portion of Guadeloupe , La Désirade, Antigua (which also has a volcanic district), Barbuda, St. Barthelemy, St. Martin, Anguilla, and Sombrero. The islands of the Lesser Antilles are relatively small but are surrounded by the Caribbean Sea on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. The islands range in size from...

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